“Economy, economy, economy” ..is probably what you’ve been hearing about everyday, with good reason of course, since it affects many parts of our lives, either directly or indirectly. Does it affect employers looking for candidates? You bet. How does it affect us? I’ll tell you.

We are still hiring.  We are still looking for A-players and we are being more stringent than ever. We feel in this volatile, scary economic time, employers must be hyper-focused and take the time and effort, and make very, very smart decisions.  Recruitment is always a very expensive practice so we want to make sure we get it right! Make sure you put thought into your selection process – starting with painting a picture of exactly who you want to hire. If you don’t know who this person looks like, how will you know when they walk through the door?

On the flip side, I know there are many job seekers out there too, so I want to throw some thoughts over to you too. Companies are still hiring! I spoke with Monster and Workopolis and they are still selling postings, so somebody’s using them.

Last time I wrote, I gave some interview tips. This time let’s do some resume tips:

•  Get back to basics:  Spell check, consistent formatting – this goes without saying. Get some fresh eyes on it too.

• Customize your cover letter – include what made you apply to this specific company. If you can prove that you actually took some time in researching our company, and you have the qualifications, then your chances of landing an interview are much higher.
• Highlight major achievements and results (many people focus on what tasks they were responsible for, but as an employer, I’m concerned about results over effort. When I read a resume, I think, “what can this person do for us?”
• Numbers – put stats in your resume – you increased sales by X%, you brought in $XX in sponsorship, you decreased transaction time by X minutes, therefore saving your company XX dollars, etc.”
• Making sure there’s not major “time gaps” in your work experience (and if there is, either explain in your cover letter (briefly), or consider a different type of resume style, functional resume vs. chronological. Good luck and happy hunting!

Yesterday, I Love Rewards was named a 2008 Walk the Talk Award winner and honoured with the title of “Most Supportive Employer” at the “Thinking Outside the Cube: Walk the Talk best practices” event.  

The event played host to a panel of speakers, award winners and innovation leaders who shared their stories and insights on the changing workplace and best practices. While everyone came from different industries and areas of expertise, there was one underlining theme: employees are the drivers of your business. It’s those employers who take care and inspire their employees that will overcome and embrace business challenges, whether it is a recession, company merger, cross-generational or virtual workplace. 

You can learn more about the event and speakers here. The Walk the Talk Awards is an annual Canadian best practices study and awards program that gives employees a voice! Winners are chosen based on employee surveys results that assess whether their employer truly walks the talk. Results are tabulated and announced by Market Yourself Smarter, a career learning and employment trend research company. Congrats to the our fellow award winners Sequel Naturals Ltd. and Speakers Spotlight.

In case you didn’t know, our office is huge!  So after volunteering at Gilda’s Club two Saturdays ago, me and a couple of co-workers (Will and Jenna) sporadically decided to do something very bold.   We bought a badminton net and set it up in the middle of the office… without permission!  Sure, it cost us a little time and money, but the reaction on people’s faces on Monday morning was priceless.

Everyone here is also very competitive.  Michael Shaw and his Personal Power Committee are well aware of this, so they’ve decided to organize a full-fledged badminton tournament tomorrow at five o’clock.  Feel free to stop by if you’re in the area

When I think about it, this is what our company is all about.  Never excepting the norm.  Acting on ideas.  Taking things to the next level.  And most importantly, having a lot of fun!

Social Responsibility is a big part of life at I Love Rewards. To keep employees engaged, we have a Vision Committee devoted to enhancing and strengthening our commitment to this facet of our company. CSI: I Love Rewards (the “CSI” stands for Corporate Social Innovation) has already gotten off to a great start- we just facilitated Noogiefest at Gilda’s Club- and now we’re on to our next initative…MOVEMBER.

In the month of November, the men of I Love Rewards (as well as friends and family) will be growing moustaches in the name of men’s health awareness. As the mos grow, we’ll be seeking donations to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation of Canada. Why not make a donation to our team, I Love Mos, and help us change the face of men’s health?

We’ll be tracking the progress of the mos on our Mo Bros as the month goes on. Stay tuned to this blog for some presumably hilarious updates!

2:00 PM 

Their building on 110 Lombard Street has had a long history of transformation. It was Toronto’s first firehall, then it became the home of the Second City comedy troupe (whom Gilda Radner was a member of), and now it’s the home of the Toronto chapter of Gilda’s Club. Today it’s undergoing another transformation!

10:00 AM 

Weeee’re back! It’s our second year at Gilda’s Club for our company volunteer day. Gilda’s Club’s mission is to provide a meeting place where men, women, teens and children living with cancer, as well as their families and friends, can join with others to build social and emotional support as a supplement to their treatment of choice. And our mission today is to get their historic club house decorated for Noogiefest, their annual Halloween bash for the younger members of Gilda’s Club. The rooms are coming along, but there’s lots more work to do.

Stay tuned for more updates as the house starts to take shape!

Being a top employer and employer of choice is really important to us so you can imagine how happy we are to announce that we have been chosen as one of the GTA’s Top 75 Employers for the third year in a row!  

Every fall, Mediacorp publishes their list of the GTA’s Top 75 Employers in the Toronto Star. This year over 2,000
Toronto area employers applied for the award and were judged on eight key areas: physical environment; work atmosphere; benefits; vacation and time off; employee communications; performance management; training and development; and community involvement. According to Mediacorp, those chosen have one thing in common – they are all industry leaders. Congrats to everyone on this year’s list! 

Check out our story “Employee love affair” in the October 18 issue of the Toronto Star. Razor Suleman, our CEO, and Rob Catalano, our Marketing and Sales Manager, talk about what makes us a GTA Top Employer. 

For a complete list of winners visit http://www.canadastop100.com/toronto/.

On Tuesday, October 7th, The InCentre (our I Love Rewards office in Liberty Village) hosted an Executive Round Table event focused on Gen Y in the workplace entitled ‘Talkin Bout the Generations.’

It was definitely an interesting and interactive dynamic. There were three executive guest panelists providing their expertise and advice from three different industries and experiences:
Naomi Shaw, VP Leadership at Scotiabank brought great insight to the challenges involved with a new workforce in Gen Y and the upcoming exit of the Boomers. Sarah Nisbeth, EVP Client Leader at Young & Rubican provided insightful feedback about the agency world and the impact of Gen Y employees in a fast moving industry. Our very own Razor Suleman, CEO of I Love Rewards offered feedback on a growth company and the impact this generation shift.

After some direct questions from the panel host, each of the panelists broke into individual round table discussions with the attendees. This became a chance to ask very specific questions, learn from the group and have powerful discussions and get great insight from an array of people in different roles and industries. Facilitators from Right Management then highlighted some of the major discussion points from each round table discussion.

So, as a host, I think the event went well. Everything happened on time, as it was supposed to, and we managed to handle the ‘heat’ issue and make “Level 5” (the name of our Mezzanine – named for Level 5 Leadership from Good to Great) a comfortable venue. And we always love having guests in our office!

As an attendee, I also took away a few things:

• Be true to your company – if you hire people with similar values and traits that match the culture of your organization, the year they were born shouldn’t make a difference.
• Gen Y’s know what they want – and aren’t afraid to be vocal about it. Leaders need to know how to manage that. It’s just not limited to Gen Y though, it’s just they do it a lot younger now than we’re all used to.
• Be aware of the generational shift - not a huge issue at I Love Rewards yet, but Naomi at Scotiabank is dealing with the Boomers exiting the workforce and how to train and develop new leaders at an accelerated rate to bridge the gap. Have you thought about how to manage that at a larger scale? Process? Technology?
• Don’t be afraid – it’s scary, but the future of our workforce is Gen Y. They have more of the tools, information, and options than other generations. Embrace what they have to offer, and listen… they have good things to say

This year’s President’s Club (in which the top 10 percent of the company’s employees, as voted on by the Senior Leadership Team, are whisked away on an all-expenses paid vacation with the CEO) had quite a whirlwind trip! We were lucky enough to attend the Motivation Show in Chicago, before jetting off to San Francisco to meet the team at SuccessFactors and take in a ball game at AT&T Park. After a road trip along the Pacific Coast, we kicked back for some R&R (no, not rewards and recognition!) in Hollywood, complete with a stop at the Foxtail Club, made popular by a little show you may have heard of called The Hills.

Though “what happens at President’s Club stays at President’s Club”, the trip didn’t go undocumented. Here’s a taste of the fun we had, in an homage to West Beverly High’s most famous alumni…

I Love Rewards has just been named one of Canada’s Top 10™ Technology companies by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation. This is the second year in a row we have been selected as one of the 10 most promising technology companies to Canadian and international investors and partners.

We also want to congratulate our fellow recipients. We are certainly in good company! Here is the complete list of winners in the Technology category:

Accedian Networks, Inc. (St. Laurent, Quebec)

BelAir Networks (Ottawa, Ontario)

DataGardens Inc. (Edmonton, Alberta)

Ecobee (Toronto, Ontario)

Evoco Inc. (Calgary, Alberta)

I Love Rewards Inc. (Toronto, Ontario)

IPeak Networks Incorporated (Ottawa, Ontario)

Redknee (Mississauga, Ontario)

Trellia Networks Inc. (Montreal, Quebec)

Wavesat Inc. (Montreal, Quebec)

The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation is holding a summit the week of October 7 2009 to prepare for the 2009 Investment Forum series. If you would like more information you can visit www.ottawavts.com.

Super Bowl winners have their rings, actors have their prized Oscars, kids have their gold stars – the power of recognition is all around us.  I am sure there are lots of times in your life that you’d like to recognize someone or be recognized for something great you did.  I am currently part of a Vision Committee called Viral Kudos. Our goal is to develop a way to share that power of recognition with the world.
After much research we decided to create a Facebook Application. Give Kudos was born. We launched September 2nd and so far, over 1300 Kudos have been sent!

If you have a friend you’d like to thank for helping you out last weekend, or a co-worker who’s gone above and beyond…anyone you’d like to Give Kudos, go for it! You can check it out here: http://apps.new.facebook.com/give_kudos/. (you have to be logged in to Facebook to see this link)

We’re also holding a contest for the most Kudos given, so install it, Give Kudos and stay tuned.  As I like to say “Give Kudos, It’s good for you”

Hi, My Name is Kim Phelan, and I’ve worked here at I Love Rewards for 6 months or so. And in that time I’ve been able to redeem for some great rewards from our catalogue. Being the product manager of the product, one of my goals is to understand our customers and members. So lately I’ve been wondering…Who are those redeemers? What do they redeem for? Are there different “types” of redeemers? So I looked at our company and I found some very interesting types!

1-The Geek There are a few of us, (I am one of them) who are geeks, and we’re not all on the Development team! We take our hard earned points and we buy gadgets. We buy Ipods, Mac Minis, headphones and future shop gift certificates. Geeking out between us “geek types” is very common. Ask us at any time and we’ll tell you. We’re saving for the next gadget. I just got my mac mini, and I know that Matt is saving for an Itouch.

2-The Shopper Oh there are more than a few of these here. They are shoppers. They want choice, they want clothes. My coworker Mags saves her points and gets gift cards. The most likely culprits are Winners and Holt Renfrew. Shopping with points! What could be better! That first date dress code gives us lots of excuses to buy new shoes!

3-The Giver There is a set of our employees that are very selfless. They don’t give to themselves. They give to others. Amy buys spa experiences for her mother, or gifts for her family. Rarely do they redeem for themselves, but their big redeeming time is at Christmas when they can give to others. Oh to be so selfless!

4- The High Roller There are a few of us who I like to call the High Rollers. They use their points for experiences they wouldn’t have normally. They go golfing, they go out for expensive dinners, or take a wine tour. They do things with their points as a treat that they wouldn’t normally do. Those high rollers have good stories about what they have experienced lately! Chris (pictured here) went on a formula one training, an experience of a lifetime!

5- The Hoarder And finally, there is a few people at our office who I’d like to call the hoarders. They don’t redeem. Why not? They’re saving! As you’ve probably read, the average age of our employees is 30, so there a few people who are getting their first houses, and they need to save for stuff for their house…When that day comes they’ll be fully equipped. So until that day, like chipmunks, they’re hoarding their points.

So, the redeemers are out there. Which one are you?

Well here I am just over three months into my time at I Love Rewards and already they’re asking ME to hire some new recruits…. well, sort of.

You see, here at ILR, we have an interviewing process that you might say is a little… intense.  But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

This lovely ordeal we call a hiring process started with a group interview where I was brought into a room with about a half dozen strangers and two members of the I Love Rewards team.  We were asked the sorts of questions that you might not expect to answer at an interview and as a result, you leave with a feeling that this company isn’t like a lot of others… but also having essentially no idea how well you did.

Apparently I did alright as I got asked back for a second interview - the “skills presentation”.  This was my favourite part of the process.  I got to create and deliver a simulated pitch to a couple more members of the team where I had the opportunity to, as the name may have suggested, present my skills.  This definitely was unlike any other interview I’d been a part of – but I wasn’t done yet.

I was brought back a third time to meet with two MORE members of the team for the most thorough review of your resume you’re ever going to see.  After discussing every achievement I’ve had in my life, seemingly from the time I took my training wheels off of my bike, the interview was finally complete.

When it was all said and done, I’d met 6 or 7 of my potential new colleagues, passed by the desks of probably another dozen on several occasions and still had no idea how to judge if I’d done well.  BUT, when I got the call that I’d survived – I have to say I felt pretty darn good about myself!

My first weeks at I Love Rewards, while only about 90 days removed, seem like a lifetime ago because I’ve experienced so much.  The learning began fast and furious with I Love Rewards University in my first week.  ILRU (as it’s affectionately known) is the most insanely comprehensive orientation you could have to a company.  It took me through not only the skills I needed to do my job, but everything from what our financial statements look like, to a tour of the neighbourhood (great work, Zye), to a discussion of the company vision with our CEO Razor, to how to properly mix the company drink!  And then of course, the graduation ceremony (which In terms of its brevity and comedy, was far superior to the one they had for me at actual University).

And it was all worth it.  Looking back, I can confidently say that after five days, I’d forgotten more about I Love Rewards than I ever knew about my previous job!

So now here we are 90-ish days later and I’m getting ready to be a part of a team to conduct the skills interview with some new ILR hopefuls.  Aside from being excited to see the pitches of my potential future colleagues, it’s amazing to look back and see how far I’ve come in my first three months.  But more than that, I’m excited to watch the process I went through from the other side and see if the new batch has what it takes to join this amazing team.

So send in a resume to careers@iloverewards.com if you think you’ve got the chops and be prepared for a totally unique experience.  But don’t worry, as our name suggests, if you make it through – it definitely has its “Rewards”….

Sorry.  That joke was awful.  See you at the skills presentation!

The AWS tour comes to Toronto (for the first time!) on its 2008 tour of 11 cities across North America.  I’ll be speaking along with others start-ups from the Toronto area, the afternoon of September 15th.  You can RSVP here (please note that the date has changed to September 15th from the 16th).

Here’s the full schedule:

2:00-2:20    Opening Statements – Adam Selipsky, Vice President, Amazon Web Services

2:20-3:00    AWS Presentation – Mike Culver, Evangelist, Amazon Web Services

3:00-3:15    Break

3:15-4:05    Customer Presentations:

• Carlos Barrettara, Co-Founder, Polar Mobile
• Ilya Grigorik, Co-Founder, AideRSS
• Chris Thiessen, Founder, Zoomii
• Leila Boujnane, Chief Executive Officer, Idee
• Farhan Thawar, Chief Software Architect, I Love Rewards

4:05-4:35    Customer Q&A

4:35-5:00    Closing Statements – Adam Selipsky, Vice President, Amazon Web Services

5:00-7:00    Cocktail/Networking Reception

The full city schedule is here.  I’ll be touching on a bit of our history before AWS, the things we are working on now and where we see ourselves 6-12 months from now with the I Love Rewards Express platform.

Come by and say hello, I’d love to chat with you.

The I Love Rewards softball team, the Brutal Bats (named as an homage to our famous “Confronting The Brutal Facts” quarterly meetings) had a great inaugural season in the TCSSC recreational division. The Bats played hard all year and wound up in second place in the division in regular season play. This cast us in the role of the “lovable underdogs” in a winner-take-all championship battle last Wednesday against the undefeated Toronto Booze Jays. We tried our best, but our opponents were formidable competitors, and unfortunately the Gold-Glove stylings of outfielder Zaid (”Vernon Wells”) Rasid and shortstop Greg (”Johnny Mac”) Moore, and the clutch hitting of Zakir (”JEEEEEEEEEEEEANNNNS”)  Hemraj and inspiring leadership of coach Jerry (Cito) Mulloor weren’t enough to get us the win. However, we had a lot of fun (and post-game beer and nachos and wings) this season. Employee participation was very high, and we even had some I Love Rewards fans in the stands cheering us on at the championship game.

We’re already looking forward to a new sport to take on this fall. Any suggestions?