At Mercer Canada, the Mercer Cares business resource group facilitates community building through its annual day of volunteering, featuring a park clean-up.Supplied
From the moment he started working for Mercer Canada in Toronto in 2021, Christian Figueiredo says the firm made every effort to help him feel he belonged there. This included connecting the recent university graduate with other employees in an instant support network.
“Mercer made sure my buddy system included someone just a couple of years into their career right on up to very senior colleagues,” says Figueiredo, an actuarial analyst on the Wealth team in Toronto. “They all made me feel welcome and valued.”
Angelita Graham, partner and office leader in Toronto, says Mercer takes onboarding seriously, providing consultant training. People managers, for example, support colleagues by setting expectations and helping them understand what it takes to develop in their careers, and how Mercer will help them achieve their goals.
“People want to know what the future looks like,” says Graham. “At Mercer, you’ll be supported and mentored by a community of peers and leaders who will help you to learn, grow and advance your career.”
For Graham, it’s a clear example of a consulting firm practicing what it preaches. Mercer works with employers to design and manage benefits programs with a focus on employee well-being, including their physical, emotional and financial health.
The pandemic posed unprecedented challenges when the majority of Mercer Canada’s employees were working from home. Acting on the same advice it was providing clients, the firm asked its people managers to stay in regular contact with their teams to make sure employees were getting the support they needed.
Graham says this was especially important for analyst-level new hires like Figueiredo, who were also working remotely but, unlike their colleagues, had never worked in the office.
“We didn’t want anybody to feel isolated or alone,” Graham says. “We arranged lots of virtual opportunities for them to interact with colleagues and feel connected to the firm.”
After extensive planning for a safe and healthy return to the office, Mercer has adopted a flexible, hybrid model. Graham says that a higher percentage of Generation Z works on site, more often than other generations.
It’s an opportunity, she adds, for those who were onboarded during the pandemic to expand their networks as they can meet face to face with people they simply never had an opportunity to encounter virtually.
Mercer’s inclusive culture also facilitates community building via its various business resource groups such as Mercer Cares, PRIDE and the Rising Professionals Network.
Figueiredo says that among the people he routinely interacts with, both formally and informally, are some of the firm’s most senior leaders. But until he started working there, he adds, he didn’t understand what it meant when others spoke highly of Mercer’s “flat culture.”
Given his undergraduate degree in actuarial science, Mercer was an obvious choice for him as a potential employer, he says. Then, as he researched the firm, he was impressed by both its purpose, making a difference in people’s lives, and its first-class benefits package.
Now, he says, Mercer’s non-hierarchical workplace environment tops the list of reasons he enjoys working there.
“The senior leaders are very approachable and eager to assist because they care about you as a person,” he says. “I can’t imagine that happens everywhere, but it’s invaluable when you’re just starting your career.”
More from Greater Toronto’s Top Employers
Advertising feature produced by Canada’s Top 100 Employers, a division of Mediacorp Canada Inc. The Globe and Mail’s editorial department was not involved.