Best Employers in Canada Study Celebrates a Decade of Helping Canadian
Organizations Become Employers of Choice
TORONTO, April 8 /CNW/ - The annual Best Employers in Canada study is
underway for the tenth time. All organizations that have operated in Canada
for at least three years and have 50 or more employees are eligible. Employers
with 50 to 399 employees may take part in the Best Small & Medium Employers in
Canada study, conducted by the Queen's University School of Business and the
Queen's Centre for Business Venturing in conjunction with Hewitt Associates, a
global human resources company. Larger employers are invited to participate in
Hewitt's Best Employers in Canada study.
"We're looking for organizations that are really interested in doing all
they can to engage their employees," said Neil Crawford, leader of Hewitt's
Best Employers in Canada study. "Employers with a highly engaged workforce
have the right people in the right roles with the right human resources
practices to meet their needs and enable them to do their job well." In order
to measure employee engagement, the Best Employers studies include an employee
opinion survey.
Attaining or maintaining high employee engagement is more of a challenge
in a tight labour market. "Employers that participate will have access to
Hewitt's value-added analysis that will enable them to identify those people
practices that can have the most positive impact on employee engagement at
their organization," said Crawford. "This information provides real insight on
what actions these organizations need to take to attract and retain the people
they need."
Additional Advantages of Participation
While the ability to benchmark and determine the steps necessary to
improve employee engagement are the primary reasons to participate in the Best
Employers studies, there are other benefits as well:- Access to the most comprehensive database of employee and leadership
opinion in Canada-employers are able to compare their results to
Hewitt's database that covers over 50 sectors of the Canadian
economy, including industry, organization size, geographic location,
level of employee engagement, etc.
- The opportunity to be publicly recognized as one of Canada's best
employers-the year's 50 Best Employers will be recognized in both the
Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine and the French-language
newspaper, La Presse.
- Groundbreaking research in the area of employee health and well-
being-probing the relationship between engagement and personal
health, job stress and workload. The study will also examine employee
perceptions of organizational programs and practices that support
employee health and financial well-being-and the impact of these
programs and practices on employee engagement."In addition, where a large enough group of employers participates from a
particular industry, Hewitt will create a 'sub-study' so that organizations
can compare their results to those of their peers," stated Crawford. "This
information will be particularly useful for employers competing for the same
pool of employees. Industry associations may want to consider inviting their
members to participate in order to have access to that data."
Interested organizations have until May 31 to register online to
participate. All surveying will be complete by the end of June.
"We'd like to see a record number of participants this year to celebrate
our tenth anniversary," said Crawford. "Organizations from Atlantic Canada,
the public sector, and the manufacturing industry have seldom appeared on Best
Employer lists, so we're sending out a special call-to-action to these
employers."
For additional information about the Best Employers in Canada study and
to register online, please visit the Best Employers Web site at
www.hewitt.com/bestemployescanada.
About Hewitt Associates. For more than 65 years, Hewitt Associates (NYSE:
HEW) has provided clients with best-in-class human resources consulting and
outsourcing services. Hewitt consults with more than 3,000 large and mid-size
companies around the globe to develop and implement HR business strategies
covering retirement, financial and health management; compensation and total
rewards; and performance, talent and change management. As a market leader in
benefits administration, Hewitt delivers health care and retirement programs
to millions of participants and retirees, on behalf of more than 300
organizations worldwide. In addition, more than 30 clients rely on Hewitt to
provide a broader range of human resources business process outsourcing
services to nearly a million client employees. Located in 33 countries,
including Canadian offices in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and
Regina, Hewitt employs approximately 23,000 associates. For more information,
please visit www.hewitt.com.
For further information: Marcia McDougall, Hewitt Associates, (416)
227-5713, marcia.mcdougall@hewitt.com
