According to Winnipeg Airports Authority president and chief executive officer Barry Rempel, the airport is the front door to the community.

Because visitors’ first and lasting impressions of the company — and the community— are based on a series of short interactions with airport employees, it is vital that everyone on staff serves as a full-time ambassador of the company’s values on local, national and international levels.
 
To meet this challenge, WAA empowers its 170 employees at James Armstrong Richardson International Airport and another 230 people working in the company’s subsidiary operations to become leaders in their everyday roles.
 
Rempel explains how WAA’s culture of leadership, which includes its employee-led community activities and its Silverwing program to develop future leaders in the fields of tourism and aviation, makes for a distinctive work environment.

Q: What is the people philosophy at WAA?
 
A: Our people philosophy really starts with our vision statement, which is: "To lead the transportation industry in innovation and growth." That reflects our personality, our place and our purpose. If you want to boil everything down to the essence of what we’re about, we are here to serve and we serve by leading. We tell our people that no matter what roles we have, we must live out the values of respect, integrity and service excellence — not only with our customers, but with each other. Employees often tell me that they are proud to say they work for WAA. That in itself says that we’re doing a good job of engaging employees and that each one understands our vision and is truly part of it.

Q: How do you reinforce those values?

A: Accountability is important to our entire team and our culture embodies our commitment to leadership.

We want leaders and we want innovators, and I believe every person here has what it takes to be both. Each of our employees is empowered to make the educated decisions that need to be made at the level that’s touching the customer or the stakeholder that they happen to be dealing with.

Q: What lessons have you learned from past hiring mistakes?

A: Early on, we didn’t fully grasp how critical it was to have people who clearly understood and lived our values. We learned very quickly that one person who is not living those values can cause damage to the entire company.

Today, we know that hiring the right person begins long before the interview. It needs to start with us being absolutely crystal clear on what the task entails — both the role it plays corporately and what responsibilities it requires from the individual. We must clearly convey what this company is all about, as well as our corporate values and expectations. Often, more than one manager is involved in hiring simply because we want to make sure our people are comfortable with the candidate and that they are a good fit for us. Afterwards, we support our new hire with a comprehensive orientation program to ensure they understand where we’re going and what we aspire to.

Q: Winnipeg Airports Authority took control of the airport from the federal government 11 years ago. What sort of unique challenges did that present?

A: At that time, most of the staff we inherited were Transport Canada employees. After many years of working within that model, they came with their own way of doing business. When I started here in 2002, I didn’t necessarily understand the intricacies of people who had 30 years of Transport Canada employment and that posed a challenge. You can’t just walk in and say, "This is how it’s going to be." It doesn’t work that way.

The first step was to get a sense of where our people were at, so we brought in an outside, impartial company to conduct interviews with everyone on staff. What I learned was that not everyone learns in the same way — some need to see things in writing, some need to hear it over a coffee, some people prefer to have things emailed. We learned that consistent messaging is critical as is the need to communicate, communicate, communicate.

We continuously ask for and use the ideas and input of our people, whether from two-way feedback meetings or company-wide surveys.

Q: With workers on two shifts, seven days a week, how are you able to communicate with staff?

A: Our management team holds regular staff meetings and coffee break sessions and then we have a quarterly meeting which accommodates a shift overlap so that everyone can attend. The whole staff is invited to enjoy something to eat and hear my presentation — virtually the same one I give to our board of directors — so that they have a chance to view our financials, hear our strategic vision and find out how we’re performing. We also have an employee-first communication policy to keep our people up to date on all information and often the most efficient way to disseminate that is through our intranet.

Q: A large percentage of your staff will soon be moving into a brand-new facility. How are you preparing your people today for the changes that lie ahead?

A: We have found that our employees seem to be divided in two distinct groups — those who want to stay with us as long as possible but aren’t sure they want to have to go through the training required to work in a new facility with entirely new operating methods and technologies; and those who are eager to go through the transition and be able to say they were the first ones to operate the new terminal. So, we’re trying to work our way through that right now.

When you’re introducing something as radically different as a new building, you must understand that some people will resist change. Communication has never been more critical. That’s why we have put a team into place called Activation. It’s their role to make sure that everyone — staff and tenants alike — are ready for the move. We have designed a learning program called Terminal 101 that explains how things will operate in the new building and are giving everyone the choice of studying it in a classroom setting or taking it independently as an online course.

Q: Who would you say had the greatest influence on your personal leadership style?

A: There are so many people — teachers, professors and people I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the years who left their own mark on me along the way.

My grandfather, a farmer from Plum Coulee, taught me to treat people with respect. Rhys Eaton, the former CEO of Canadian Airlines, was an incredible man who had a genuine way of connecting with people and had the uncanny ability to remember your name no matter who you were. But I would say I have learned more from Art Mauro, our current chair, than from anyone else. Art has taught me the importance of remaining calm and collected. He also showed me that it is always better to listen to what people are actually saying and help them reach their own conclusions rather than tell them what to do.

 — With reporting by Barbara Chabai

John McFerran, PhD, CMC, C. Psych., F. CHRP, is founder and president of People First HR Services Ltd. For more information, visit www.peoplefirsthr.com.