Alberta's Top Employers (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 52
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ALBERTA’S TOP EMPLOYERS
PCL employees act like owners — because they are
S
ome workplaces in
recent years have been
afflicted by a “quiet
quitting,” whereby
disengaged employees
resign themselves to doing the
bare minimum at their jobs
without going so far as giving
notice. “You don’t see that here,”
says Harmony Carter, vicepresident, people and culture at
PCL Construction. “Why would
you quietly quit from your own
company?”
When Carter says “own,” she
means it literally. Headquartered
in Edmonton — with 5,200
salaried employees spread over
more than 30 offices across North
America — PCL is 100 per cent
employee-owned. Once a year,
workers at all levels have the
opportunity to acquire shares
with their own cash or through
a payroll deduction plan and the
vast majority take part. They are
then eligible to receive dividends.
There’s been this commitment as an organization that teamwork
and collaboration mean
showing up for one
another.
— Harmony Carter
Vice-President,
People and Culture
“All of the profits at PCL are
paid out to our employees — 100
per cent,” Carter says. Beyond the
mechanics of the arrangement,
though, it fosters a culture of
PCL Construction not only builds structures but also focuses on building careers and communities.
ownership and accountability few
large organizations can match.
“People take their jobs seriously
and understand that they are
contributing to a larger cause,”
says Kayla Spencer, a business
systems analyst who joined PCL
as a student four years ago. “We
have a pretty good understanding
of how our own individual
contributions make up a piece of
the pie that is PCL.”
That doesn’t mean employees
always have their noses to the
grindstone, however. Spencer
says both her manager and her
mentor (a senior executive she’d
approached at a company event)
encouraged her to get involved in
personal development activities,
serving as co-chair of the Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
committee and sitting on a panel
with Women United: a campaign
of the United Way Alberta Capital
Region (one of several charities
PCL supports). She also graduated
from the in-house E3 Leadership
Certification program.
“Most of the stuff I’ve been
involved in, I don’t think I would
have known about or had the
capacity to do if it hadn’t been
for both my mentor and my
manager,” Spencer says.
PCL is also a company that
listens to its employees — most
pointedly, through an annual
engagement survey, the results of
which are published — and acts
on their concerns. Over the past
year, the company made changes
to its parental leave top-up pay,
compensation for vacation time
and provided additional clarity
around professional development
programs in response to employee
feedback. After all, they are the
