While the labour market in Canada—particularly in the west—may be tighter than it was a year ago, some organizations are managing to achieve high engagement levels and hang on to their employees by offering flexibility, according to Hewitt Associates.
The results of its annual Best Employers in Canada reveals that offering more flexibility does lead to higher engagement. Depending on the specific program, the improvement in employee engagement can range from two percentage points to seven percentage points.
The average employee engagement for those organizations identified as the year’s 50 Best Employers remains unchanged from last year at 77%. Employee engagement is at 58% for other participants in the 2008 study.
“Employee engagement—which measures an employee’s degree of emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization—might have been expected to decrease as the demand for labour begins to exceed supply,” says Neil Crawford, Hewitt’s leader of the study. “However, that hasn’t happened. What we are seeing is that many employers are increasingly focused on how to sustain and increase the engagement of their employees.”
He says employers are committing significant resources and time to listen carefully to all segments of their workforce—and adjust the work environment, their expectations of managers and leaders, and their human resources programs in response to what employees are saying.
The 50 Best Employers are generally more successful at offering the appropriate flexibility and balance than other organizations, especially those at the top of the list.
The top 10 employers in the country are: EllisDon Corporation, Wellington West Holdings, PCL Constructors, Bennett Jones, Edward Jones Canada, JTI-Macdonald, Farm Credit Canada, Envision Financial, Intuit Canada, and GlaxoSmithKline.
For the rest of the best employers in Canada, click here.