Aon Hewitt names best employers in Quebec

The 30 organizations identified as 2012’s Best Employers in Quebec vary widely in terms of industry and workforce size. What they share, however, is high employee engagement, according to research conducted by Aon Hewitt in conjunction with the Queen’s University School of Business. The first annual list of the Best Employers in Quebec appears in the Feb. 21, 2012 issue of La Presse.

Those eligible for the Quebec list are drawn from participants in the 2012 national Best Employers studies. These organizations are headquartered in Quebec and/or have a significant employee population working there.

“The best judges of whether an organization is a Best Employer are employees themselves,” said Andrée Mercier, a senior vice-president with Aon Hewitt in Montreal. “Our research goes beyond measuring satisfaction (how much I like things here) and commitment (how much I want to be here) to engagement (how much I want to and actually contribute to improving our business results). Focusing on improving engagement helps organizations to achieve sustainable success.”

The average engagement score for Quebec’s best employers is the same as the national Best Employers average of 78%. However, when survey responses from Quebec-based workers are compared to those from Canadian employees overall, employees in Quebec are more engaged: the average engagement score in Quebec is 69% versus 63% nationally.

“We believe the reason that Quebec employees are generally more engaged has a lot to do with the engagement of all levels of management in Quebec,” said Mercier. “Engagement scores for both senior and middle management, as well as supervisors, in Quebec surpass the national average for employees in these positions.” Senior managers in Quebec scored 83% for engagement, while the national score was 80%, middle managers scored 75% in Quebec versus 70% nationally and supervisors scored 69% in Quebec versus 66% nationally.

“When all levels of leadership are highly engaged, that enthusiasm and commitment is bound to have a positive impact on other employees in the organization,” said Mercier.

The Top 10 employers according to the survey were:

  1. Vigilant Global
  2. Cisco Canada
  3. WestJet
  4. Farm Credit Canada
  5. McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited
  6. Delta Hotels & Resorts
  7. JTI-Macdonald Corp.
  8. Marriott Hotels of Canada Ltd.
  9. BBA Inc.
  10. Chubb Insurance Company of Canada