Engaging our people

Our employees are an important part of the communities they serve, and connect us with Canadians in every corner of the country. They are a critical link in helping Canadians complete their online shopping journey. They are trusted by Canadian consumers and businesses, and proudly give back to the places they call home.

We have an important responsibility to keep our employees safe, engaged and informed. Together with our unions, we made progress in 2019 on several initiatives and identified areas where we can improve.

Embed health and safety into our culture

Safety

The health, safety and well-being of our employees is our highest priority.

In 2019, we reduced our injury frequency significantly, as measured by two key indicators – total injury frequency (TIF) and lost-time injury frequency (LTIF). TIF is the annual number of total injuries per 100 employees. Lost-time injury frequency is the annual number of injuries per 100 employees that caused an employee to miss at least one day of work after the day of injury.

In 2019, our TIF was 10.06, 9.9 per cent better than in 2018. The LTIF was 4.60, 12.4 per cent better than in 2018. Slips, trips and falls are typically our most common type of injury, and we reduced them by 10 per cent in 2019 compared to 2018. In our second most common type of injury, manual material handling, we reduced injuries by 7 per cent.

Several efforts contribute to these improvements. Our Make it safe, Make it home program began a fresh company-wide conversation about safety. The program gives team leaders and all employees the tools they need – includingvideos, documents and other resources – to stay safe on the job. Make it safe, Make it home has been the catalyst behind many grassroots initiatives across the country, such as their own music videos, which illustrate how enthusiastically our employees are committed to safety.

Health and safety training in 2019 included well over 120,000 hours of training on areas critical to safety, and Safety Leadership Training was completed by nearly 1,500 team leaders.

We work collaboratively with our unions at a national and local level to improve safety throughout the company. Our National Joint Health and Safety Committees and Local Joint Health and Safety Committees include Canada Post employees represented by our various unions, as well as management employees.

While we are encouraged by our progress in reducing injuries in 2019, we recognize we need to do more to build a world-class health and safety culture.

Keep wellness in mind

In 2019, we launched a mental health and wellness program – Keep wellness in mind. It reflects our belief that our employees' mental well-being is as important as their physical safety.

Keep wellness in mind is for everyone at Canada Post: full-time, part-time and temporary employees – and their families. It helps them respond to everyday challenges and life-changing situations. It provides confidential 24/7 access to expert advice and information. In addition to the resources available, we trained 1,627 team leaders across the country in mental health leadership.

In 2019, we also extended Employee and Family Assistance Program benefits to more than 9,000 temporary employees. We also doubled the benefits available for psychological counselling for employees and family members eligible for the Extended Health Care Plan, and implemented flexible work arrangements to help employees better manage their work and home life.

Build alignment with our unions

We are working collaboratively with our unions to support our employees, tackle challenges facing the company and achieve shared goals. Examples from 2019 include:

• Canada Post, the Association of Postal Officials of Canada, the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association (CPAA), the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada – Union of Postal Communications Employees (PSAC) collaborated around reducing our environmental footprint.
• In December 2019, Canada Post and the CPAA reached a five-year collective agreement, without any labour disruption. The agreement followed more than a year of respectful and collaborative discussions and was later ratified by CPAA members.
• In late 2019 and early 2020, in partnership with all our unions, we planned and launched a Diversity and Inclusion Committee that is facilitated by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion.
• We worked collaboratively with the PSAC to implement flexible work arrangements for all of our PSAC-represented employees after changes to the Canada Labour Code took effect in 2019.

Create a workplace of choice

We are working hard to be a preferred employer and to build a workplace that attracts, grows and retains talent. We want our employees to feel engaged and connected with Canada Post and proud of where they work. Several initiatives in 2019 helped us toward that goal:

• We launched a company-wide engagement survey in October 2019. Employees' feedback confirmed some of our strengths – such as their pride in serving Canadians, the importance of a diverse workforce and our commitment to safety – and identified areas for improvement. We shared the results with employees to ensure their voices are heard as the company evolves. We will continue communicating with them as we make changes to improve as an employer.
• We launched a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to help our workplace reflect Canadian society. Of the four employment equity designated groups, women and visible minorities are well represented at Canada Post. The number of Indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities working at Canada Post increased by 7.6 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively, but we are still below the Canadian labour market availability. To help us hire employees from underrepresented groups, we established new partnerships with the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work, the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Program, and Carleton University's David C. Onley Initiative.