Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 48
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CANADA’S TOP SMALL & MEDIUM EMPLOYERS (2026)
For One, a great workplace means great employees
N
icholas Rawluk
arrived as CEO at
One Insurance
Group Inc. in 2022,
prepared to make
the sort of changes in workplace
culture he deemed necessary for
the brokerage’s long-term success.
“When I learned we started
people at two weeks holidays, I
said, ‘You know what? A job is
two weeks, a career is three,’” says
Rawluk.
“Long-term relevance means
investing in ourselves,” he
explains. “We want to ensure that
we’re looking after our people and
treating them right, because that’s
how you attract and keep great
people.”
An expanded 10-day sick leave
soon followed, along with a lower,
five-day short-term disability
threshold and increased mental
health coverage. “Anytime our
employees bring forward a need,
it’s something we will look at to
see if we can enhance our benefit
programs,” Rawluk says. “We
even expanded our sick leave
provisions so that employees can
use it for appointments for their
pets.”
One’s workplace culture
continues to evolve, according
to team lead Ashlee Schmidt —
especially since a 2023 merger
with BSI Insurance expanded
Winnipeg-based One’s Manitoba
branches to 28. “They clearly
merged the benefit packages as
well, taking the best of both,”
says Schmidt. “We now have not
just better vacation time and
health spending accounts but a
quite phenomenal 24/7 employee
assistance plan.”
And those developments are
only part of a steadily improving
employee experience, emphasizes
Schmidt, an eight-year veteran.
“I’ve always loved it here, but we’re
now a lot more connected across
locations than we were before. We
can work from other branches,
which is a great way for us to get
to know each other and really
helpful for clients,” Schmidt says.
“Being able to immediately aid
clients, who are often coming
to you at one of the worst times
in their lives, whether they’re in
Altona and you’re in Winnipeg, is
wonderful.”
That’s part of adapting to a
constant state of change in the
insurance industry, says Rawluk.
“That’s why we’ve expanded
massively in our HR and training
departments, to assure our people
that we’ll be there to help support
them and have their backs.”
Schmidt deeply appreciates how
One — where the majority of the
workforce and executive team are
female — supports continuing
education and attendance at
events like the annual Women in
Insurance Summit.
“They also sent us to the
Institute for Catastrophic
Loss Reduction’s new Climate
Resilience Centre here in
Winnipeg. It was an opportunity
to consider the catastrophic events
that we’ve been seeing — last year
was a terrible year of wildfires in
Manitoba — and learn how to
help educate our clients,” Schmidt
We want to ensure that we’re looking after our people
and treating them right, because that’s how you
attract and keep great people.
Employees at One Insurance Group attend the staff carnival.
— Nicholas Rawluk
President & CEO
