Strathcona County really listens to its employees

“I’ve loved all the places where I’ve worked, but there are some really special things about the culture here,” says Darrell Reid, chief commissioner of Strathcona County, the mixed urban/rural municipality of 103,000 just east of Edmonton. “Our organization is very welcoming and friendly. Strathcona County is a place where our corporate values of integrity, respect, safety, fairness and co-operation drive the work our staff is doing.”

Those values have made the municipality, which provides everything from road maintenance and waste management to emergency services, very attuned to the voices of its over 2,000 employees, Reid notes. That has resulted in the creation of – among other things – its People Plan.

“The People Plan Stewardship Committee is a group of employees representing all our diverse departments and from all different levels on the org chart,” he explains, “and they are doing a great job of bringing back ideas from front-line staff of what the organization could do to make ours an ideal workplace.”

One event that emerged from the People Plan was an internal career day last fall in which all of the county’s departments and its leadership team provided information on the careers and paths available across the organization. “Hundreds of our staff attended that event,” says Reid, “and it’s certainly something we would look at doing again in the future.”

For Reid, the People Plan is one of the reasons for the high levels of staff engagement at Strathcona County. “When I arrived here four and a half years ago, our scores were really high compared to most municipal organizations across this country and North America. But here, really high wasn’t good enough. We’ve actually increased our staff engagement by double-digit numbers over the past couple of years.” Since the People Plan launched, overall employee engagement has increased by 12 per cent.

Last June, the People Plan was recognized by the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators (CAMA), which gave Strathcona County its Municipal Inspiring Workplace Award in the over 100,000 population category (the county also won the CAMA’s Environmental Leadership and Sustainability Award for its reuse program, the HodgePodge Lodge).

Reid also cites the county’s “robust professional development,” which includes in-house programs that employees can take during their work schedules, as well as studies towards college and leadership certificates or university degrees.

Matthew Chaffee, Strathcona’s division chief of planning and training in the county’s integrated fire department (each firefighter is also trained as a paramedic), has benefited from such training during his more than 16 years with the municipality. He started out as a probationary firefighter, moving up to training lieutenant and to his current role in 2023.

“The county has all these incredible educational supports for staff to start working on professional development, and a lot of people like me have been able to take advantage of that so they’re ready to move into managerial roles, even in other departments, or executive roles,” he says.

Chaffee has studied for various certifications and has taken university management courses supported by the county. He is also continuing his education working towards a bachelor’s degree in English, with those courses being 75 per cent covered.

Strathcona County is also committed to the mental health of its employees and their families, offering 14 mental health supports for promotion and prevention, early intervention and ongoing supports. Its Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) is available to all county staff – including hourly employees – and their spouse and dependent children.

As well, it has two peer support teams made up of employees trained in crisis counselling who help their peers coping with difficult or stressful situations. “We really support our staff here,” Chaffee says.

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Alberta’s Top Employers winners, published January 28, 2025 in the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.