It’s not something he talks about much these days, but when the murderous dictator Idi Amin Dada ordered the expulsion of Uganda’s Asian minority in 1972, Aly Bandali’s parents were among thousands of refugees who had to give up everything and flee for their lives. Canada opened its doors and accepted many of these refugees. Aly’s parents settled in Edmonton with their two young boys and set about rebuilding their lives.
Seeing how hard his parents had to work in those early years prompted Aly to ask for a job at the local corner grocery store/gas mart when he was just 10 years old. “The owner was taken aback, ” he recalls. “But he paid me a dollar a day to sweep the parking lot and put away the empty bottles. So I added seven dollars a week to the family income.”
Studying commerce at university, Aly’s fascination with human interaction steered him towards the discipline of human resources. A volunteer opportunity with the Canadian Red Cross Society at the time also provided valuable human resources (HR) experience.
“The Red Cross basically ended up with a volunteer HR team run by the university,” he says.
Upon graduating, Aly secured funding for a full-time HR position with the Red Cross and began his career. Three years later, he took a senior HR position at the Canadian Cancer Society in Calgary. From there, he crossed into the private sector with an HR talent management software provider and then came to the coiled tubing and fluid pumping energy services company STEP Energy, which had a specific vision for its human resources division playing a more meaningful “value-added” role.
Aly was STEP’s ninth hire in 2011. Today the company employs 180 people and has a waiting list of folks who want to work for it—an uncommon scenario in an industry that typically struggles to find and retain workers. Much of STEP’s success can be attributed to fostering a company culture that engages its workforce around providing an exceptional client experience. The emphasis is on building relationships, accountability and safety.
On a personal level, Aly’s gratitude to Canadian society for “opening its arms to our family when it didn’t need to” has driven at least part of his volunteerism, whether it’s coaching minor league soccer and hockey, or taking on various association roles focused on developing the full potential of human resources in the workplace.
Some of the high points of this work was his role as a founding subcommittee member of the National HR Council for Canada’s entire Not for Profit and Volunteer Sector, his speaking engagements at universities on HR issues and the strategies linking HR to improved bottom-line operations, and his current title as president of the Human Resources Institute of Alberta.
“I see HR as having a higher value and a more influential impact on the development and effectiveness of any organization, whether it’s a community charitable organization or business,” he says.
Ismailimail 