A Great Company to Work For

Canadian Tire is a retail powerhouse, and it is also a great place to work. There are many divisions in the company from retail stores to distribution centers to their Head Office.  I’ll focus mainly on their Head Office in this post. It’s a tough interview process to get in, but once you’re in, you’ll want to stay there!

Their Head Office is located at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto, a great location when it comes to getting to work via public transit. It’s also a bustling intersection with many places to go out with your work mates for a casual lunch or after work drink. There is a great atmosphere in their HO with everyone being close to the same age, meaning lots of comrade.  CT likes to encourage team lunches and events (like bowling for example) to promote a positive attitude and happiness in the workplace. They also like to have a full afternoon outside of the office for team activities twice a year. CT has a lot of events to boost their Jumpstart charity like raffles, dress down day, BBQ day, Ice Cream day, etc. – all money raised goes to Jumpstart charity. They even have VP smoothie day – you buy a smoothie from your favourite VP and money is donated.

Another great aspect of working for CT is the stock options. Employees can use up to 10% of their paycheck to buy CTC shares, and at the end of the year, CT matches half your contribution. For example, if you purchase $4,000 worth of stock, then CT will match $2,000. You can then choose what to do with that money like put it into RRSP’s, take it out as cash, etc.

Who doesn’t love their time off? CT allows vacation to be carried over for 10 months into the next year. This means that if you have 3 weeks’ vacation and you didn’t use one, you can carry it over until October of the following year essentially giving you 4 weeks off in that year. It’s a great flexibility to have when it comes to planning major life events like a wedding! CT also gives their HO employees the afternoon off every Friday of a long weekend so they can get started early. Small things like this really go a long way in boosting employee morale and loyalty to the company. And of course, if it’s needed, you are allowed to work from home occasionally which is helpful if you live far away or if there is inclement weather that prevents you from getting to work and you don’t want to lose a day.

One of the most important aspects of working for CT is how the managers spend a lot of time with the employees on career progression. They believe it’s always better to promote from within and want their employees to be happy in their position. They like to work with you get to where you want to be by helping you develop skills and by offering free in-house classes like Excel, Access, etc.  They even have classes such as “Business Writing 101” or “How to be a Skilled Presenter”.  These courses are pricy ($500+) but company will pay for it. It’s nice to work for a company that is truly invested in your future.

Canadian Tire cares about its employees and understands that a happy employee works harder for their company. How do these benefits of working for CT compare to what your place of employment has to offer?

To fin a job at Canadian Tire, click here.

Many thanks to the Canadian Tire employees interviewed for this post.