Did you know that CTC is officially a Great Place To Work? In November 2024, we were honoured with truly exciting news as our company earned Great Place To Work certification. Great Place To Work is a Canadian organization that is the “global authority on workplace culture,” highlighting select companies across the country as spots where individuals would actually enjoy working.
It is one thing to run a successful business, but being a company with a positive culture is wildly important to us, and although we don’t do it for the awards, it certainly is a treat for our team at CTC to be told that we have reached that goal. How do we create a friendly, supportive, and welcoming environment at CTC? Let us tell you.
Creating trust
As the Great Place To Work organization notes, “a great workplace is one where employees trust the people they work for.” We strive to create a deep trust in our team members right from the moment they start their journey at CTC. For an employee to do their best work, they need to know that their management team will mean what they say, follow through on promises, and listen to their employees.
CTC senior account manager Sarah Masur says that is a big reason she has loved her time at the company. “The ‘open door policy’ demonstrated at CTC makes me feel comfortable to share openly, raise concerns when they arise, and lean on my team for support when I need it,” she says. Amanda Adams, senior manager of marketing and communications at CTC, echoes Sarah’s words, noting that “Everyone has an opportunity for their voice to be heard, whether it’s your first day on the job or if you’ve been here for six years.”
That openness and trust is key for Aarti Mistry, CTC’s people and culture manager, who says her time with the company has been nothing but positive. “The environment at CTC is wonderfully collaborative and dynamic,” she says. “What truly makes CTC so inviting is the culture of trust, respect, and shared purpose. The open communication and strong focus on employee well-being create an atmosphere where you feel valued and inspired to contribute every day.”
Without that trust in one’s leaders and team members, the work environment will be fragile and filled with uncertainty. We have an open-book approach to running a team and company, so there is nothing but trust going both ways from management to employees.
A mutual pride
The Great Place To Work website also lists pride as a must for any company hoping to earn this certification. Any company can provide its employees with a list of tasks to complete day after day with no more motivation other than a paycheque. This can work, and there are many companies out there that get results with this method, but they’re the expected results. Do X and our company will get Y. When a team member has a sense of pride in their work, they will go above and beyond what is expected of them, producing better-than-expected results and elevating the business.
Further, if your team is full of people who are proud of the work they’re completing every day, your office will be an extremely pleasant one. It will be apparent to anyone who visits that the team enjoys their work, and it will make those visitors wish to find a similar work environment. Good pay is great, but money is not going to be fulfilling enough for most people. Instead, sow a company-wide sense of pride and your team will actually be excited to come to work every day instead of dreading it and wishing for the weekend.
Camaraderie in the workplace
Finally, the Great Place To Work list ends with camaraderie. Employees must “enjoy the people they work with” in order for their company to truly be a great place to work. Think about your favourite job — the job that you enjoyed the most in your working life. It doesn’t matter what that job was, whether it’s the most “impressive” one on your resume, an entry-level position that you got right after graduation, or a part-time gig you did while in high school. Whatever that job is for you, we bet that your fond memories of it are largely due to the people you were working with. Were we right?
You don’t have to become best friends with all of your coworkers for a company to be a great place to work, but if you like everyone you work with and have fun with them, your overall enjoyment of that job is going to skyrocket. That’s why hiring is so important, and it’s up to management to create a positive work environment by filling it with great, likeminded employees. CTC builds camaraderie through frequent social gatherings - whether they be virtual or in-person - that celebrate our team and our recent accomplishments.
CTC – a great place to work
There are many other details that go into making somewhere a great place to work. As already noted, we didn’t create such a team, company, and environment for the recognition, nor did we follow a checklist to make sure that we were creating a positive work environment for our team. We simply followed our own compass and built a team around us that shares our values. We hired employees who respect us and whom we respect back. We created a culture that people want to be a part of. With all that said and done, we knew that CTC was a great place to work, and we’re very happy that other people seem to think so, too.
Interested in joining our team? Visit our website to find out more!
