Canada Life embraces new ways of working

Even though he’d done an eight-month co-op placement with The Canada Life Assurance Company, Adrian Barker knew it would be an adjustment when he launched his career at the company with a permanent role in 2017.

“It was a big step moving from the classroom to a professional working environment,” says Barker, associate manager of search engine marketing in Canada Life’s Digital Hub.

Fortunately, the company’s onboarding program made the transition a whole lot easier. “I felt welcome from the start,” says Barker. “There was a lot of communication leading up to day 1. They told me what I could expect and where I fit in.”

Canada Life is committed to supporting its employees personally and professionally, says Colleen Bailey Moffitt, senior vice-president, human resources. That commitment starts with onboarding and continues at every level of their careers through mentoring, professional development and career planning.

“We encourage employees to work directly with their leaders to create a development plan that identifies the goals and capabilities they want to build on. They revisit their plan annually, if not more often,” says Bailey Moffitt. “That’s supplemented by ongoing training and development.”

Pre-pandemic, the training and development team facilitated in-person workshops on topics like personal effectiveness and leadership capabilities. Since March 2020, the vast majority of employees have been working remotely. Nevertheless, they have still had access to these opportunities, as the company’s learning and development team now offers hundreds of virtual seminars, videos, audiobooks and modules through the company’s online professional development platforms.

Canada Life has maintained its tuition support program for full-time, permanent employees. They are entitled to receive up to $2,000 annually to cover course fees and study materials.

The company has traditionally hired about 200 students annually for co-op, interim and permanent positions and that has continued during the pandemic. Although the focus is on actuarial and accounting students, it recruits from a wide range of disciplines. Apart from skill sets, Canada Life is also focused on diversity and inclusion.

“We really want to attract diverse employees who can bring their unique perspectives and help us grow and evolve,” says Bailey Moffitt.

The inevitable next step in that evolution is what will happen as the country emerges from the pandemic. As an insurer, Canada Life was deemed an essential service and had to have small teams – up to 10 per cent of employees – in their offices, some of whom were in customer delivery roles.

Bailey Moffitt says the company will take a gradual approach to bringing people back, and that their plans will evolve alongside public health guidelines and evolving market practices – with employee safety and experience remaining a top priority.

“We won’t exceed 25 per cent capacity at any of our main office locations for the foreseeable future,” she says. “When it’s safe to welcome more employees into the office, it won’t be a one-size-fits all approach. We’re committed to a hybrid, flexible model where we can achieve the best of both working remotely and in the office, with our customers’ needs at the centre of that approach. We’re putting a lot of tools in the hands of our business leaders to decide what the best and most appropriate hybrid model is for their teams.”

The company had adopted flexible work arrangements pre-pandemic, but Bailey Moffitt estimates that less than 10 per cent of the workforce took advantage of it. In the future, she says, many employees will continue working remotely part of the time.

For his part, Barker says he’s adapted to working remotely, but still yearns for the office once in a while. “Being brought in as a younger employee in our digital working environment, it’s been business as usual. I have everything I need to work effectively at home. I know it can be challenging for some, though,” he says. “I’m a sociable person so I get a lot of value being at the office with my colleagues, and I look forward to seeing them in-person again when it’s safe to do so.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top 100 Employers winners, published November 12, 2021 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.