The big change, of course, is that vast numbers of Canadian office workers continue to work from home at least part of the time, and it's pretty clear things will stay that way long after the pandemic is considered completely over. Many, if not most, of the winners of the Canada's Top 100 Employers (2023) competition have instituted some form of hybrid work program. Staff often come to the office only when necessary, or, say, on a regular two days a week, while many others are, with their employers' agreement, working remotely full-time.

Naturally, employees whose job requires an in-person presence are at their work site – many stayed throughout the pandemic. But it's difficult to find any Top Employers who are insisting that all employees come to the office five days a week, every week. "I'm not aware of any," says Yerema.

Leaders among the Top Employers are still assessing the impact. One of the most sagacious is Bernard Lord, CEO of the health company Medavie and former premier of New Brunswick, from 1997 to 2006.

"The pandemic and what happened in 2020 forced us all to reconsider some of the things we thought were unchangeable," he says, "and we accelerated change significantly because we had to." Now, with the new systems in place, he says, "the relationship between the employer and employee has changed. It is transforming what employees expect."

That's very clear in recruitment, where the ability to work remotely has become a critical piece for applicants. "It's one of the first things they ask," says Lord. "Can I work from home? Do I have to be in the office all the time? What are your rules? And three years ago, no one would ask that question."

For reform-minded leaders like him -- "I am a progressive Conservative," he likes to say – the whole underpinning of traditional workplace life is being swept away. "It's just ignited this desire to be far more flexible, and move away from what I call the Industrial Age philosophy of work, where everybody has to be a clock puncher and be there at a certain time, eight days a week, and take 10-minute breaks. Now people work from home, they may have kids, so they work six hours and then do the other two later."

But for Lord, there's a next step in flexibility, especially since part of his company's business is emergency medical services, where everyone has to be on site for their shift. It is time itself.

"Maybe some people are willing to work only four days a week. Can we accommodate that? Or people want to work eight months in the year and have four months off back to back. Is that possible?

"Now, we're not there yet," Lord continues, "but we're forcing ourselves to ask those questions, to say, Okay, what's the next step in this evolution of work? What's the next step of making this environment even better for the top talent so they choose us?"

All of which is very relevant amid Canada's much chronicled labour shortage – "it's real," Lord says. Kristina Leung, managing editor at Mediacorp Canada, notes that in the past two years, many employees have felt a sense of disengagement.

"Folks have been taking the time to reevaluate and think about what's important to them. There's a lot of selectiveness – where do I want to spend my time, what kind of environment, what kind of organization do I really want to commit to?

"That means employers really need to shore up what they offer in order to compete in the market. And, of course, they also want to retain the folks they have, and that means ensuring that they're feeling engaged and appreciated and seen and heard and valued."

Good advice in the middle of a revolution.

– Berton Woodward
From the official announcement magazine for Canada's Top 100 Employers (2023), published on November 18, 2022 in The Globe and Mail.