Manitoba's Top Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 44
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MANITOBA’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
Red River Co-op goes the extra mile for staff
W
hen days got
shorter and
temperatures
plunged, employees at the
gas bars and supermarkets of Red
River Cooperative were visited by
teams from the company’s human
resources and management teams.
It’s one of several ways to pull
staff from all over Red River’s
many Manitoba locations closer
together.
Blue Monday is the winter
employee appreciation program
designed to give morale a boost
during the toughest stretch of
the retail year. Murray Dehn,
vice-president of human resources, describes bringing “coffee
and hot chocolate — just as a
reminder that hey, we’re thinking
about you today.
“This initiative highlighted our
employee and family assistance
program, allowing us to emphasize the importance of mental
health support for our workforce
and their loved ones.”
For Deb Choate, a supervisor
cashier at Red River’s Lagimodiere
gas bar, it’s the sort of thing that
makes it such a “great Canadian
company.”
She talks about her team at
Lagimodiere as “a really good
crew, all the way up from our
part-time pump attendants and
cashiers. Red River is probably
one of the last places in Canada
with full-service pump attendants,
which is becoming a lost art,
but I know our customers really
appreciate it.”
Dehn says that company culture
became a priority in 2024, after
the organization did a survey
across all its team members. This
year, employees will be invited
to join a culture committee to
help plan charity work and other
efforts to give back to the communities Red River serves.
This is one of the most
community-oriented places
I’ve ever worked.
— Deb Choate
Supervisor Cashier
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Employees at Red River Cooperative share a laugh while at work.
The company offers paid volunteer days for team members who
want to represent the company at
May’s Manito Ahbee Festival, the
Winnipeg Folk Festival or Pride.
“We’ve had a lot of support for
Pride,” Dehn says, “and a lot of
team members have come to walk
in the parade and help set up.”
Communication from the main
office on initiatives like local
charities or support for Ukraine
is detailed and frequent, says
Choate. “There’s a lot of promo
material handed out at the store
level, what a project is all about
and how we go about decorating
the stores. Sometimes we’ll even
have local radio stations drop in
and have barbecues out from for
different initiatives.”
She’s particularly proud of Red
River Co-op’s support for local
businesses whose products get
stocked in the grocery stores and
gas bars. “Co-op’s big model is
