Articles
December 15, 2022Entering a new era of employee experience with Mélie Matifat
As we approach the end of the year, this four-part series recaps Intelcom’s successes and challenges of 2022 from different perspectives. It’s a brief moment to catch our breath, so we can move forward into 2023 with the past year’s learnings in our toolbox.
After talking business development last week with Jean-Daniel Gervais, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, we’re continuing today with Mélie Matifat, Vice-President, People & Culture. We take a look back at the unusual job market in 2022 and how Intelcom is taking measures to maintain its positioning in that context.
Mélie Matifat, VP People & Culture
Share this article
What were your priorities for 2022?
We had big plans for 2022 and our goal was for the People & Culture department to embrace a major technological transition. We’re in an industry where things move really quickly and where the labour shortage has repercussions every single day, so we wanted to bring new momentum to our practices.
At the same time, building team spirit and a sense of community among employees was one of our top priorities. Loyalty and talent attraction have a natural correlation: happy and engaged employees are catalysts for retaining and attracting new talent.
What achievements are you especially proud of?
In collaboration with the information technology team, we rolled out no fewer than five technology systems within People & Culture this year, covering everything from recruitment and time management to training.
These systems democratize information and automate internal processes. Obviously, we have to adapt our practices and use the data generated by these automated processes to our advantage. In a department where employees are central to our actions, you have to know how to humanize those processes. It’s challenging, but very rewarding as well!
We also updated the Intelcom values manifesto. Customer focus, diligence, innovation and teamwork guide the actions and decisions we make.
How do you think Intelcom has evolved during the year?
I have a front-row seat, and what I see is that we’re all more curious, more interested in the “why” and not just the “how”, with a focus on the sustainability and development of the company. There’s an appetite to use data to make better decisions, that now extends beyond our operations department. If you ask me, that’s a sign that we have evolved, that we’re in the process of maturing.
What were 2022’s biggest challenges?
The job market grew immeasurably more competitive this year. Some companies were better prepared than us to tackle these new market realities, but we adjusted quickly, and will continue to do so in the coming year.
In conditions like these, with talent attraction and retention varying with the state of the job market, your employer brand becomes that much more important. In a “candidates” market, you have to be attractive and find ways to stand out, both internally and externally. We’ve put a lot of work into that and the results are starting to show.
What were the year’s key takeaways and what are we bringing into 2023?
It’s teams, not just star players, that win championships. Promoting and encouraging collaboration and teamwork between departments is essential to lay a solid foundation for a company with great aspirations. We did a good job of this in 2022, and we’re going to do even better in 2023!