Recognized as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers (2025) and Montreal's Top Employers (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Nov 14, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why CAE Inc. was selected as one of Canada's Top 100 Employers (2025) and Montreal's Top Employers (2024):
- CAE supports ongoing professional development through a number of programs, including in-house conferences on a variety of topics, short-term gig opportunities to enable employees to work outside of their current teams, and a leadership development program that culminates in a capstone project
- CAE moved to a global flexible vacation program, enabling employees to request time off without fixed limits, and offers the option of unpaid sabbatical leave (up to 26 weeks to pursue personal interests or to allow employees to fulfill their needs and responsibilities outside of work)
- CAE supports new parents with maternity and parental leave top-up for mothers, to 100 per cent of salary for up to 26 weeks, and parental leave top-up for fathers and adoptive parents (100 per cent of salary for up to eight weeks)
Collaboration and culture keep CAE flying high
Eight years ago, Jihad El-Hage was an industrial engineering student intern with Montréal-based CAE Inc. Once he graduated from university, CAE offered him a full-time job, and now he is senior manager of the engineering development solutions department.
“I really liked the beginning of my career because I grew and learned a lot,” says El-Hage. He praises CAE’s internal mentoring program for helping him develop at the company. “Past mentors always took the time to guide me, and give me ideas and challenges,” he says. “Now I mentor people inside and outside my department.”
CAE is a made-in-Canada success story known for its commercial, business, and defence aircraft simulators and for training pilots worldwide. CAE has over 240 locations in more than 40 countries. El-Hage says the collaboration among various departments and employees is what successfully brings the solution to the customer.
“We have to work in collaboration while we’re developing whatever is required by the customer,” he says. “We work in parallel to build the simulator and we have that synergy with each other to make sure we’re all aligned.”
Adds El-Hage: “Collaboration is not only going to bring better ideas, it’s going to bring solutions.”
According to Hélène V. Gagnon, chief people and sustainability officer, a key aspect of CAE’s culture is linked to the company’s purpose and mission to equip people in critical roles needed to create a safer world.
“We need to create a safe world and that purpose, to elevate safety, is really something meaningful to all of us,” Gagnon says. This mission is something that motivates employees and brings them together towards a shared goal. “Our key value is that we all collaborate and work together as one CAE,” adds Gagnon.
CAE’s other values of innovation, excellence, integrity, and empowerment also encompass CAE’s culture. “Employees are the driving force of our success,” says Gagnon. “It’s about being creative and innovative in everything that we do.”
Employees can experience that culture every day through CAE’s unique, open workspaces that provide different ways of working and adapt to different needs. Just this year, CAE released a guide on neurodiversity for managers, an initiative that came from one of the seven employee resource groups at CAE.
“We support and foster these groups and they really make a difference,” says Gagnon. Among them are groups for professionals from different ethnic backgrounds, for women, veterans, employees with special needs and their families, the Indigenous population, and for the LGBTQ+ community.
Employees also immerse themselves in CAE’s culture by attending special events. For the total solar eclipse last April, more than 1,000 people gathered in CAE’s park with safety glasses provided. In September, over 6,500 people, including El-Hage and his family, attended CAE’s Family Day, where employees were given the opportunity to show their families the company’s technology and share what they do every day.
It’s moments such as these that matter to employees. “I don’t see myself going anywhere else,” says El-Hage.
Recognized as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2024):
Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Jan 22, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why CAE Inc. was selected as one of Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2024):
- CAE operates the "CAE Tech: Program your Career!" initiative for full-time students registered in technology programs from André-Laurendeau, Bois‑de‑Boulogne, Dawson, Édouard‑Montpetit (ÉNA), John Abbott and Montmorency CEGEPs/colleges -- the initiative encourages future technicians from various fields to start a career at CAE by offering traineeships that are integrated into the workplace
- CAE manages the Ken Patrick leadership program for new graduates, a two to three-year rotational program aimed at recruiting and developing new graduates to become future leaders at CAE -- the program includes personal coaching and four rotational assignments in different business sectors
- Students enrolled in the 'CAExplore' internship program are provided with a number of opportunities to build connections with one another and with senior leadership at networking events, in-person conferences and speaker series held during each internship term
Recognized as one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers (2024):
By Kristina Leung and Stephanie Leung, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Mar 4, 2024)
Here are some of the reasons why CAE Inc. was selected as one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers (2024):
- CAE made diversity, equity and inclusion a strategic priority, recently creating a chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer role and all members of the company's executive leadership team, including the CEO, are part of the executive diversity council (overseeing DE&I and also acting as executive sponsors for the company's seven employee resource groups) -- employees and leaders also act as equity ambassadors, forming the Canadian Diversity Council and overseeing local committees dedicated to the four designated employment equity groups
- CAE is committed to a number of DE&I objectives, including increasing the number of diverse leaders by 10 per cent, increasing female employees by 10 per cent, increasing co-op student representation and increasing female board representation to 30 per cent -- DE&I objectives are also included on all employees' talent assessment tools during performance evaluations to ensure actions are top of mind
- CAE created the Women in Flight program to inspire young women to become pilots -- the program works with aviation partners to offer a variety of scholarships that pay for training programs, with recipients becoming ambassadors themselves to inspire other women to choose the pilot career path (just five per cent of the world's pilots are women and 25,000 new pilots are needed every year for the next 10 years)
My coming out was sparked by CAE's "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" initiative originally launched in 2017-2018. Even though I was afraid it would not work well, I was surprised at how smoothly it went, and I am still impressed by the support I have received from our local DE&I group. For almost four years I have been able to come to work with my true self, dressed in a way that is in line with my gender identity. To me it was a childhood dream that came true, and honestly even five to 10 years ago I did not believe it would be possible. I will be grateful for this in the rest of my life. Gabriella Ercsenyi, proposal solutions manager and leads the Prism ERG
I am very proud of the progress we have made in creating an open and progressive workplace. The change has been dramatic. In just five years we went from having 18% women employees globally to 23%, and from 15% women senior leaders to 25%. Just a few years ago, you would not know that anyone at CAE was a member of the LGBTQ2+ community, no one would talk about it, it was as if it did not exist. When we announced that diversity, equity and inclusion were a priority for the company and part of our values, so many people came out and expressed themselves. We started celebrating our thousands of differences. And we started talking about who we are, expressing what it feels like to be the only Black person in the room, or the only woman in a team. We talked about our neurodiversity. We supported each other. And so many of us started to feel like we belong, that we can be ourselves and strive. Pascale Alpha, chief of diversity, equity and inclusion
The Career Directory
CAE Inc. has been selected for The Career Directory, our guide to entry-level recruitment for recent college and university graduates.
