How PVENG Turned Core Values into a Culture People Can Actually See

PVENG is a pressure vessel engineering firm based in St. Jacobs, Ontario. The work is highly specialized across everything from food and beverage processing to oil and gas and pharmaceuticals to renewable energy. If an industry needs a vessel that holds pressure and needs to be registered in Canada, PVENG is the go-to choice.

“It’s a niche industry that nobody ever thinks about,” says Steve Munn, president of PVENG. “Manufacturers from around the world contact us because our website has all kinds of information on how to do it and they look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s way too complicated, but these guys obviously know what they’re doing.’”

With a team of 32 people, PVENG is small by design. And that size is a feature, not a limitation. It means every hire matters, every relationship counts, and culture isn’t something that just happens. It’s something that’s deliberately built.

Culture built on intention

Munn is direct about what PVENG is trying to do as an employer: build successful employees who can deliver results for their customers.

“Our mission is making our employees and our customers successful,” he says. “We want them to be successful in their careers for as long as they’re with us and beyond that, if they choose to leave. But we’ve been lucky. We’ve had quite a few people that have been with us for nearly 20 years.”

That philosophy shows up in the details. PVENG moved to a 37.5-hour work week and a hybrid schedule—two days in-office, three from home. While other companies are pulling their employees back into the office, PVENG is sticking with what works.

During the pandemic, they paid staff for eight hours while asking them to work seven, encouraging people to go outside, take care of their mental health, and build community where they could. When the dust settled, the shorter work week became permanent.

Every year, each employee receives a total compensation report—a transparent breakdown of salary, vacation pay, RRSP contributions, benefits, bonuses, and dividends. 

“If you’re leaving just because of the salary, keep in mind there’s other things that impact your total home earnings,” he says.

It’s a practice Munn started in 2015, and one that’s rare enough that even benefits providers have taken notice.

The team also gathers regularly, not for mandatory all-hands meetings, but for experiences. Glass blowing. Cooking classes. Axe throwing. Bowling. Escape rooms. The philosophy is simple: you spend a lot of hours with your team, so they should be people you genuinely want to spend time with.

Community matters outside the office, too. PVENG recently formalized a corporate social responsibility program, dedicating a percentage of profits to employee-nominated charities, including Food4Kids Waterloo Region and Nutrition for Learning.

Long tenures, meaningful milestones

PVENG takes longevity seriously and recognizes it in ways that feel earned. At five years, employees have their RRSP matching doubled and receive an engraved Cross pen with a dual-colour ink cartridge and pencil tip built in.

“We combine a financial reward with a token to recognize the milestone. How engineering is that?” Munn says.

At ten years, a framed keepsake and a $10,000 vacation bonus—with a condition. You have to actually take the trip and bring back a photo for the frame. The bonus repeats every five years after that.

“If an employee stays with you for 10 years, that’s a big deal,” Munn says. “Think of all the training you haven’t had to redo, all the knowledge you’ve kept within the company. $10,000 over 10 years is a drop in the bucket.”

Finding a recognition system that would actually stick

PVENG had tried recognition programs before. They hadn’t taken hold, not because the culture wasn’t there, but because the programs required too much internal maintenance to sustain.

“It was a struggle to keep going. It was a lot of maintenance on our part,” Munn says. “So the idea of having a gift box show up for everybody, where all we have to do is pick up the box works out really well. Everybody looks forward to getting their gift box.”

The spark came from an unexpected place—a doctor’s office. Munn spotted a display with a staff member’s name, a LEGO™ figure, and a row of bricks marking each year of service. He filed it away and started thinking about how to build on it. When he came across Chocolate Soup, the pieces clicked into place.

It also helped that LEGOs were already part of the fabric at PVENG. 

“We have a bunch of LEGO enthusiasts in our office,” Munn says. “It’s an engineering company. Not surprising.”

A core values wall you can actually build

Since joining Chocolate Soup in March 2024, PVENG has built a recognition program that’s become one of the most visible parts of their culture.

Every employee receives a LEGO minifigure kit with a personalized name brick, a branded PVENG brick, and a background wall listing their core values and core purpose. The core values are listed on one side with an explanation of what each value means on the back. The same goes with their core purpose brick that displays “Making our people and our clients successful” on the back. Anniversary bricks are added each year. Birthdays are celebrated too. And the bricks go on display at each person’s desk, where they build, stack, and arrange however they see fit.

“Everybody has them designed differently, from a standard straight wall to some never-ending staircase to a tower. It’s interesting to see. And the longer they’ve been there, the bigger the wall they can build,” Munn says.

The monthly ritual that drives it all

On the third Thursday of every month, PVENG gathers the whole team for a catered lunch and a stand-up meeting. At the end of the meeting, something special happens.

Each month, employees can recognize a fellow employee for demonstrating one of PVENG’s core values. Anyone can nominate a colleague by emailing with the person’s name, the core value they demonstrated, and the story behind it. Each nomination is read out in full so the whole room gets to hear exactly why someone went above and beyond. Then, names are drawn from a custom 3D-printed flange filled with coins (each stamped with an employee’s name) and two winners take home a $50 gift card.

But the brick might matter more than the gift card. Winners receive a special core value brick—one they can only earn through peer nomination. 

“Now we’ve got people trying to collect the whole set,” Munn says. “It’s fun to listen to them talk. Somebody walks around the office and says, ‘How come everybody has LEGO on their desks?’ And you get to say, ‘This is our core values. It’s right there on the LEGO.’”

The nominations were leadership-driven at first—intentionally so. Munn knew that if the program was going to take root, someone had to model it.

“For the first probably almost six months, we’re going to have to do all the nominations ourselves,” he says. “Otherwise it’ll just die. Everybody else knows it’s the flavour of the month—they just wait it out and it’ll be gone.”

Now, a monthly reminder email goes out and the nominations pour in on their own. The program has taken root exactly as intended.

A recruiting tool no one planned for

One of the more unexpected outcomes of the program has been its role in hiring. PVENG brings final-round candidates in for in-person interviews and walks them around the office. What those candidates see on every desk is a growing brick wall.

Co-op students get their own piece of that story. The idea came from a student who noticed the walls and asked if they could get a brick too. Now, every co-op receives a brick stamped with their cohort year—Co-op 2026, Co-op 2025, and so on going back years. When a new co-op candidate comes in for an interview and sees “Co-op 2011” and “Co-op 2013” still on the desks of full-time engineers, the message lands without a word being said.

“They see there’s a career path here for them,” Munn says.

It’s the kind of culture that can’t be faked. You can’t put a 20-year LEGO wall on a desk if the people behind it didn’t actually stay. 

And at PVENG, they do.