Recognized as one of Manitoba's Top Employers (2025):
By Richard Yerema and Kristina Leung, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Mar 10, 2025)
Here are some of the reasons why Red River Cooperative Ltd. was selected as one of Manitoba's Top Employers (2025):
- Red River Co-op donated more than $1.7 million to over 70 community initiatives in the past year, and encourages employees to get involved in their communities with one paid volunteer day each year
- Red River Co-op helps employees plan for life after work with contributions to a defined contribution pension plan -- retiring employees are also able to ease into the next chapter with phased-in retirement work options
- Red River Co-op encourages ongoing employee development with full tuition subsidies for courses both related and not directly related to their current role, as well as subsidies for professional accreditations
Red River Co-op goes the extra mile for staff
When days got shorter and temperatures plunged, employees at the gas bars and supermarkets of Red River Cooperative were visited by teams from the company’s human resources and management teams. It’s one of several ways to pull staff from all over Red River’s many Manitoba locations closer together.
Blue Monday is the winter employee appreciation program designed to give morale a boost during the toughest stretch of the retail year. Murray Dehn, vice-president of human resources, describes bringing “coffee and hot chocolate — just as a reminder that hey, we’re thinking about you today.
“This initiative highlighted our employee and family assistance program, allowing us to emphasize the importance of mental health support for our workforce and their loved ones.”
For Deb Choate, a supervisor cashier at Red River’s Lagimodiere gas bar, it’s the sort of thing that makes it such a “great Canadian company.”
She talks about her team at Lagimodiere as “a really good crew, all the way up from our part-time pump attendants and cashiers. Red River is probably one of the last places in Canada with full-service pump attendants, which is becoming a lost art, but I know our customers really appreciate it.”
Dehn says that company culture became a priority in 2024, after the organization did a survey across all its team members. This year, employees will be invited to join a culture committee to help plan charity work and other efforts to give back to the communities Red River serves.
The company offers paid volunteer days for team members who want to represent the company at May’s Manito Ahbee Festival, the Winnipeg Folk Festival or Pride.
“We’ve had a lot of support for Pride,” Dehn says, “and a lot of team members have come to walk in the parade and help set up.”
Communication from the main office on initiatives like local charities or support for Ukraine is detailed and frequent, says Choate. “There’s a lot of promo material handed out at the store level, what a project is all about and how we go about decorating the stores. Sometimes we’ll even have local radio stations drop in and have barbecues out from for different initiatives.”
She’s particularly proud of Red River Co-op’s support for local businesses whose products get stocked in the grocery stores and gas bars. “Co-op’s big model is ‘love local’ and they really do,” Choate says. “We have a lot of smaller businesses that have spots within our store, providing goods, and it’s a nice mixture of big brands and small names.”
With team members spread out all over Winnipeg and the surrounding area, Dehn says, consistent messaging is key. “We really focus on front-line department managers and store managers, trying to communicate clearly with them. It's a group effort where we have to work on how that communication gets down to the front-line team member.”
“You meet all the top dogs,” Choate says. “They’re in here all the time and they talk to you like you’re part of the team. I’m 57 years old so I’ve been around in the retail industry. This is one of the most community-oriented places I’ve ever worked.”
