When Phil Edwards worked for the big corporations in the pharmaceutical business for 15 years, he learned that there wasn't any ticky-tacky rule they couldn't dream up, and then enforce.
There would be women in the office whose children were sick at home who were visibly upset, not just that they couldn't be at home, but because they weren't even allowed to use the telephone to make a personal call and find out how they were.
Edwards vowed that if he ever was in charge, he wouldn't be imposing any rules that make life that tough on his staff.
When the big drug companies on pill hill in Meadowvale started moving their manufacturing out and downsizing years ago, Edwards saw an opportunity and started a drug packaging business called Advantage Health Care Packaging that is now thriving. He's carved out a niche in the huge, huge market and specializes in being ready for the virtually instant market launch that companies want when their products finally get the go-ahead from the health authorities.
His Mississauga company is a small and happy place if you can believe the big smiles of the women who work there.
The reason is that management, that's Phil, has a heart and some very enlightened policies.
"We have a Kids Come First policy," Edwards said on a recent tour. "If your kid is sick, don't fret, take the day off."
He employs several permanent part-time employees as well as a dozen women full-time.
Not only are they allowed to chat while they package drugs, which many drug companies don't allow, but they can talk about whatever they want.
There are "summer hours" for six months a year so everyone can get off Friday afternoons when the weather's nice. Several women don't work at all in summer so they can be at home with their children.
Before Christmas the whole place got a half-day off for last-second shopping.
One winter day a couple of years ago when the snow started to get heavy and worried glances started accumulating, the 47-year-old owner hired a small school bus to drive everybody home.
Of course, in return for that flexibility, Edwards expects his staff to work weekends and extra hours when a major product launch requires it. Not surprisingly, his staff doesn't mind the saw-off at all. There's almost no absenteeism and many people have been on board since the company's birth in 1994.
Sharon Krause, who Edwards calls his indispensable quality-control computer wizard (she keeps tracks of reams and reams of paper work), is one of those who has seen life in the corporations and in the small company and recognizes the Advantage she's got now.
"It's doing the same thing from a work perspective, but it's almost like family," said Krause. "When they ask how you're doing, they really want to know how you're doing," laughed Krause. "It's not lip service. It's genuine concern. If you have a family crisis he not only says 'go home' but he asks if he can drive you. The work gets done but we have fun."
When he first started in the business, Edwards remembers an executive at a big Mississauga pharma company telling him that, "it's a gentleman's business."
Looks like somebody took that man at his word.