Olymel has unified how it recognizes years of service and retirements across its organization through the Altrum platform. The program streamlines the management of invitations and gifts while giving the corporate HR team a real-time view of participation at every facility, ensuring a consistent, meaningful experience for all employees, no matter where they work or what role they hold.
Olymel is a Canadian leader in the production, processing, and distribution of pork and poultry products. With Quebec roots and a workforce of over 12,000 people spread across facilities nationwide, the company faces HR challenges that are as complex as they are varied, none more so than ensuring every employee feels genuinely recognized.
In 2019, Olymel confronted an uncomfortable reality: years-of-service recognition looked entirely different from one facility to the next. Some sites marked milestones informally; others didn’t acknowledge them at all. For employees, the message was hard to ignore, how much their contribution was celebrated depended largely on where they happened to work. Determined to change that, Olymel partnered with Altrum to build a structured, consistent recognition program covering service awards and retirement.
Standing up the program meant solving several interconnected problems. Practices had to be standardized across every facility so that recognition would feel fair and equal, regardless of an employee’s location or role. But not everyone could be reached the same way, many plant-floor employees don’t have corporate email addresses, meaning invitations had to go out as printed letters. And with thousands of employees and milestones spanning from 5 to 50 years, the HR team needed a solution that could handle that scale while still giving individual sites the tools to manage their own participation.
Altrum supported Olymel in building a structured years-of-service recognition program anchored by two tools: the Celebration Platform for managing service anniversary gifts, and the Altrum Store for ordering personalized retirement plaques.
Years-of-Service Gifts
Olymel’s program recognizes employees at every five-year milestone from their fifth anniversary through to their fiftieth. On that date, each employee receives either an email or a printed letter, based on their role, inviting them to select a gift from a dedicated Altrum store within the budget set for that milestone. Every invitation includes a personal note from the company’s president, giving the moment weight and sincerity beyond a standard HR communication.
Major milestones receive additional recognition. In addition to the Altrum gift, the 25-year mark also comes with a commemorative watch. From 35 years of service onward, a flexible credit redeemable with a range of suppliers is added to the package.
Personalized Retirement Plaques
When an employee retires, Olymel marks the occasion with a personalized commemorative plaque in the company’s colours. Pre-saved templates and stored addresses make the process quick and consistent, most orders are completed in just minutes. “The creation process is really straightforward,” noted Lorie Normandeau, Organizational Development Advisor. “We just send our images to Altrum and they handle the rest.”
*Each Altrum plaque is made in our Quebec factory.
Even with the program running smoothly on paper, a gap emerged in practice: a significant number of employees, particularly on the plant floor, were never claiming their gifts. The reasons were varied. Some hadn’t heard about the program at all. Others had received a letter from their manager but lost track of it. In a large, multi-site organization, information doesn’t always travel cleanly from corporate down to the floor, and the result was that some employees were missing out on recognition they had earned.
Rather than treating this as an isolated issue, Olymel and Altrum worked together to reconnect with employees who had unclaimed rewards, and then took a harder look at how to prevent it from happening again.
The solution involved shared ownership at the site level. Olymel designated a program coordinator at each plant, not necessarily someone from HR, and Altrum provided each coordinator with dedicated access to the Celebration Platform. From there, coordinators could independently track celebrations and orders at their site, extend claim deadlines, and reprint invitation letters as needed.
On the corporate side, Altrum built a dashboard that gives the HR team a real-time view of participation across every facility. If engagement dips at a particular site, the team can spot it quickly and follow up before it becomes a pattern.
To support the rollout, Altrum provided tailored training for site coordinators, video demonstrations, and a dedicated contact available for ongoing questions and support.
The collaboration between Olymel and Altrum delivered measurable, lasting improvements:
“The platform is easy to use and very flexible. The coordinators at our plants can manage invitations and claims with ease, and we have a clear picture of participation across all our sites. Whenever we have a need, the Altrum team is quick and proactive in finding a solution.”
— Lorie Normandeau, Organizational Development Advisor, Olymel
Olymel’s recognition journey doesn’t stop at service anniversaries. The company is now developing a broader program that will include:
Together, Olymel and Altrum are building a culture of recognition that extends well beyond career milestones, one that shows up in the everyday moments that make work meaningful.
Your employees deserve consistent recognition, at every site, in every role.
Let’s build a program that works for your entire organization.
