PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST AT POPCORN

August 26, 2022
|
Shaan Coelho

Recently our company was awarded the certification for excellence in workplace culture. We’re a people-first company, invested in the continuous growth and development of the people that make the choice to dedicate their time and energy to our organization. It’s a tremendous honour and one we don’t take lightly, especially because this certification wasn’t top down, but rather bottom up. The team at the Canadian Workplace Culture Index surveyed our employees and their responses led to this certification. The voices of our team, their perspective and their experiences at Popcorn are what makes this award really worth it.

Over the 10+ years of running this agency we’ve had an exceptional experience sourcing talent from students in BC and abroad. We’ve partnered with several post-secondary institutions throughout the world and through our internship program we’ve been able to receive valuable contributions to active client engagements, Popcorn initiatives and brand development. In exchange, we’ve been able to help set the foundations for successful careers and several early work experiences. Beyond just a value exchange, our internship program has been a great resource for attracting and converting full time Popcorn hires. Over 50% of our current staff are former Popcorn interns, some that converted directly from intern to team member, and others that interned with us years ago and made the choice to come back. Through all of our internship experiences we’ve focused on fair and equitable sourcing and treatment. And over the 10+ years we’ve had interns helping out we’ve seen a shift in the types of contributions people make, the types of work interns (want and don’t want) to take on, and the evolving perspective of work-exchange programs in the region. We always have and always will aim to provide value, treat each other and others with respect and create positive impact on the communities we’re apart of. For the people that contributed their time and energy towards building Popcorn over the last decade, we are truly grateful. We’ll continue to focus on doing things differently, putting people first, and building an agency that can help shape the direction of culture and community for decades to come.