Our businesses exist to benefit society.

“Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast . . . a bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it’s harder to turn quickly.” – Tony Hsieh So what’s the big deal about…

We donate 100% of ticket sales and donation profits from our flagship annual event, Awesomeness Fest, to a handpicked group of charities and NGOs. So far, we’ve supported these beneficiaries: Give Love Org, The Pachamama Alliance, Shine on Sierra Leone and the X Prize Foundation. Awesomeness Fest is an experiential event that brings together people…

Vancity launched Each One, Teach One workshops to support community organizations working with newcomers, refugees, individuals facing barriers to financial services, and people living on low-incomes. Workshops are available for groups from 10 to 100, day or evening, lasting one hour or a full-day. Topics include taxation and tax filing, contracts, and developing a credit…

OneMama’s Economic Sustainability Model component trains clinic members to create their own indigenous crafts and agricultural crops for sale worldwide through the OneMama online Local & International Marketplace. Those funds then return back to the community to sustain the OneMama clinic. Our training includes entrepreneurial education to local crafts persons and agriculture workers on how…

We created an Employee Appreciation Committee that is tasked with making our big company feel as small as possible. They host a number of relationship-building events from picnics to impromptu bowling tournaments.

Employees are encouraged to provide feedback to their managers regarding their professional goals. With this information, managers are able to work with employees to determine a development plan that will facilitate such goals. This development plan is memorialized within an employee’s annual performance appraisal and the plan is reviewed on a regular basis by the…

A major contributor to our employees feeling empowered is our ESOP—Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Recology has a long history of employee ownership, dating back to the early employee cooperatives in 1921. As Mark Lomele, our Chief Financial Officer, likes to say, “We were an ESOP before there were ESOPs.” Today we are the largest employee…

Recology encourages each subsidiary company to engage in extensive cross-training of its office personnel such that employees are able to be versed in multiple job functions (example: Customer Service Representative cross-training as an Accounting Clerk). Through this cross-training, employees are exposed to various facets of the company and, through that, may encourage such employees to…

Rather than reserve our options fund for senior management, we also invite exceptional employees to participate. The reality is, there are highly valuable employees at all levels within the organization. Together they help the organization rise to success and should be rewarded for being the champions they are. Therefore, employees who do an exceptional job,…

We practice “flexi-time” – there are no set working hours, call times or even locations. On average we perhaps dedicate about 45 hours a week to working, but 5 out of those hours are encouraged to be used for individual growth (consuming a book, course or training to enhance one’s role; or even learning how…