Adaptability drives success at Ottawa Community Housing

Anyone who wants to work at Ottawa Community Housing Corporation (OCH), the capital’s largest provider of community housing, may relate to the outlook of Michelle Parisien. She talks about finding her way to the company because “I wanted to do something for the city, something with a strong social purpose.”

Now the director of tenant experience operations at OCH, Parisien describes how she moved from a very public-facing role at the beginning of her career to a leadership role, thanks to opportunities provided by what she calls the organization’s “culture of continuous improvement.”

“Part of our process is recognizing growth opportunities and tailoring every employee’s experience to those opportunities,” she says. “When I joined OCH, the company provided opportunities to me to develop process improvement and leadership skills, which shaped my professional growth path.”

The company helps fund career development for employees with a certification program that pays $1,500 annually to anyone pursuing career-related degrees, diplomas or certification, and with training budgets that managers can use to fund their team’s development.

OCH also provides opportunities for mentorship and job shadowing at every stage of an employee’s career. Emily Wright, department coordinator of people, communications and strategy, describes how OCH's “Job Shadowing Program” helps employees understand the big picture of what’s being done across such a diverse organization.

“It’s a way for employees to really step into the day-to-day of some of our staff,” she says, “whether it’s a maintenance worker or someone who’s working on the community safety services team and see firsthand what their day is like.”

Like Parisien, Wright says she came to OCH because “I wanted to work somewhere with a strong social purpose.” She’s enthusiastic about its employee engagement program, which encourages employees to “meet community partners and work on need-based projects.”

“This has seen me building garden beds, painting common spaces, harvesting broccoli at the Ottawa Food Bank Farm,” says Wright. “It’s really a development opportunity, an outreach and collaboration opportunity, and you feel that you’re making a direct impact.”

That culture of continuous improvement provides opportunities, such as when Parisien’s group was provided training to help with people’s presentation skills. “That can be challenging or scary,” Parisien says. “So, we brought in an organization that tailored a course to help them be more successful when presenting to a large audience or just presenting concepts when talking to their teams.”

Listening to employees also inspired a change in how OCH handles its benefit plans. Increased concern over mental and physical wellness during the pandemic led to the introduction of flexible benefits with the creation of a Healthy Living Account, where employees can allocate a portion of their health care benefits on an annual basis to suit their individual health and wellness needs.

“This acknowledges that we have a lot of staff with a lot of different health and wellness needs so we really want to offer that flexibility,” says Wright. Sessions on retirement planning for employees are also offered organization-wide.

“I didn’t realize the value of what I was sitting on,” says Parisien. “Everybody has different needs when it comes to benefits, and our approach has been to incorporate greater flexibility year after year. Our approach has focused on offering flexibility to better meet those needs over time.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's National Capital Region's Top Employers winners, published March 4, 2025 in the Ottawa Citizen. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.