Is your organization’s health and wellness program a cut above? Is your pension plan communications better than the rest? Is your diversity program or mental-health program worthy of recognition?
Benefits Canada’s annual Workplace Benefits Awards is now open for nominations. Submit your entries here.
The 2018 awards include a new category for financial wellness, an area that’s growing in importance as employers seek to promote and support their employee’s overall financial health.
Read: Workplace Benefits Awards’ winners celebrate success
“I think a large part of it is because there’s fewer companies that are offering benefits plans or retirement plans, pension plans, those types of things,” says Cissy Pau, principal consultant at Vancouver-based Clear HR Consulting Inc. Employers need to look at other ways they can help their employees plan for the future and look after their financial health and success, she adds.
Another issue around the importance of financial wellness is productivity, according to Pau. “We find certainly in cities like Vancouver, where cost of living is high and home prices are high and all of that, that people are having a harder and harder time making ends meet or paying their bills or paying their rent or their mortgage.
“And I think we’ve all been there, that if financial pressures, if you can’t pay your bills or if your credit card debt is high, you aren’t able to focus as well and you’re not as productive. So I think more employers are seeing that.”
Read: 2017 Workplace Benefits Awards winners announced
The full list of categories for the 2018 Workplace Benefits Awards are:
- Benefits plan communications
- Health/wellness program (<1,000 employees)
- Health/wellness program (1,000+ employees)
- Mental health
- Diversity program
- Drug/benefit plan innovation
- Pension plan communications
- Pension performance
- Financial wellness program
- Absence management
- Industry leadership
Last year’s award winners include Lakeside Process Controls Ltd., CAA Club Group, Fidelity Canada and the Alberta Local Authorities Pension Plan.
Nominations will be accepted until June 30, 2018. Visit the Workplace Benefits Awards site to submit a nomination or complete an entry for your organization.