"It's been a long time since we've all been together," says Knowles. "And even more, there are people on our team who weren't part of the company when the pandemic hit. It was meeting for the first time, it was reconnecting with our colleagues, and honestly, it was a bit of a sense of euphoria."

Across Canada, many of Canada's Top 100 Employers have been grappling with just when that scenario might play out in their offices. Some are already back, but many more are not. And many, too, are taking the deep dive into what model they want to follow more permanently. Work from home? Everybody in the office? Or the oft-promised hybrid, combining the two?

"Honestly, that's a question that we're still working on as a company," says Beatriz Grubesic, vice-president, people, for Labatt, which is part of the Belgium-based beer group AB InBev. "We are constantly evolving our policies and looking at what type of flexibility we can provide to our office employees, and how hybrid we can go. We're looking at our office space in Toronto, and we're listening to what our employees are telling us. And we're also looking at our company's global guidelines. So we are looking at it from many perspectives."

That pretty much summarizes the dilemmas confronting many Top Employers. "I think what a lot of organizations have learned during the pandemic is, you can function working from home," says Richard Yerema, managing editor at Mediacorp Canada, which runs the competition.

"But you've also learned on the flip side that perhaps the human interaction that happens in a physical workplace is very much part of the glue that binds a workforce. Can you replace it with just people off site? And you've learned about mental health and isolation. So I think these are serious conversations that need to be had."

Some of the employers profiled in the stories that follow have already made their decisions, notably one of the companies at the centre of the global response to the pandemic.

"We have to stop saying 'going back to work' – everybody's working – but 'going back to the site'," says Laura Larbalestier, vice-president of human resources for Pfizer Canada. "And even when we do, Pfizer globally has announced that we will permanently adopt a hybrid model, which means we will not be expecting office colleagues to be at the site more than two or three times a week.

"We want people to come to the office when they need to collaborate with people," Larbalestier says. "You want to have lunch with somebody to talk about a project, or you want to get people in a room and innovate and dream and brainstorm in front of a whiteboard."

Many Top Employers stress flexibility as they listen to what employees want and then look ahead. With good reason. "Flexibility is a key driver in retaining top employees," says Marc-André Malboeuf, vice president, human resources solutions development, for Desjardins Group. He expects a majority of staff to choose a hybrid model. At RBC, Lauren Friese's very title tells much of the story - she is vice president, future of work and culture. Friese, too, believes a flexible system is here to stay. "We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-think how we work," she says.

Kristina Leung, senior editor at Mediacorp Canada, notes that whatever approach employers take, it will need to be balanced. "You can't have the pendulum swing too far in either direction," she says. "Having full autonomy at home is great, but it can be difficult when you're trying to juggle the challenges of family life and work deadlines. Employers may need to look at how they structure workloads."

Yerema says the need for decision-making on these issues has come at unprecedented speed. "It's such a fast-moving target, so companies have had to be adaptive," he says. "This isn't a long-drawn-out conversation they're going to be having over the next decade – they're having it in real time. When you look back in history, we'll see this as a period when organizations were required to respond quickly. It will be a long-lasting legacy."

– Berton Woodward
From the official announcement magazine for Canada's Top 100 Employers (2022), published on November 12, 2021 in The Globe and Mail.