News Release

City First Municipality to Win Most Admired Corporate Cultures Award

Earlier today, Waterstone Human Capital announced the winners of the2014 Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures. The City of Edmonton is the first municipality to receive the designation. The award recognizes the best corporate cultures of Canadian organizations ‒ those that contribute to the engagement of their employees and the performance of their organization.

“Transforming our corporate culture has been a significant focus area for the last four years,” said Simon Farbrother, City Manager. “Our efforts to change the culture have been driven by the City’s ‘The Way Ahead’ strategic plan,” he continued. “One of the plan’s conditions of success is organizational capacity to work more efficiently and collaboratively in the ways we serve citizens. This recognition validates our efforts.

“The success of our efforts to date is solidly grounded in the leadership of our employees and I would like to thank them. We are becoming a principle-based organization that serves citizens in an innovative and productive way.”

Ten organizations in each of four categories received the designation from Waterstone Human Capital. These winners were chosen by a panel of experts based on six measurement criteria, including: vision and leadership; recruitment and hiring for fit; cultural alignment and measurement; retention, rewards and recognition; organizational performance; and corporate social responsibility.

“The City of Edmonton has put a lot of time into thinking strategically about building a great city,” says Jennifer Mondoux, Managing Director, Waterstone Human Capital. “Terrific leadership from City Manager Simon Farbrother and great examples of cultural alignment and accountability, particularly through the implementation of a Citizen Dashboard. Some very innovative things are being done here and they are well deserving of this award and recognition.”

The Canada’s 10 Most Admired Cultures awards will be presented by Waterstone Human Capital in Toronto on February 2, 2015.