Third year in a row! CIUSSS West-Central Montreal among Montreal’s top employers

For the third year in a row, CIUSSS West-Central Montreal has been named one of Montreal’s Top Employers, a reflection of its efforts at optimizing working conditions to help staff deliver outstanding health care and social services.

This makes the healthcare network one of only several dozen Montreal organizations and companies in the public and private sectors to have been singled out in the local edition of the annual survey organized by Mediacorp and the editors of Canada’s Top Employers.

The announcement comes less than a month after a survey by Forbes magazine ranked the Jewish General Hospital, a member facility of the CIUSSS, among the best employers in Canada.

To be chosen as one of Montreal’s Top Employers, the CIUSSS had to distinguish itself in eight key ways:

• physical workplace
• work atmosphere and social health
• financial and family benefits
• vacations and time off
• employee communication
• performance management
• training and skills development
• community involvement

According to Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, the CIUSSS’s President and CEO, the recognition is especially meaningful after the difficult year the CIUSSS has spent fighting COVID-19 and ensuring that staff have the ability to persevere.

“In these times of high demand on our network, it is a real honour to receive this distinction,” Dr. Rosenberg says.

“Although our regular activities have been disrupted by the pandemic, the managers of our CIUSSS can be proud of having placed the satisfaction of the 12,000 employees in our network at the centre of their attention. Our employees have also been given access to specific programs that support them in their professional and personal lives.” 

“As an organization that cares about the well-being of its employees, we have very quickly developed several tools to help and support our employees during the pandemic,” says Beverly Kravitz, Director of Human Resources, Communications, Legal Affairs and Global Security for the CIUSSS.

These include a hotline for employees with COVID-19 symptoms, a psychosocial crisis line to support employees and managers during the pandemic, an Employee Assistance Program, a daily bulletin to keep employees well informed, and meditation sessions and other means of helping staff ease stress and anxiety.

“In addition, we have hired more than twice as many new resources in the past year to address the needs felt in this pandemic,” Ms. Kravitz says.

In general, she notes, the CIUSSS offers training in leadership development, mentoring programs, paid internships and career path management. “Regardless of the facility, our CIUSSS can be seen as a place for long-term career development.

“The benefits that are offered, the flexible working hours, the teleworking opportunities, the work-study-family balance, and the number of weeks of vacation or assistance with retirement planning are all elements in attracting high-calibre candidates and retaining talented and dedicated employees.”