2010 Awards

Financial excellence recognized by CICA

In December 2010, TELUS received four awards from the Chartered Accountants of Canada (CICA), including the CICA’s top award for corporate reporting. Our reporting package includes the annual report to shareholders, information circular, corporate social responsibility report and online investor relations and corporate governance information. In addition to the top award, TELUS was also recognized in the following categories:

• Award of Excellence for Corporate Reporting in Communications and Media
• Honourable Mention for Excellence in Sustainable Development Reporting
• Honourable Mention for Excellence in Corporate Governance Disclosure

Among best in the world for financial reporting

In September 2010, TELUS received international recognition for its financial reporting. In the prestigious Annual Report on Annual Reports which is produced by e.com, the TELUS 2009 annual report was ranked as the sixth best report in the world.

One of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers

In February 2010, for the third straight year, TELUS was named one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers in an annual competition that recognizes the nation’s leaders in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces. This year’s list pays tribute to 45 organizations that have developed exceptional diversity initiatives to promote inclusiveness among employee groups, such as women, members of visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples.

Winners of the Canada's Best Diversity Employers competition are chosen by the editorial team at Mediacorp, based on applications submitted to the annual Canada's Top 100 Employers program. This year, more than 2,750 employers started the application process; these were reduced to about 300 organizations for the diversity competition. The editors reviewed each employer's diversity and inclusiveness programs to determine how their initiatives compared to those of other employers in the same field and region.

Here are some of the reasons why TELUS was selected:

• Our successful launch of Caya in Vancouver
• The formation of Eagles, our Aboriginal team member resource group
• Our Diversity and Inclusiveness Council, comprised of team members from across TELUS who help to develop diversity and inclusiveness initiatives and raise awareness and appreciation of our team’s unique backgrounds, abilities and perspectives
• The Respectful Workplace Office, which works within the framework of TELUS’ Respectful Workplace Policy and relevant Human Rights legislation to support our team in building a strong culture of inclusiveness and respect
• Since 2000, TELUS has donated more than $7.5 million to diversity initiatives through Community Donations and Sponsorships, Community Board Donations, Team TELUS Charitable Giving Program and Dollars for Doers
• Connections – the TELUS women’s network, which provides professional development, networking and volunteer opportunities for approximately 2,900 women team members
• Spectrum, TELUS’ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-questioning (LGBTQ) team member resource group, comprised of approximately 120 members who connect at networking events, volunteer in their communities, support efforts to reach LGBTQ customers and assist with LGBTQ community investment initiatives.

One of 10 most admired corporate cultures in Canada

In late 2009, Waterstone Human Capital named TELUS to its list of top 10 most admired corporate cultures in Canada. Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures recognizes Canadian organizations for having a culture that has helped them enhance their financial performance and sustain a competitive advantage.

TELUS named 2010 Outstanding Philanthropic Corporation

TELUS was honoured with the 2010 Freeman Philanthropic Services Award for Outstanding Corporation by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). This award recognizes a corporation that demonstrates outstanding commitment through financial support and encouragement and motivation of others to take on leadership roles in their communities. TELUS is the first Canadian corporate to receive this award. Previous honourees include AT&T, American Express Financial Advisors, Johnson and Johnson and Walmart.

TELUS named among Canada’s Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporations and Best 50 Corporate Citizens

In June 2011, TELUS was named among the Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporation in Canada by Jantzi-Sustainalytics and one of the Top 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada by Corporate Knights.

Both rankings are based on Canadian corporations’ governance, social and environmental performance. The Jantzi-Sustainalytics group recognizes companies that demonstrate strong performance in areas such as environmental initiatives, impact on local communities, treatment of employees and supply-chain management. According to the editor of Corporate Knights, its awards program, which started with corporate social responsibility, has evolved and now centres on clean capitalism, rewarding companies that pursue profit concurrently with social and ecological prosperity.

“These awards indicate that we are taking the right steps to achieving our goal of being a leading corporate citizen,” says Kasey Reese, vice-president, Risk Management and chief internal auditor. “In 2011, we announced a new climate change strategy, developed a company-wide waste management plan, transitioned our office paper to 30 per cent post consumer recycled content, improved our Global Reporting Initiative declaration to an A level, continued our efforts to improve transparency in our reporting and became signatories to the United Nations Global Compact.”

For the balance of the year and into 2012, TELUS has a number of programs that will continue to strengthen our corporate citizen position. These include:

• Implementing our climate change strategy
• Executing our energy management commitment and program deployment
• Continuing to evolve our Work Styles program
• Constructing new buildings to align with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) framework
• Raising TELUS team engagement and continuing to drive the philosophy of “our business, our customers, our community, our team, my responsibility”
• Addressing our supply chain management program and working with business partners to improve sustainability.

TELUS earns external recognition for innovative Learning 2.0 framework

In 2010, Dan Pontefract, director, Learning and Collaboration, earned the Vanguard Award from the Chief Learning Officer, which is given to learning executives who have either launched a new enterprise learning function or completely overhauled existing workforce development initiatives in the past year. He was also recently named Corporate University Leader of the Year by the Corporate University Best-in-Class Awards (CUBIC). The CUBIC awards were established to honour, recognize and promote internal training organizations and corporate universities that set standards of excellence in a variety of categories.

“This is a wonderful recognition of Dan’s effort in driving forward our innovative Learning 2.0 strategy; we all share in the success these awards recognize. They say that TELUS is leading the pack when it comes to learning and development,” says Kiran Mohan, a learning consultant on Dan’s team.

Dan has been called a champion of change by his team. His leadership has helped them move from traditional learning to embrace learning such as social media, video, eLearning, podcasts, virtual classroom, and other social learning/social networking opportunities.

TELUS International recognized by United Way for commitment to giving

TELUS International was honoured with three impressive awards from the United Way in Guatemala in 2010. First, for the second year in a row, we received the Heroes of Volunteerism for the largest participation of volunteers of any company in Guatemala when more than 2,000 team members participated in the second annual TELUS International Day of Giving. 

Second, our company was awarded the Heroes of Employee Fund Participation for achieving the largest employee contribution of any company in Guatemala; an astonishing 65 per cent of team members participated in our 2010 giving programs. 

And, third, Guillermo Montano, president, TELUS International Central America, was honoured as a Golden Hero for his personal commitment in leading our corporate social responsibility movement in Guatemala, as well as for being one of the leading supporters of the United Way in Guatemala.

“While certainly not expected, it is always appreciated when the hard work and dedication of our team members to ‘give where we live’ is recognized by others,” said Jeffrey Puritt, president, TELUS International. “This is especially true for our colleagues in Guatemala, who have fully embraced the opportunity and collaborated with TELUS International in pioneering our innovative corporate social responsibility programs in Latin America.”