Why leading with compassion and charity will never go out of style
Giving people a Hand Up, not a Hand Out – The Goodwill motto has never been more appropriate than in 2022. In a year that saw a global pandemic upend society, leading to job losses and uncertainty like never before, people needed a bit of good old-fashioned kindness and compassion to make it through the day.
For Jacquie Daniel Goodwill, The Amity Group’s, training, and development specialist, it was a time of major, but welcome, change too.
“I actually began working with Goodwill in the middle of the pandemic – so I really had to hit the ground running,” she told HRD. “I was fortunate to start a newly created position within Human Resources at the very beginning of Goodwill’s commitment to training and development – it is always great to help form a brand-new department from scratch. There’s no denying that the pandemic certainly did impact us. In the beginning, we had work from a distance and shut down based on the government mandate. Our federal government took a stance, our provincial government took a stance, and then everything we did from Goodwill was going within the boundaries of whatever the provincial or the federal government mandated. As a result of everything that happened with the pandemic, because T&D was a new sector at Goodwill, the impact wasn’t as significant as it was for the other departments that were consistently functioning from normality to the pandemic.”
Keeping people safe during the pandemic was a major concern for Goodwill. As a people-first organization, compassion is at the very heart of their company culture – for both the people they’re helping and their employees.
“We spent a lot more time on social media, we sent out videos, we met with clients virtually, we had a lot of activities that were from a distance like virtual job fairs, because we wanted to keep everyone safe,” added Daniel. “It was challenging, because it wasn't something we eased into - it was overnight. All of a sudden people had to start making sweeping changes immediately. For myself, what it did was from an HR perspective, was really expanded our roles. We just pivoted and did things in a little bit of a different way. For instance, if brand new employees were coming on board, instead of me going out from site to site to onboard them and do their orientation, I was doing them over virtual meetings. And, you know what, it works. It works fine - and we got to reduce paper used. A win-win!”
This proactive and positive approach to new challenges is something that runs through the lifeblood of Goodwill. Founded in 1935, off the back of the Great Depression, Goodwill served Canada’s 25% unemployed population, navigating economic and social downturns. Now, in 2022, their core beliefs remain the same – Changing lives and strengthening communities through the power of work.
“Our culture is not one that we sit back and watch things that happen,” added Daniel. “We get involved. It’s something that’s quite difficult to encapsulate in words – it’s simply so multifaceted. Our motto of ‘Giving people a Hand Up, not a Hand Out’ really says it all. Our mission is changing lives and strengthening communities through the power of work. I use those two things when I'm orienting the staff. I tell them I want them to take the mission, vision and values, and print it out. When new employees are looking at our model, if there's a decision that they must make, they should focus on our vision and values. Those guiding principles are the framework of our culture, that is who we are. But if there's something that doesn't fit, that's when you start asking questions.”
