A What Makes an Organization a Top Employer?

SHADY HANA

Professor, Project Manager Academic and Business Initiatives

Pilon School of Business

Earlier this year, Sheridan topped Forbes Magazine’s annual ranking of Canada’s Best Employers — marking the fourth straight year the institution has appeared on the prestigious list. Sheridan also ranked 10th on Forbes’ recent list of Canada’s Best Employers for Diversity. Here, Sheridan Pilon School of Business professor Dr. Shady Hana — Project Manager Academic and Business Initiatives discusses the keys to being considered a top employer.

Oftentimes, when organizations try to set themselves apart as a top employer, they make the mistake of only being concerned about what’s happening outside, whether that be competitors or clients or the environment.

Those are important particulars to monitor, but the biggest key is not what is happening on the outside — it’s what is happening on the inside.

Investing in learning, as well as in training, can make all the difference. McLean and Company’s 2023 HR Trends Report spoke to how three of five employees are leaving organizations due to a lack of visibility of learning and development opportunities. If they can’t see where they might be able to advance in the organization, they often go elsewhere.

Another integral aspect is to create your own customized competency framework. Looking at best practices is always a good idea yet emulating them isn’t necessarily the best case for your company.

Fostering diversity, inclusion and equity has always been important, and creating a sense of belonging is just as important — providing an environment in which employees feel safe to engage and grow while also maintaining the organization’s direction. It’s also critical to constantly review your work processes, policies, procedures and governance to make sure they continue to be meaningful, sustainable, efficient and equitable across the board.

Sheridan is in a very unique position to achieve great things in a very different way because we’re not a college and we’re not a university. We’re different. We are Sheridan. So that puts us in a unique position to create our own competency frameworks and new ways of growing that will work for tomorrow and beyond.

To borrow a saying from McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, “As long as you’re green, you’re growing.”

To me, that is one of Sheridan’s strengths — that we continue to be green and growing all the time. What we’re doing now is better than what we were doing five years ago.