To begin with, every Canadian employer had to figure out, really in a matter of hours, what to do when governments ordered lockdowns in mid-March. At KPMG LLP, with offices in dozens of communities large and small across the country, leaders shifted more than 7,500 people into work-from-home mode in 48 hours. "The health of our employees was number one," says Stephanie Terrill, business unit leader, management consulting, for KPMG in Canada, "and keeping our team together was our top priority. I'm really proud of the speed with which we acted, because speed in a pandemic matters."

Of course, a professional services firm, where nearly everyone has a laptop handy, is one thing. What about the manufacturing enterprises deemed essential services? Employees in plants and factories can't work from home. At snack-maker Mondelēz International, home to such iconic brands as Cadbury, Oreo and Ritz, leaders have been only too aware of that fact -- and their important role in maintaining normalcy at a time of high anxiety for consumers. "We're part of the food supply chain of Canada," notes Mondelēz Canada president Martin Parent.

"The way we did it," he says, "was to make sure that everyone on the front line could perform their jobs safely with the highest level of protection possible. In each of our facilities, we elevated the level of safety measures and screening very quickly. We had nurses on site, we segregated shifts so people would not connect, and we separated people on the manufacturing line. And we did this by the 12th of March." That was five days before the government of Ontario, where the plants are located, declared its state of emergency.

Meanwhile, Top Employers have been going into overdrive to help the community. Mondelēz, finding its comfort-food sales rising, doubled its millions of dollars' worth of charitable donations for the year. Medtronic Canada ULC, a medical technology company, amped up its own production of ventilators, but also shared design specifications so other manufacturers could make them, too. KPMG has been preparing taxes for frontline workers. Novo Nordisk Canada, a healthcare firm, loaned some of its skilled staff to help Diabetes Canada, a critical charity, deal with its workload

"It's no coincidence that the past year has exacerbated many of our underlying social challenges and tested the employer-employee relationship," says Richard Yerema, managing editor of the Canada's Top 100 Employers project at Mediacorp. "One of the positive observations from this year's competition is the benefit to employers of continually revisiting workplace strategies and programs. The very best employers have always been innovators, so they are better prepared to move quickly in response to a rapid challenge like the pandemic."

Looking ahead, employers are also starting to think about the ramifications of working at home. Shopify, Canada's global commerce-platform giant, declared last May that it would become 'digital by default' and keep its office premises around the world closed until 2021. With everyone at home on screens, as its careers website says, "We can hire you (almost) anywhere."

After experiencing large numbers of staff working from home, many Top Employers are positive about the benefits, while still recognizing the needs of employees who can't work from home. In big cities, remote work has eliminated the time and stress of commuting, but it's also laid bare some of the social divisions between white-collar staff and production/frontline employees who aren't able to use tools like Zoom to work remotely. There's also been concern about skills development and onboarding during the pandemic, especially for recent graduates and younger workers.

Still, many leaders see work from home as very effective overall, with quicker virtual meetings, a more productive environment and more relaxed people. "I can't see us going back to 100 per cent in the office," says Maread Lavery, president and CEO of Export Development Canada in Ottawa. "It's been very efficient working from home. People have really enjoyed the flexibility." Virtual meetings, she adds, actually allow more people to speak and contribute.

"Equally," she says, "I don't want to lose the benefit of collaboration and innovation you get with people in a room in front of a whiteboard or a training session, interactively feeding each other and building on ideas. It's much harder to do virtually."

Lavery echoes the conclusion many Top Employers are reaching about the future of work beyond the pandemic. "I think it will be a hybrid model," she says. "And that hybrid model will lead to a greater degree of employee empowerment and more changes to traditional structures, with more self-monitoring, more self-regulation, and more focus on outcomes."

It will be, everyone hopes, the end of hard times soon. For many of this year's winners, it is a far, far better thing that they do, than they have ever done.

– Berton Woodward
From the official announcement magazine for Canada's Top 100 Employers (2021), published on November 13, 2020 in The Globe and Mail.