Medavie empowers employees to use their voice

Angela Sereda’s employment with Medavie began in an unconventional way. In 2021, Sereda and her husband sold the contracted paramedic company they had built together in Moose Jaw, Sask., to Medavie, and both accepted positions with the company.

“Community was important to us,” says Sereda. “We really invested in our community a lot when we were growing our company. It was important for both of us to choose an organization to sell to that aligned with our own core values and to know that that organization would continue to move our company the same direction that we would have taken it. Medavie had those core values.”

Sereda began her career as a paramedic at just 18 years of age. Three decades later, she is now senior operations manager, overseeing Medavie’s Mobile Integrated Health programs in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Medavie began 80 years ago in Atlantic Canada as Maritime Hospital Service Association, a not-for-profit organization that addressed the need for medical expense coverage in the region. Over the years, the company expanded its insurance offerings to Quebec and Ontario and now provides a range of health-care services including EMS, community-based health-care programs, clinical training and medical communications across Canada. Today, the company is the largest contracted EMS management provider in the country and a premier all-in-one benefits carrier through Medavie Blue Cross.

Looking after the health-care benefits coverage needs of Canadians provides Medavie with a powerful template to guide employee relations as well, says chief human resources officer Greg Bambury. “The mission of our organization is improving the well-being of Canadians,” he says. “That mission starts with improving the well-being of our own employees.”

Bambury says the company works hard to create a culture of support, where employees can shine and excel in both their personal and professional lives. “The challenges that our employees face are broad,” he says. “It’s vital for us to give them the tools and support to deal with those challenges – from a rewards and benefits standpoint, from a development standpoint, a work environment standpoint, a leadership standpoint.”

Creating an environment where employees thrive can mean anything from removing barriers within the organization to seeing objectives through an individual employee’s point of view rather than from the centre of the operation, according to Bambury. Most of all it means finding ways to help employees live their best lives in a holistic fashion, with emphasis on a healthy balance between personal and professional life.

“We always try to think about things from the individual’s perspective first, and then look at the team and the larger construct,” says Bambury. “We emphasize how the individual thinks about their responsibilities, and you can see that in the ways our employees interact with the community.

“When you pick up the phone to talk to someone at Medavie, we want your experience to be differentiated by the fact that this person, this organization, this interaction is one that is values-based and represents our desired culture.”

Sereda says a lot has changed in the 30 years that she’s been in the health-care business. The support she gets from Medavie isn’t something she has always felt in paramedicine. There was a time when individual voices didn’t matter much, and everyone was expected to conform.

“Medavie really empowers us to get involved and to use our voices to help create change,” she says. “They support us with things like diversity, equity and inclusion programs. They allow everyone in the organization to feel included and important. It’s really exciting to be part of an organization that puts people at the top.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top 100 Employers winners, published November 15, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Medavie’s supportive culture makes all the difference

For Mark Peori, his time at Medavie has been part of an enjoyable and satisfying career working at contact centres. For more than two decades, he’s loved the challenge of helping clients navigate complicated problems and systems. “Problem solving is my big thing,” he says.

But during his previous time at other companies, there was one major drawback. His clients appreciated him, but it didn’t always feel like his employers did.

“At a lot of contact centres you’re a number,” he says. “They’re not interested in who you are, they just want your results.”

All that changed about 10 years ago when a friend — a manager at Medavie — told Peori about the culture of the health care company where she worked. He applied for a job soon after. “Medavie does several things differently,” he says. “One is they get to know us. We can talk to our managers as friends, and there’s a good rapport in the office.”

That rapport doesn’t come by chance. Medavie works hard to create a culture of support where employees can excel in all ways, according to chief human resources officer Greg Bambury.

“The challenges our employees face, both in their personal and professional lives, are broad,” he says. “It’s vital for us to give them the tools and support to deal with those challenges — from a rewards and benefits standpoint, from a development standpoint, a work environment standpoint, a leadership standpoint. We are determined to create an environment where our people can shine.”

Medavie is a true Atlantic Canadian success story. The company began 80 years ago as Maritime Hospital Service Association, a not-for-profit organization that addressed the need for medical expense coverage in Atlantic Canada. Over the years, Medavie expanded its business and insurance offerings to Québec and Ontario and added a range of health-care services including emergency medical services (EMS), community-based healthcare programs, clinical training and medical communications across Canada.

Today, the company is the largest contracted EMS management provider in the country and a premier all-in-one benefits carrier through Medavie Blue Cross.

Bambury says that Medavie’s health and wellness mission begins with a focus on the well-being of employees. That means creating an environment where employees can thrive and prosper, both at work and in their lives.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations around our desired culture,” says Bambury. “It’s important for us to be the company that we, our friends, our families want to work for. The mission of our organization is improving the well-being of Canadians, and we wanted to have that mission start with our employees.”

“They don’t just say sit down and do your job,” says Peori. “They talk with us and take an interest in who we are. They find out what’s going on in our lives, what we care about when we’re not at work.”

For Peori, the culture at Medavie has created a noticeable difference. His stress level is lower since he joined the company and he’s been able to take time off to support his family through medical and personal issues. He also volunteers with a number of charities, which Medavie encourages and supports.

“They give me the time to volunteer for programs like Make-A-Wish Canada,” he says. “They take part in volunteer blood drives. They even have a program where they will support charities with a donation if an employee is volunteering with it.

“Medavie has a better culture and a better fit than any place I’ve worked before. It’s a good place.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing the winners of this year's Atlantic’s Top Employers competition, published March 25, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.