Capital One Canada is supporting employee well-being by providing six months of protected leave to volunteer, travel or take time with family. The financial organization launched the program in September after noticing requests for leaves were coming up without a formal process in place. While some employees’ requests were in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, […]
The first issue of Benefits Canada hit the desks of the country’s human resources, benefits, pension and investment professionals in 1977, four years before I was born. That same year, Canada’s inflation rate was eight per cent, very close to July 2022’s annualized inflation rate of 7.6 per cent. A lot has changed in 45 […]
As a fresh-faced elementary school student in 1977, Aaron Bennett wasn’t quite in the target demographic for the freshly launched Benefits Canada magazine. Still, Bennett — now the chief investment officer at Ontario’s University Pension Plan — has a pretty firm grasp on the concerns that would have occupied the minds of his predecessors as […]
Our industry sometimes gets a bad rap for being overly traditional and slow to change. But there’s no question we’ve seen some major shifts in employee benefits over the past 45 years. Three of those shifts will have implications for employers going forward. Greater onus on the individual to save for retirement Over the years, […]
Nearly a third (32 per cent) of Canadian employees say they’re feeling tired or overworked on the job, posing concerns about a correlation between boundaries and burnout, according to a new survey by ADP Canada. The survey, which polled more than 700 Canadian employees, found although two-thirds (67 per cent) feel satisfied in the workplace, […]
While publicly traded real estate investment trusts have been impacted by rising interest rates, the extent of the impact varies from market to market, said Corrado Russo, managing partner and head of global securities at Hazelview Investments, during a session at the Canadian Investment Review‘s 2022 Risk Management Conference. “It’s not shocking to see those [markets] that […]
The use of a four-state probability model can more accurately predict stock market phases and improve investment and risk management decisions, said Tom McCurdy, professor of finance and Bonham chair in international finance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, during the Canadian Investment Review’s 2022 Risk Management Conference. The proposed model incorporates […]
For years prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, there were murmurs about deglobalization as geostrategic tensions grew, nationalism flared worldwide and the coronavirus pandemic stressed global supply chains, said Seth Weingram, senior vice-president and director of client advisory at Acadian Asset Management, during the Canadian Investment Review’s 2022 Risk Management Conference. Since the invasion, that discussion […]
In the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, Shopify Inc.’s chief executive officer Tobi Lutke was among the first technology leaders to declare most of his staff would “permanently work remotely” because “office centricity is over.” His belief in remote work went so far that he even dropped listing Ottawa as the e-commerce giant’s headquarters […]
More than three-quarters (78 per cent) of plan sponsors say they’re concerned about the coronavirus pandemic’s long-term impact on the cost of health benefits plans, up from 71 per cent in 2021, according to the 2022 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey. Among these respondents, 31 per cent strongly agreed with this statement, up from 23 per cent […]