bh IN BRIEF

1. L.V. Lomas has been profitable every year since it began operations fifty years ago. To what do you attribute this remarkable success?

Well, quite simply, we believe it’s our employees – great people, who like working here, who share the cultural values which have been instilled in our company by our founder, Lloyd Lomas. They continue to this day through the Lomas family. We invest in our people. Our employee benefits advisor, who has been a big help to us, tells us that we are in the 90th percentile of Canadian companies in the provision of benefits. We feel that this investment comes back to us in productivity, low turnover (less than 2%) and our ability to attract and keep the best people. Even during the difficult economic times of 2008-2009, we remained profitable and had our best year ever in 2010.

2. As part of your operating philosophy you state that "the bond is more than molecular". What do you mean by this?

Although we are in the chemical business and have many science-oriented people, who all have university degrees, what we look for in hiring is much more than technical capability. We want to achieve a relationship ‘bond’. But we must also have excellence. We are very careful who we hire and once a hire is made we have an on-boarding orientation process which includes an extensive training program and peer mentoring. Just last year we launched an employee wellness program through Tri-Fit which our employees have said has made a "huge difference". We also provide subsidies for fitness and yoga programs in addition to giving employees "all you can eat fruit". Every two years we provide retirement planning sessions to employees and spouses who are over 45 years of age. We also provide a scholarship program and instruction in résumé writing for children of employees.

3. Accountants are sometimes said to stand in the way of healthy workplace investments. As a CA and CFO of a company that invests heavily in its people, what do you believe that some financial people are missing?

I believe that many financial people apply a cost accounting mentality to employee benefits – that is, how to get the most benefits at the least cost. Lomas encourages employees to use every benefit. If a supplier wants to deny coverage, in most cases we will cover. We believe this is good business. We know our costs and we know our culture. And during tough times, this has paid off. We have seen our employees pull together as a team to help L.V. Lomas continue to achieve business success.

4. You mentioned that your geography creates some challenges for you. What do you mean by this?

Well, with sites in Vancouver and Montreal, in addition to Brampton in the Toronto area, it is more difficult to ensure that programs and services available at head office are also available to the regions. Our culture is one of fairness and equity and so it requires extra effort to communicate regularly and for our senior managers to visit our regional locations on a regular basis – not easy to do with the geography involved. However, we try hard and based on the surveying we do with employees, it appears these efforts are appreciated.

5. L.V. Lomas has been ranked highly as one of Canada’s Best Workplaces for the past three years, but it sounds like you have been a great workplace for many years. What motivated you to enter the Great Place to Work Institute (Canada) process?

Actually it was with some reluctance that we entered the process, but we felt that being recognized more formally as a great workplace would help us to recruit the kind of people we want and need. We believe it has helped us do this and are very proud to have achieved the ‘hat trick’ of three consecutive years on the GPTW top employer list. We also feel that this recognition helps strengthens our relationship with key suppliers and business partners.