The University of Toronto has been named one of Canada’s Top Employers for 2022.
The Canada’s Top 100 Employers designation is a national benchmark for workplace best-practices. Top Employers are scored on eight criteria: physical workplace; work atmosphere and communications; financial benefits & compensation; health and family-friendly benefits; vacation and personal time-off; employee engagement & performance; training and skills development; and community involvement. The 2022 results were published in the Globe and Mail on November 12, 2021.
Each year, the Division of People Strategy, Equity & Culture submits a comprehensive application highlighting U of T’s collective efforts to be an outstanding employer to the staff, faculty, and librarians working across our three campuses in downtown Toronto, Scarborough, and Mississauga.
Some of the reasons for U of T’s selection for the 2022 award include our generous health and family benefits that extend to retirees, contributions to employees’ defined benefit pension plan, and the University’s actions to enact sustainable, systemic change with regards to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Also recognized was the University’s extraordinary response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The past year has seen radical changes to the world of work,” says Kelly Hannah-Moffat, Vice-President, People Strategy, Equity & Culture. “The pandemic has required a great deal of determination and innovation from all of our faculty, librarians, and staff to maintain our steadfast commitment to excellence. Being recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for 2022 is a meaningful acknowledgement of that ongoing work.”
U of T introduced a variety of new initiatives in 2021 that contributed to a healthy and inclusive work environment, and provided the supports necessary for our faculty, librarians, and staff to succeed in their careers.
In keeping with our commitment to protect the health and safety of our community, in spring 2021 U of T partnered with its affiliated hospitals and public health authorities to set up vaccine clinics at key locations on campus to support a historic immunization campaign.
A mass vaccination site at U of T Mississauga opened the first week of March 2021 with an initial capacity to deliver up to 2,000 doses per day. A few weeks later, the University Health Network worked with U of T and Toronto Public Health to launch a second site inside the University’s Exam Centre on the St. George campus, boosting vaccination capacity in the heart of the city. The University also distributed 250,000 face masks to community members.
Recent programming delivered by U of T’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO) includes the Restore Program, an initiative focused on providing wellness, healing, and support to students, staff, faculty and librarians to address the impacts of racism and anti-Black racism in their own lives or in the broader community.
The series of virtual workshops was offered in partnership with Toronto-based wellness activator, Allison Hill. Hill and her team of therapists, counsellors, and trauma-informed yoga instructors delivered a program—with over 2,000 participants—tailored to the U of T community.
In addition to this programming, Wisdom Tettey, vice-president of the University of Toronto and principal of the University of Toronto Scarborough and Karima Hashmani, Executive Director, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion organized the National Dialogues and facilitated consultations to produce a draft of the Scarborough Charter, offering principles, actions, and accountabilities to dismantle anti-Black racism and foster Black inclusion in the Canadian post-secondary sector.
The 2020 Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Report will provide more information about our tri-campus equity initiatives, including the development of an Anti-Black Racism Task Force, Antisemitism Working Group, the ongoing work of the Anti-Islamophobia Working Group, and our commitment to addressing the U of T TRC Calls to Action. Together, these activities created opportunities to remove systemic barriers for the University community.
The University of Toronto has more than 20,000 faculty, librarians, and staff working across our three campuses in the Greater Toronto Area. Each plays a vital role in advancing the University’s mission to foster an environment in which learning and scholarship flourish.