Canada’s Top 100 Employers publisher sees the bar being raised
Over the years, employers have continually raised the bar when it comes to what they offer employees. At least, that’s certainly how things seem from the publisher’s desk at the annual Canada’s Top 100 Employers, now going into its seventh edition.
With the aim of ferreting out what innovative practices and policies Canadian organizations are offering employees, publisher Anthony Meehan said the first one or two issues were heavy on such “bells and whistles” as foosball tables and sleep rooms.
But the editors started noticing the bread and butter stuff — top-ups for maternity leave, tuition reimbursement, retirement saving contributions — seem to be getting better and better all the time, especially among organizations vying to be a top employer.
When Mediacorp Canada Inc. first published the list, it was uncommon to see organizations offer top-ups for maternity leave. Now the organization that doesn’t offer it is the rarity.
“The same thing with vacation. When we started it was unusual to find anyone with three or four weeks’ vacation (for first-year employees),” said Meehan. “I’m happy to say now that there are only 17 (organizations) in the book that offer two weeks. The rest (offer) at least three. Some of them even give five weeks.”
As publisher of the job classified Canada Employment Weekly, Mediacorp researchers start out by compiling a list of employers that are actively hiring over the year.
“We still write for the jobseeker, so you might be a great place to work but if you’re not hiring, there’s not that much we can say about you,” he said.
They then invite those companies to submit applications. This year, out of 12,000 organizations invited, 1,500 employers started the application process and 500 eventually completed it.
Researchers then organize the list by industry, so they can compare apples to apples. Companies that have too few industry peers in the applicant pool are set aside for later editions.
That has been the case with the chain restaurant industry. This year was the first the editors have seen a large enough sample to be able to say with confidence what the standards are and which companies are the best.
That honour went to Oliver Bonacini Restaurants, said Meehan, who described the southern Ontario chain as an industry leader in terms of staff development.
“They’re the first employer that we’ve seen that really tries to make a job in the restaurant business a career. They do things like they’ll take their chefs and sommeliers down to New York for a week to go see how fantastic restaurants are done,” he said.
Among new sectors in this edition is public event promotion. The Toronto International Film Festival came out ahead for its “fantastic benefits,” said Meehan. These include free film tickets all year, free staff passes for the film festival, tuition subsidies for courses at outside institutions and parental leave top-ups for up to 26 weeks.
The private school sector also made the list for the first time this year. The top employer in this category is Appleby College in Oakville, Ont. The perks it offers employees include free breakfast, lunch and dinner at the cafeteria and free access to on-campus fitness facilities. The school also makes annual contributions to an employee’s pension plan amounting to 8.9 per cent of salary and matching contribution up to six per cent of the salary to a retirement savings plan.
Although the process of putting together Canada’s Top 100 Employers does not include surveying employees, as is the practice with a few rankings such as 50 Best Employers in Canada or Great Places to Work in Canada, Meehan’s not worried about the credibility of the list.
Whenever the editors of the book come across anything that’s unusual, such as a 90-per-cent maternity leave top-up, “we have to see the supporting material for it,” said Meehan.
Plus, every year, employees will write in with their feedback and these all go into the editors’ assessment of employers for the following year.
Asked why he has avoided employee surveys, Meehan said it’s something that they’re considering for future issues.
“We’re fairly adamant about the competition not becoming a satisfaction survey. And the reason is the whole purpose for the book is to shed some light on innovative practices,” he said.
“You can have wonderful employers where everybody’s happy but that are not doing tremendously interesting things. The problem is it’s difficult for other people to learn from that.”
The top 100 for 2007
Each year, the editors of Mediacorp Canada Inc.’s Canada’s Top 100 Employers invite thousands of organizations to take part in the competition. They assess participants in seven key HR areas: physical workplace, work atmosphere and social environment, health, financial and family benefits, vacation and time off, employee communications, performance management and training and skills development.
On those bases, they’ve identified the following as the best employers in the country. Employers are listed alphabetically:
•Abebooks Inc., Victoria
• Alcoa Aluminerie de Deschambault S.E.N.C., Deschambault-Grondines, Que.
•Algorithmics Incorporated, Toronto
•Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc., Toronto
•AltaGas Ltd., Calgary
•Altana Pharma Inc., Oakville, Ont.
•Appleby College, Oakville, Ont.
•Assiniboine Credit Union Limited, Winnipeg
• The Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario, Toronto
•Atlantic Lottery Corporation Inc., Moncton, N.B.
•Bank of Montreal, Toronto
•Bayer CropScience Inc., Calgary
•Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, Toronto
• Business Development Bank of Canada / BDC, Montreal
•Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa
•Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Toronto
•Cementation Canada Inc., North Bay, Ont.
•Ceridian Canada Ltd., Winnipeg
•Christie Digital Systems Canada, Inc., Kitchener, Ont.
•Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa
•Conexus Credit Union, Regina
•Cronus Technologies Incorporated, Saskatoon
•Dalsa Corporation, Waterloo, Ont.
•Diagnostic Chemicals Limited, Charlottetown
•Dofasco Inc., Hamilton
•Durham Regional Police Services, Oshawa, Ont.
•Ecotrust Canada, Vancouver
•Effem Inc., Bolton, Ont.
•Enbridge Inc., Calgary
•Epcor Utilities Inc., Edmonton
•Ernst & Young LLP, Toronto
•Export Development Canada, Ottawa
•Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Toronto
•Farm Credit Canada, Regina
•Fidelity Investments Canada Limited, Toronto
•G.A.P. Adventures Inc., Toronto
•General Dynamics Canada, Ltd., Ottawa
•Golder Associates Ltd., Burnaby, B.C.
•Great Little Box Company Ltd., The, Richmond, B.C.
•The Halifax Herald Limited, Halifax
•Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation, Hamilton
•Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co., Mississauga, Ont.
•Hill & Knowlton Canada, Toronto
•HSBC Bank Canada, Vancouver
•I Love Rewards Inc., Toronto
•iAnywhere Solutions, Inc., Waterloo, Ont.
•IKEA Canada Limited Partnership, Burlington, Ont.
•Indigo Books & Music Inc., Toronto
•Jacques Whitford Limited, Dartmouth, N.S.
•Keane Canada, Inc., Halifax
•KPMG LLP, Toronto
•Kwantlen University College, Surrey, B.C.
•Laurentide Controls Ltd., Kirkland, Que.
•Law Society of Upper Canada, The, Toronto
•L’Oréal Canada Inc., Montreal
•Manitoba Liquor Control Commission, Winnipeg
•MBNA Canada Bank, Ottawa
•MDA Corporation, Richmond, B.C.
•Medavie Blue Cross, Moncton, N.B.
•Microsoft Canada Co., Mississauga, Ont.
•Mintz & Partners LLP, Toronto
•New Flyer Industries Ltd., Winnipeg
•North Atlantic Refining Ltd., Come By Chance, Nfld.
•Oliver Bonacini Restaurants, Toronto
•Patient News Publishing Inc., Haliburton, Ont.
•PCL Constructors Inc., Edmonton
•Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals (Canada), Kirkland, Que.
•PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Toronto
•Procter & Gamble Inc., Toronto
•Progressive Solutions Inc., Vernon, B.C.
•Research In Motion Limited / RIM, Waterloo, Ont.
•Rogers Insurance Ltd., Calgary
•Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa
•Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottawa
•Russell Investments Canada Limited, Toronto
•SAS Institute (Canada) Inc., Toronto
•SaskTel, Regina
•Seven Oaks General Hospital, Winnipeg
•Shell Canada Limited, Calgary
•Sophos Inc., Vancouver
•Spruceland Millworks Inc., Acheson, Alta.
•Sun Life Financial, Waterloo, Ont.
•Suncor Energy Inc., Calgary
•Syngenta Crop Protection Canada, Inc., Guelph, Ont.
•Thomson Nelson, Toronto
•Toronto Hydro Corporation, Toronto
•Toronto International Film Festival Group, Toronto
•Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc., Cambridge, Ont.
•University Health Network, Toronto
•University of Toronto, Toronto
•Urban Systems Ltd., Kamloops, B.C.
•Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Vancouver
•City of Vancouver, Vancouver
•Veer Incorporated, Calgary
• Vivendi Universal Games, Inc., Radical Entertainment, Vancouver
•Wardrop Engineering Inc., Winnipeg
•WorleyParsons Komex, Calgary
•Yanke Group of Companies, Saskatoon
•Yellow Pages Group, Île des Soeurs, Que.
•The Regional Municipality of York, Newmarket, Ont.
With the aim of ferreting out what innovative practices and policies Canadian organizations are offering employees, publisher Anthony Meehan said the first one or two issues were heavy on such “bells and whistles” as foosball tables and sleep rooms.
But the editors started noticing the bread and butter stuff — top-ups for maternity leave, tuition reimbursement, retirement saving contributions — seem to be getting better and better all the time, especially among organizations vying to be a top employer.
When Mediacorp Canada Inc. first published the list, it was uncommon to see organizations offer top-ups for maternity leave. Now the organization that doesn’t offer it is the rarity.
“The same thing with vacation. When we started it was unusual to find anyone with three or four weeks’ vacation (for first-year employees),” said Meehan. “I’m happy to say now that there are only 17 (organizations) in the book that offer two weeks. The rest (offer) at least three. Some of them even give five weeks.”
As publisher of the job classified Canada Employment Weekly, Mediacorp researchers start out by compiling a list of employers that are actively hiring over the year.
“We still write for the jobseeker, so you might be a great place to work but if you’re not hiring, there’s not that much we can say about you,” he said.
They then invite those companies to submit applications. This year, out of 12,000 organizations invited, 1,500 employers started the application process and 500 eventually completed it.
Researchers then organize the list by industry, so they can compare apples to apples. Companies that have too few industry peers in the applicant pool are set aside for later editions.
That has been the case with the chain restaurant industry. This year was the first the editors have seen a large enough sample to be able to say with confidence what the standards are and which companies are the best.
That honour went to Oliver Bonacini Restaurants, said Meehan, who described the southern Ontario chain as an industry leader in terms of staff development.
“They’re the first employer that we’ve seen that really tries to make a job in the restaurant business a career. They do things like they’ll take their chefs and sommeliers down to New York for a week to go see how fantastic restaurants are done,” he said.
Among new sectors in this edition is public event promotion. The Toronto International Film Festival came out ahead for its “fantastic benefits,” said Meehan. These include free film tickets all year, free staff passes for the film festival, tuition subsidies for courses at outside institutions and parental leave top-ups for up to 26 weeks.
The private school sector also made the list for the first time this year. The top employer in this category is Appleby College in Oakville, Ont. The perks it offers employees include free breakfast, lunch and dinner at the cafeteria and free access to on-campus fitness facilities. The school also makes annual contributions to an employee’s pension plan amounting to 8.9 per cent of salary and matching contribution up to six per cent of the salary to a retirement savings plan.
Although the process of putting together Canada’s Top 100 Employers does not include surveying employees, as is the practice with a few rankings such as 50 Best Employers in Canada or Great Places to Work in Canada, Meehan’s not worried about the credibility of the list.
Whenever the editors of the book come across anything that’s unusual, such as a 90-per-cent maternity leave top-up, “we have to see the supporting material for it,” said Meehan.
Plus, every year, employees will write in with their feedback and these all go into the editors’ assessment of employers for the following year.
Asked why he has avoided employee surveys, Meehan said it’s something that they’re considering for future issues.
“We’re fairly adamant about the competition not becoming a satisfaction survey. And the reason is the whole purpose for the book is to shed some light on innovative practices,” he said.
“You can have wonderful employers where everybody’s happy but that are not doing tremendously interesting things. The problem is it’s difficult for other people to learn from that.”
The top 100 for 2007
Each year, the editors of Mediacorp Canada Inc.’s Canada’s Top 100 Employers invite thousands of organizations to take part in the competition. They assess participants in seven key HR areas: physical workplace, work atmosphere and social environment, health, financial and family benefits, vacation and time off, employee communications, performance management and training and skills development.
On those bases, they’ve identified the following as the best employers in the country. Employers are listed alphabetically:
•Abebooks Inc., Victoria
• Alcoa Aluminerie de Deschambault S.E.N.C., Deschambault-Grondines, Que.
•Algorithmics Incorporated, Toronto
•Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc., Toronto
•AltaGas Ltd., Calgary
•Altana Pharma Inc., Oakville, Ont.
•Appleby College, Oakville, Ont.
•Assiniboine Credit Union Limited, Winnipeg
• The Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario, Toronto
•Atlantic Lottery Corporation Inc., Moncton, N.B.
•Bank of Montreal, Toronto
•Bayer CropScience Inc., Calgary
•Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, Toronto
• Business Development Bank of Canada / BDC, Montreal
•Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa
•Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Toronto
•Cementation Canada Inc., North Bay, Ont.
•Ceridian Canada Ltd., Winnipeg
•Christie Digital Systems Canada, Inc., Kitchener, Ont.
•Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa
•Conexus Credit Union, Regina
•Cronus Technologies Incorporated, Saskatoon
•Dalsa Corporation, Waterloo, Ont.
•Diagnostic Chemicals Limited, Charlottetown
•Dofasco Inc., Hamilton
•Durham Regional Police Services, Oshawa, Ont.
•Ecotrust Canada, Vancouver
•Effem Inc., Bolton, Ont.
•Enbridge Inc., Calgary
•Epcor Utilities Inc., Edmonton
•Ernst & Young LLP, Toronto
•Export Development Canada, Ottawa
•Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Toronto
•Farm Credit Canada, Regina
•Fidelity Investments Canada Limited, Toronto
•G.A.P. Adventures Inc., Toronto
•General Dynamics Canada, Ltd., Ottawa
•Golder Associates Ltd., Burnaby, B.C.
•Great Little Box Company Ltd., The, Richmond, B.C.
•The Halifax Herald Limited, Halifax
•Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation, Hamilton
•Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co., Mississauga, Ont.
•Hill & Knowlton Canada, Toronto
•HSBC Bank Canada, Vancouver
•I Love Rewards Inc., Toronto
•iAnywhere Solutions, Inc., Waterloo, Ont.
•IKEA Canada Limited Partnership, Burlington, Ont.
•Indigo Books & Music Inc., Toronto
•Jacques Whitford Limited, Dartmouth, N.S.
•Keane Canada, Inc., Halifax
•KPMG LLP, Toronto
•Kwantlen University College, Surrey, B.C.
•Laurentide Controls Ltd., Kirkland, Que.
•Law Society of Upper Canada, The, Toronto
•L’Oréal Canada Inc., Montreal
•Manitoba Liquor Control Commission, Winnipeg
•MBNA Canada Bank, Ottawa
•MDA Corporation, Richmond, B.C.
•Medavie Blue Cross, Moncton, N.B.
•Microsoft Canada Co., Mississauga, Ont.
•Mintz & Partners LLP, Toronto
•New Flyer Industries Ltd., Winnipeg
•North Atlantic Refining Ltd., Come By Chance, Nfld.
•Oliver Bonacini Restaurants, Toronto
•Patient News Publishing Inc., Haliburton, Ont.
•PCL Constructors Inc., Edmonton
•Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals (Canada), Kirkland, Que.
•PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Toronto
•Procter & Gamble Inc., Toronto
•Progressive Solutions Inc., Vernon, B.C.
•Research In Motion Limited / RIM, Waterloo, Ont.
•Rogers Insurance Ltd., Calgary
•Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa
•Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottawa
•Russell Investments Canada Limited, Toronto
•SAS Institute (Canada) Inc., Toronto
•SaskTel, Regina
•Seven Oaks General Hospital, Winnipeg
•Shell Canada Limited, Calgary
•Sophos Inc., Vancouver
•Spruceland Millworks Inc., Acheson, Alta.
•Sun Life Financial, Waterloo, Ont.
•Suncor Energy Inc., Calgary
•Syngenta Crop Protection Canada, Inc., Guelph, Ont.
•Thomson Nelson, Toronto
•Toronto Hydro Corporation, Toronto
•Toronto International Film Festival Group, Toronto
•Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc., Cambridge, Ont.
•University Health Network, Toronto
•University of Toronto, Toronto
•Urban Systems Ltd., Kamloops, B.C.
•Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Vancouver
•City of Vancouver, Vancouver
•Veer Incorporated, Calgary
• Vivendi Universal Games, Inc., Radical Entertainment, Vancouver
•Wardrop Engineering Inc., Winnipeg
•WorleyParsons Komex, Calgary
•Yanke Group of Companies, Saskatoon
•Yellow Pages Group, Île des Soeurs, Que.
•The Regional Municipality of York, Newmarket, Ont.
