Kayla Elliott joined Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) in May 2020, just as COVID-19 was upending work and workplaces everywhere, but it hardly made an impact on her.
“We’ve been given all the tools we needed to connect virtually with our producers as well as fellow employees,” says Elliott, a client service representative in AFSC’s Lethbridge office. “We go from home to the office without any disruption. Even working virtually has been amazing.”
AFSC provides loans and insurance to producers across the province through a network of 38 branch offices and its corporate head office in Lacombe, a city in central Alberta about 125 kilometres south of Edmonton. Employees in the branches, many of them producers, deal directly with farmers while the corporate office has staff in a range of departments, including marketing, finance and digital services.
The corporation hires summer students each year, some of whom, like Elliott, later return as permanent employees. It also recruits at colleges and universities throughout the province. It goes to great lengths to make it easy for the newcomers to get started.
“We have an onboarding module that really helps new employees familiarize themselves with the organization and their role,” says chief executive officer Darryl Kay. “They can do that before their first day on the job.”
The organization also assigns a people and culture advisor to each new employee, usually from the area of the business in which they are working. “It’s about making sure they have a positive experience when they join,” says Kay.
Once employees are more established, they have multiple learning and development opportunities at their disposal. With the advent of COVID-19, corporate-wide, in-person training events became impossible, so AFSC invested heavily in online materials, including webinars, audiobooks and e-learning modules, among other things.
“Employees can access thousands of different courses,” says Kay. “They can find their own path in terms of how they learn and develop.”
Elliott, for one, has taken full advantage of the wealth of material available to employees. “If you want to learn, you’ll never stop,” she says. “They just keep feeding you and feeding you.”
She has also been pleasantly pleased with the opportunities she received in the relatively short time since taking a permanent position. As a junior employee, I’ve had so many doors that have opened,” she says. “I’ve been part of so many teams and projects.”
AFSC has adapted swiftly to circumstances on the ground as the pandemic has surged and evolved. Some branch offices have had to close temporarily when case counts in a local area got too high. Team members in the branches transitioned, using in-person and online tools to meet client needs.
Some of the changes are bound to be permanent. “We look forward to bringing people back, especially in our corporate office,” says Kay. “But we’ll adapt and have fewer people in the office. We are learning that the traditional model where everyone is in the office from nine-to-five isn’t going to be the model of the future.”
Health and safety, including mental health, continue to be AFSC priorities. “We’ve seen the strain this has put on our people and clients, and have really invested in mental health training,” says Kay. “Our strategy called ‘It’s okay to not be okay’ highlights the transparency necessary to participate in conversations and take action to keep ourselves well. I’m proud to be part of an organization that takes the mental health and wellness of our team members seriously.”
