Last year, Corby Spirit and Wine Ltd., a Canadian company that has nearly 2,000 employees, encountered challenges that prompted them to make significant financial changes*. While determining what changes to make, the company considered switching to a defined contribution plan for their employees.
Since the company’s employees did not want to give up their defined benefit pension plan, the wine distributor made changes to its early retirement rules and increased its employee contribution levels. Not only were the company’s employees willing to increase how much they contributed to their plan, but they also started to recognize how valuable their pension plan was.
The Company’s Two Initiatives
In addition to changes to its pension plan structure, Corby Spirit and Wine Ltd. still had to lay off some of their employees to cut costs. However, in order to ensure that employee engagement did not suffer, they implemented two programs.
The first is known as Corby’s Den, an annual conference where employees and executives come together and compete in a challenge focused on coming up with ideas for sustaining the company’s growth. The second is known as I Thank. This employee recognition program awards employees for their achievements and also allows certain people to donate $1,000 to a charity of their choice and receive an extra week of vacation time.
Empowering Your Employees is Key
Although all of these measures helped Corby Spirit and Wine Ltd. cut back on their costs, they still kept their employees engaged by empowering them. Contact us at BlueRock Wealth Management Inc. today to find out more about how you can streamline your operational costs without harming employee engagement.
*Source: Hodder, Alyssa. “How to Make Cutbacks and Still Increase Employee Engagement.” Benefits Canada.