Hewitt's <i>50 Best Employers in Canada</i>

When the economy is struggling, organizations should focus on employee engagement in order to cope with the downturn and be better positioned for recovery, according to findings from Hewitt Associates' 2010 50 Best Employers in Canada study.

“The 50 organizations that appear on the 2010 list of the 50 Best Employers in Canada faced the same challenges confronting virtually all employers, yet managed to maintain high employee productivity and commitment to organizational success,” said Neil Crawford, national leader of the Hewitt study.

“Now that the economy is starting to recover and the demand for talent is heating up again, these employers will be able to retain key people, thanks to their focus on sustaining and improving high employee engagement.”

The results from this year’s study are based on survey responses from more than 108,000 Canadian employees, with additional input from over 1,200 leaders and human resources professionals, in 134 organizations.

'Recession-proof' behaviour

This year, an average of 80 per cent of employees at the 50 Best Employers were classified as engaged versus 69 per cent of employees at participating organizations overall. Organizations with high engagement stated their employees exhibited the following behaviours during the recent downturn:

• Support for improving productivity. Employers reported employees endorsed the introduction of new technologies and processes. They were ready to make changes to help improve the business.

• Willingness to make trade-offs. In several cases employees opted for reduced salaries and/or hours of work for all staff rather than see some co-workers laid-off.

• High trust and confidence in leaders. Employees really believed their leaders were the right people to confront and overcome the challenges faced in tough times.

While the “right way” to engage employees varies from one workplace to the next, one characteristic common to all organizations with high engagement is open, transparent, complete and timely two-way communication, said Emond.

Economic downturn results in higher engagement

Data from the 2010 study indicates average employee engagement across all study participants is higher than it was one year ago — 69 per cent versus 65 per cent.

“The fact that employee engagement increases during an economic downturn is not unexpected,” stated Ted Emond, a senior consultant in Hewitt’s Toronto office. “One of the determinants of engagement is a willingness to remain with one’s current employer, so when there are fewer options, many employees are glad to stay put and hang on to the job they have.”

However, the “stay” factor is only one of three behaviours Hewitt assesses in the study's employee survey component. The other two are “say” — how positively employees speak about their employer to others — and “strive” — how motivated they are to go “above and beyond” to contribute to business success. When employees respond positively to questions about all three factors, they are engaged. The average engagement score for the organizations that ranked amongst the year’s 50 Best Employers was 80 per cent, up from 76 per cent for last year’s list.

“When employers drill down into the data they receive as a study participant, they are able to determine whether their scores are higher because overall engagement has increased, or simply because employees are stuck. If the latter, organizations run the risk of losing key talent to competitors once the economy improves," said Emond.

50 Best Employers 2010