Results from Aon Hewitt’s annual Best Employers in Canada study have been announced, identifying those organizations with the highest levels of employee engagement. The list of winners will appear in the Oct. 31 issue of Maclean’s magazine and the Nov. 3 edition of La Presse.
The study ranked 261 Canadian employers and measured the engagement levels of more than 112,000 employees.
According to Aon Hewitt’s definition, employees are engaged when they “say, stay and strive”: they speak positively about the organization, are committed to remaining with their current employer, and are motivated by their organizations’ leaders, managers, culture and values to go “above and beyond.” The average engagement score for best employer organizations was 78%; the average for other participants was 58%.
“Those organizations ranked highest on the list have employee engagement of close to 90%,” said Neil Crawford a principal at Aon Hewitt and leader of the study. “That’s an impressive accomplishment, particularly now when many parts of the Canadian economy are showing signs of recovery and employee attraction and retention is becoming more challenging.”
The study also revealed certain demographic trends that affect employee engagement.
Years of service
Employees with less than one year of service have the highest average engagement score (75%), but that number drops to 65% in the second year. It then dips further to 59% between two to five years of service, before gradually starting to rise. This trend holds true for even the 50 best employers, but in their case, engagement is higher in the first year of service, and the decline through the second to fifth years of service is more modest.
“This information clearly shows that once the honeymoon is over, organizations that don’t focus on engagement run the risk of losing experienced, trained staff along with the significant financial investment that accompanies the hiring and onboarding of new employees,” said Todd Mathers, a principal with Aon Hewitt.
Generation
Generally speaking, engagement levels increase with age. The youngest employees are most likely to consider alternate job opportunities. However, best employers are better at engaging younger (i.e., millennial) employees and consequently are more successful at retaining them.
Job role
Perhaps not surprisingly, employees in executive roles are more engaged than those in more junior positions. The exception is administrative/clerical support workers, who may be the least senior, but are more engaged than front-line employees or those in professional/specialist/technician roles. Best employers show consistently high levels of engagement across all roles.
Company size
The number of employees in an organization seems to have little impact on engagement levels. Organizations with 10,000 or more employees have an average engagement level of 67%, while those with 200 or fewer workers score 66%, on average.
“We also see that average engagement is higher in certain industries,” said Mathers. “Employee engagement is high at construction and engineering firms, as well as at pharmaceutical companies and banks. IT services and the retail industry have lower engagement on average, although there are companies within these segments that have highly engaged workforces.”
To learn more about the study or to register to participate, visit hewitt.com/bestemployerscanada.
The top ten employers for 2012 are:
- EllisDon Corporation
- Cisco Canada
- WestJet
- CIMA + Partners in Excellence
- Bennett Jones LLP
- Farm Credit Canada
- OpenRoad Auto Group Ltd.
- McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited
- Delta Hotels & Resorts
- Federal Express Canada Ltd.