Canada’s Best Employers 2019

Canada’s Top 100 Employers releases its 19th annual list.

Every year, Mediacorp Canada Inc. releases a list of the Top 100 employers in Canada based on a number of factors from workplace environment and social benefits to community work, reflecting the changing needs and goals of Canadian employers and the workforce alike.

CWB National Leasing Inc. topped the list for 2019, followed by Desjardins Group, Diamond Schmitt Architects, and Digital Extremes, with Emera Inc. rounding out the top five.

According to Mediacorp, the country’s largest publisher of employment periodicals, a record number of employers took part in this year’s selection process and the company went through the recruitment histories of more than 95,000 firms to compile the list.

Mediacorp invited 9,801 employers to submit detailed applications, including a comprehensive review of their operations and HR practices that compare them to others in their industry and region.

The eight criteria used to compile the list include work and social atmosphere; health and family benefits, and training and skills development. Yet the inclusion of factors such as community involvement point to changing perceptions of the role and purpose of work for both employees and employers.

“We are seeing more time off for employees to work in the community, more matching funds for their fundraising efforts, more donations in return for employees’ volunteer hours – there’s more robustness in these programs,” Richard Yerema, Managing Editor at Mediacorp Canada Inc., said in a press release on the community involvement element.

As Anthony Meehan, a publisher at Mediacorp, added, “the federal government in late 2017 extended maternity and parental leave to 18 months from one year. Already, two of this year’s winners – the City of Toronto and Vancity – have updated their policies to include a longer benefit top-up period for employees, following the federal change.

“As society changes, organizations with an ear to the ground are paying attention and supporting these changes internally,” Meehan said.

Employers were evaluated based on the following list of eight common pillars and then compared to similar organizations in their fields to determine which company was doing the best.