Canada takes great pride in its businesses and does much to help foster a healthy business environment. They invite and even court different companies to set roots down in their country – even Premier Kathleen Wynne went to China near the end of 2015 to woo Huawei into investing in Canada and walked away with a promise of $210 million over the next five years as well as to create another 325 jobs. With new industries popping up and existing businesses growing, many people looking for jobs want to know where are the best places to work…and if you are lucky enough to have a choice, Great Place to Work may have your answer. GPTW (www.greatplacetowork.ca) is the “global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures.”
Great Place to Work just produced a report announcing their ‘2016 List of 100 Best Workplaces in Canada!’ There is actually two lists – the top fifty medium-sized companies with less than 1,000 employees and the top fifty large or multinational corporations with over 1,000 employees. Google Canada won for the best large company, followed by Autodesk Canada, FreshBooks won for the best medium sized company, followed by Vega. They also had a special recognition for Vega as the number one workplace for women. What is interesting to note is not one wireless/mobile carrier made the list – no Rogers, Telus, Bell or any of the regional carriers, which is surprising since Quebec-based Videotron was recently named “Québec’s most respected telecommunications company” for the 11th year in a row.
GPTW did not disclose the specific ways the companies are graded and explained there is no one single way to create a great working environment, but the best companies seem to be able to generate the type of atmosphere that employees like. Money, benefits, and amenities is a big part of it, but it takes more than a big paycheck to offer a GPTW. They believe companies that have employees that, “TRUST the people they work for, have PRIDE in what they do, and ENJOY the people they work with” have the best chance of making employees happy. It would be tough to work for a company where you did not trust your boss or your boss’ boss. It is always nice to like the people you are working with – many hate facing their co-workers. Companies need to realize that when employees are happy, they are more productive, and it helps the bottom-line.