(Part of a series of blog postings from Graham Hicks' two-day tour of PTI Group lodge-hotels in the Canadian oilsands)
How Edmonton's PTI Group - Canada's largest owner/operator of worker hotel-lodges in remote industrial areas, builds a content and efficient hospitality workforce.
Yes, it's about the money, which, in Northern Alberta, is pretty darned good.
But it's just as much about the company's egalitarian culture, its hiring practices, and simply the way it treats its employees within a unionized context.
Without any government prodding, PTI maintains an open preferential/priority hiring system.
At the top of the list, hiring local First Nations members. About 250 permanent employees hail from the Saddle Lake, Meadow Lake and Driftpile First Nation bands and from the Fort McKay Metis (or Wood Buffalo) group.
Second preference is hiring Albertans who reside locally.
Third is Alberta-based aboriginals.
Fourth is Albertans, period. I.E> Anybody with landed-immigrant status or C ...
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(Part of a series of blog postings from Graham Hicks' two-day tour of PTI Group lodge-hotels in the Canadian oilsands)
Why would anybody want to work thousands of kilometres away from home, working 12-hour days for weeks on end in very isolated conditions in Northern Alberta?
Because of the money ... and the community ... and the working conditions.
PTI Group - the owner/operators of some 20 worksite lodges/hotels in isolated parts of Canada - has no problem hiring workers, from housekeepers, to cooks, to maintenance, to managers.
Number One: The money. The rule of thumb in the oilsands is the average salary is about three times what it would be in urban Canada. A housekeeper at a PTI Lodge would likely earn $100,000 a year, working normally on a three weeks on/one week off schedule, plus regular holidays. Room and board is paid for. (Most of the oilsands is unionized). All workers receive an extra $400 a month travel allowance to fly home on their week off.
Number Two: The lifest ...
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