Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 54
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CANADA’S TOP SMALL & MEDIUM EMPLOYERS (2026)
Rubicon offers enticing perks to get and keep the best
D
aniel Pascucci, vicepresident with
Rubicon Strategy
Inc., is looking
forward to being
at home full-time with his
10-month-old daughter. He plans
to be on paternity leave from
April to June “taking lots of walks
and changing lots of diapers and
working on nap times. My plan is
to watch my daughter grow and to
be a part of it — and know that she
knows that her father is there at
this juncture of her life.”
Pascucci is taking this break
thanks to a generous benefits
package that, among other perks,
offers employees on paternity and
maternity leave a top-up to 100
per cent of their salary for up to 78
weeks.
A 30-person lobbying firm based
in Toronto and Ottawa, Rubicon’s
main business is helping Canadian
companies deal with governments
in six select areas of practice:
health, energy, defence, mergers
and acquisitions, transportation
and labour.
“We are a professional services
company,” says Kory Teneycke,
Rubicon’s co-founder and CEO.
“Our product is the knowledge
and expertise of the people who
work with us. Recruiting and
retaining the best people in the
market is critically important to
our business.”
Top-up pay for parental leave is
one element of a suite of employee
benefits all designed to handsomely reward Rubicon’s hard-working,
devoted staff, Teneycke says, adding, as the father of an 18-year-old
and a 20-year-old, that “paternity
leave wasn’t a thing in my day.” But
today, Rubicon’s leave top-up differentiates it from other employers
and is geared to Rubicon’s largely
millennial employees, Teneycke
says, noting “many staffers are in
their peak child-rearing stage
of life.”
Overall, incentives are used
to reinforce a united workforce,
Teneycke says. “Our workplace
culture is important. We want to
bring in the best people — and to
retain them. We want people to be
happy to come into the office.”
Teamwork is important at
Rubicon, Teneycke says. While
teams are aligned to the firm’s
practice areas, there is a lot of
collaboration. “This is very much a
people business. We advise clients
on a range of issues. If I can use a
sports analogy, they are hiring a
coach and a general manager to
work with them to come up with
a plan and a strategy,” Teneycke
explains. “There has to be a high
level of integration with the clients
and the trust relationship that is
built with clients over time is very
important.”
Pascucci describes Rubicon’s
office culture as “a family-like
atmosphere. Everyone is working
We’ve created a culture in the office to support one
another all along the way. Rubicon works as a
cohesive team. Everyone has everyone else’s back.
Employees at Rubicon Strategy enjoy breakfast with colleagues before starting the day.
— Daniel Pascucci
Vice-President
