CEO Burr Smith giving a speech during the Global Employee Summit at Broadsign.Provided
Taki Belainine was a software developer in Algeria. When he emigrated to Montreal, Broadsign, a digital signage and out-of-home advertising technology company, took a chance on him even though his previous experience was with a different technology infrastructure. He started as a support specialist, but when he wanted to be a developer again, he felt he needed to look elsewhere.
“When I announced that I was leaving to pursue my development goals, Broadsign had a different opinion,” says Belainine, a software developer III. Belainine had proven himself as a highly capable and valued support specialist – exactly the type of person the company wanted to invest in. Broadsign offered him the opportunity to retrain and transition to a new role in line with his career goals. “I was being paid to learn. It was magical.”
The ability – and encouragement – to evolve professionally is one of the many things that keeps Belainine at Broadsign. So is the company’s approach to hiring. “It’s not always about what people know technically, which was my case,” he says. “Broadsign focuses more on interpersonal skills, the way people tackle challenges and if they’re keen to learn.”
CEO Burr Smith says that by the time he acquired Broadsign in 2012, he’d had a long career during which he’d figured out what worked and what didn’t in terms of culture. In his first year there, he didn’t talk about his values, in order to give employees a chance to get to know him. But since then, those values have become part of every decision the company makes, every day.
“If you’re in the privileged position of owning a business and you’re making money off the efforts of other people, it behooves you to treat those people with dignity and respect – to treat them the way you would want to be treated if you were on the other side of the equation,” he says.
Because employees spend so much of their lives at work, Smith wants them to enjoy it and be given opportunities to be the best they can be. “You don’t have that much time on this Earth and you better really enjoy the time that you’ve got,” he adds. “It’s important to us to build a place where people enjoy the time that they work together.”
Between the monthly cinq à septs, the reintroduction of larger social gatherings, the recognition by management of a job well done, and the pride employees take in the values the company holds dear, Belainine can’t imagine working anywhere else.
In his five years at Broadsign, Belainine has been recognized twice for his work by his teammates and management. “It just gives you so much confidence,” he says. “And all I can think of is how can I pay it back? I feel like I can never pay them back because I’ve been so lucky.”
It’s also important to Smith and his employees that the company strive to be carbon neutral by the end of 2023. To get there, the company is targeting two aspects of its business – where Broadsign’s servers draw their power from, and travel. “I wanted to do it because it’s the right thing to do,” he says.
Indeed, Smith says he hates seeing movies in which a company is evil and hurting people to make money, because his own company is living its core values – doing the right thing, treating people with dignity, doing what you say you’re going to do and making great things happen. “In my heart,” he says, “I believe that you can be really successful in business and just be decent and represent good.”
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