October 01, 2018 Attention: Jaren Kerr Please find enclosed a detailed package in response to the questions posed to WE Charity and ME to WE on September 26
th
and 28
th
. We have provided thorough documentation and contextual information of WE Charity and ME to WE operations, policies, guidelines and data to ensure there is no mischaracterization or false assertations of our work and employment practices. The responses to your exact questions can be found in the attached document which has been divided into four sections: i) About WE ii) Employee Experience iii) Partnerships and WE Charity (which includes corporate and media partnerships) iv) WE Charity and ME to WE Relationship. Please note, each section includes links to additional content and sources that are critical to understanding both WE Charity and ME to WE. We have also provided a detailed larger document providing additional points of consideration and clarification that we feel is critical to proactively address potential false claims and to provide you with the formal clarity, on all such matters. Moreover, please allow us to provide a summary of salient points for your review, all of which are further elaborated within this larger document which we have provided to you.
Additional Points of Consideration and Clarification
Canadaland advocates for high-quality journalism. Key pillars of such journalism include approaching a topic without any preconceptions, and an openness to being persuaded by facts. We seek to ensure that specific issues of possible concern, based on the nature of your broad questions, are also clear. We formally seek to ensure that there is no place where either a lack of context or incorrect assertions could possibly lead to any form of innuendo or broad statements. As a result, we trust that statements by yourself or interviewed individuals will not be provided as broad characterization without proper context, nor will there be an opportunity to report any assertions which are simply factually false, especially on matters about which we have provided you evidence and/or data to the contrary. In short, we seek to ensure you have formal clarity, on all such matters.
Employee Experience
Our concern, based on your broad questions, lies in ensuring that you have the proper facts and accurate information regarding the employee experience at WE Charity and ME to WE.
We have over 1,000 staff and 1,200 alumni over the 23 years the we have been operating. Many former staff (particularly new graduates), when leaving their role with WE Charity or ME to WE, proceeded to continue to advance their career in notable ways or have returned to further their education. We see in former articles on the Canadaland site that involve the workplace or employee experience, you have in the past interviewed a dozen or so employees, and stated conclusions from these conversations. It is important to consider that if you were to speak to 36 former and current staff members (a theoretical number for sake of illustration) that would only represent a statistically insignificant portion (about 1.7% of employees). We believe it would be irresponsible to infer or make sweeping statements based on this small former/current employee sample. We also believe that facts matter, and data speaks for itself. We have engaged third-parties to undertake measures and evaluate our employee experience, policies, and culture. In candor, the purposes of these measurement practices is because of our commitment to continual self-important. In addition, we feel that it is important to share the information with you because these groups operate with proper data capture processes, such as anonymous aggregate data, and mass statistically-significant data capture size. WE Charity and ME to WE have conducted employee surveys with its 1,000 staff receiving a 90% response rate. The recent survey (conducted using independent third-party employee engagement survey provider, TemboStatus) measured engagement, employment culture and experience. We have provided you information and analysis in this set of documents with over 900 anonymous respondents. In short, the survey found:
•
78% of WE employees
say “they love their job”
•
98% of WE employees believe they are making a positive change in the world because of their work
•
91% of WE employees feel a personal connection to the work we do
•
80% of WE employees see a future for themselves with WE
•
87% of our team say they are personally engaged by the work they do Moreover, in an independently-conducted third party study, WE employees overwhelmingly agreed that working at WE had improved their:
•
Communication skills (reported by 90% of WE team members surveyed)
•
Ability to work effectively with a team (86%)
•
Ability to multi-task (85%)
•
Relationship building and networking skills (84%) In our commitment to continuous improvement, we have seen significant improvements in key engagement areas, since 2015 relative to 2019, we have seen employees report the following:
•
2.85x improvement in the area of work-life balance
•
5.33x improvement in providing adequate compensation
•
1.22x improvement in overall employee recognition
•
1.73x improvement in the effectiveness of our internal employee communications efforts
Furthermore, WE Charity and ME to WE’s culture has been recognized as industry
leaders, and has received the following honours after an independent rigorous vetting process by experts in this area of human resources and workplace culture:
•
Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture Award
•
Canada’s Top Employer For Young People
•
Notable.ca Canada’s Top 5 Charities Run by Young Professionals
We have an extensive and active alumni network and current employee base. We would be happy to provide the opportunity for you to speak with dozens to hundreds in our network to ensure you have the fullest information on all of these topics.
Employee Retention
We have also seen in past articles on Canadaland that some workplaces that have
been described as a “revolving door”. In the case of WE Charity and ME to WE, allow
us to proactively address that this would
not
be an accurate characterization in the least, and provide you the facts and unequivocal data on this statement. By way of context, both WE Charity and ME to WE have two primary tracks of employees with separate trajectories that influence retention and tenure.
•
“New Grads”
o
We recognize that transition into the workforce is often a very challenging time for new graduates, and we are proud to offer roles for many young people attracted to social enterprise and non-profit work.
o
Leveraging well-
established and widely praised models like “Teach for America”, “City Year”, and “Peace Corps”, the average tenure of our “new grads” is 25 months, and these employees gain valuable skills and
coaching which they then go on to return to their education or advance to their next step in their career.
•
“Career
-
track”
o
We seek to retain the best of our younger staff and provide them with learning and development opportunities and career opportunities.
o
Among those on “career track” it is not uncommon to stay at WE 3, 5, or
10 years. A significant number of our senior staff have been with the organization for 10+ years.
o
Retention is particularly high within the upper to senior management band at both WE Charity and ME to WE
Any review of the facts about job transitions would not be complete without noting that statistically a) millennials are more likely to transition careers within the first five years of graduation; b) shorter work terms are more frequent in the industry of Government/Education/Non-Profits industries. Recent graduates in this industry have an average of 3 jobs within the first 5-years. (https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/04/12/will-