Recognized as one of National Capital Region's Top Employers (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Feb 5, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why Hydro Ottawa was selected as one of National Capital Region's Top Employers (2024):
- Hydro Ottawa helps employees prepare for the longer term through a dedicated pre-retirement planning program (with information on pensions, financial planning, post-retirement benefit coverage and transitional assistance) and contributions to a defined contribution pension plan -- the organization also oversees a special retiree and workforce strategy for 50-plus workers called Prime Time
- Hydro Ottawa's community investment program focuses on education; mental health, safety and wellness; diversity, equity and inclusion; and youth hunger -- the organization supports employee involvement with paid time-off to volunteer and provides company matches for charitable donations
- Hydro Ottawa adapted its mental health and wellness programming to reflect employee feedback, focusing on physical activity and mindfulness events such as yoga and guided meditation -- additionally, the organization offers free access to the onsite gym (also open to family members) and keeps employees safe through its musculoskeletal injury prevention program
Recognized as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Jan 22, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why Hydro Ottawa was selected as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2024):
- Hydro Ottawa offers aspiring individuals an entry point into the workforce through various apprenticeship programs, such as powerline maintenance, power cable maintenance, and station electricity, to name a few -- the organization also provides journeyperson apprentices with nation-wide certification and covers preparation and certification fees
- Hydro Ottawa partners with various educational institutions to support its apprenticeship programs, including a longstanding collaboration with Algonquin College to manage the two-year powerline technician program, combining in-class and hands-on learning to help students develop the essential skills needed to begin a career in this field -- Algonquin College provides the classroom instruction for participants, while Hydro Ottawa is responsible for designing, developing and delivering practical training that is rooted in course curriculum
- Hydro Ottawa is also an industry partner with Algonquin College's Applied Research program, and initiated a project to develop a Live Line Simulator -- multiple cohorts of students worked to develop a functioning prototype jacket, used to train powerline technician students and apprentices on how to work safely near high-voltage conductors
Recognized as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Apr 15, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why Hydro Ottawa was selected as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2024):
- Hydro Ottawa's new facilities are being designed to meet LEED Gold standards, with the head office featuring state-of-the-art building automation systems and water conservation systems that ensure a 55 per cent reduction in water use -- and they have partnered with the City of Ottawa to install solar panels on eight municipal buildings
- Hydro Ottawa has also partnered with the City of Ottawa to install EV charging stations at municipal facilities that are for public use, including eight additional Tesla Supercharging stations at a downtown shopping mall
- Hydro Ottawa has continued to expand and update its green power generation portfolio, becoming the largest municipally owned producer of green power in Ontario, generating electricity for approximately 353,000 residential and commercial customers through a mix of hydroelectric, solar and landfill gas power generation
Hydro Ottawa partners in greening Canada’s capital
Shawn Carr exudes excitement about the many ways Hydro Ottawa is helping the community go green. Carr is the manager, customer experience at the municipal utility.
“I feel there’s just so much opportunity for me to exercise passion for ‘greening’ our community, meeting our customers where they are on their energy journey and, of course, providing them with a great customer experience along the way,” says Carr. “I’m very passionate about climate action and finding solutions and new ways to bring value to our customers.”
Hydro Ottawa, headquartered in the city, distributes and generates electricity, and provides energy conservation services and programs for its residential and commercial customers. The utility has made a commitment to be net-zero in its operations by 2030. From its fleet to its facilities, among many other areas, Hydro Ottawa wants to ensure its operations are as green as possible.
“Decarbonization, energy efficiency and interest in technologies like distributed energy resources are becoming more important to our customers as they start to think about their own net-zero journeys,” Carr says. “We’re starting to see the entire energy sector begin to transition to net-zero as well.”
Jim Pegg, director, infrastructure, products and services, works for Envari, a subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa. That part of the business takes care of everything leading up to the customer’s meter. Pegg’s customers are municipalities, institutions and governments in eastern Ontario.
“We do lots of work in terms of electrical design for infrastructure, dealing with public and private EV chargers to promote people going into that EV space and getting electric vehicles and zero-emission cars,” says Pegg. “We’re trying to help make it easier for people to choose an electric vehicle or a zero-emission vehicle rather than a standard combustion engine vehicle.”
In addition, he says, “we work with solar panels, solar panel designs and electrical capacity upgrades.”
Part of Pegg’s job is also communication. “We help educate customers and keep them informed on different changes in the market, different funding and grants that are out there that they can take advantage of to green their operations,” Pegg says.
Hydro Ottawa’s culture is driven by its employees, he says. “People are very focused on being environmentally responsible and working on projects that are going to support our community, our environment and the entire global ecosystem,” he says. “We have a very large, diverse team of employees – engineers, project managers, accountants, marketing, designers – who really have a passion and believe in the importance of protecting the environment and trying to make the world a cleaner place for future generations.”
There are numerous ways Hydro Ottawa invests in its employees, notes Carr.
“If I look at my own team, as an example, we’ve paid for training and certifications related to energy efficiency and the types of things we’re supporting our customers with face-to-face,” Carr says. “There are all kinds of different incentives and opportunities for continuing education and training across the company to improve skill sets in the areas in which employees work.”
Working with large customers to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) is another task for Pegg’s team.
“We do pathway-to-zero studies for organizations,” says Pegg. “We help them understand what their current energy footprint is, where the current GHG emissions are and then we map out the different ways that they can reduce their GHG emissions, such as bringing in electric boilers for heating instead of gas boilers. We want to leave things better than we found them.”
The Career Directory
Hydro Ottawa has been selected for The Career Directory, our guide to entry-level recruitment for recent college and university graduates.
