Testimonials | Excellence Canada

Client Feedback

What People are Saying

We could go on and on about Excellence Canada, but sometimes it’s best to let our clients do the talking.

What Our Clients are Saying...

I would like to thank Excellence Canada, you and your team, for your contribution to helping VIA Rail Canada’s achieving the Mental Health at Work certification. I would also like to express my gratitude for your continued collaboration as we further refine our strategy, define our key actions for 2022, and ultimately prepare for the next certification level. During your two-day visit at VIA Rail’s headquarters, you met with six employee focus groups from various organizational levels and carefully reviewed our submission. Your embodiment of Excellence Canada’s mission and the report you shared as well as your expertise and approach in coaching VIA Rail’s team are valuable elements that will contribute to our organizational performance through our mental health and well-being programs. As you know, we have continuously strived to improve both our well-being programs to support our employees and our management practices by providing additional tools to our leaders. We are proud of the award received from Excellence Canada as it is testimony to VIA Rail’s profound commitment to providing a workplace that promotes our employees’ health and well-being. I also wish to express my gratitude for your presence at our Management Committee Meeting which allowed all our senior executives to appreciate your passion and knowledge in matters relating to mental health in the workplace, and in particular of the impact of related initiatives on employee and corporate performance.

Cynthia Garneau, VIA Rail Canada

Excellence Canada provides us with a structure and framework that promotes ongoing improvement, measurement of our progress and verification of our results. Being compared to organizations in industries beyond healthcare gives us a broader view of how our systems, practices and protocols align in relation to quality and safety for our staff, clients and our broader organization. At SE Health, our engagement in the certification process enables us to realize our strengths, share our successes and refine what we do in an impactful, meaningful and progressive way.

Farah Ismail, SE Health

Our partnership with Excellence Canada, including the use of Excellence Canada’s EIW® Standard to enable our “Journey to Excellence,” has been, and continues to be, hugely beneficial. When we started our journey in 2016, the first benefit was the simplest: we acknowledged that we had weaknesses that we needed to address, and we made a commitment to do so. Since then, the journey has provided us with structure and support as we seek to improve. Because of this commitment, we have tools and consistent approaches that help everyone do their work more effectively and result in better end products. We have worked together through this journey. We are connected and supported. No one has to “figure it out” on their own – there is expertise and support for all of us. The Journey to Excellence and our partnership with Excellence Canada has also given a wide variety of employees access to training, events, and opportunities to collaborate with other organizations. This has inspired and empowered them, and our organizational culture has evolved as a result. People know that continual improvement is within their control and that they can make a difference through their own actions. And they take the initiative to do so. Finally, the Journey to Excellence has given us a new language through which we can consider our work. We can question our level of success and strive to do better because we can see and acknowledge where we are falling short and build from it. Where we might have asked “why aren’t clients using our products?” now we can question how well we know our clients and whether we’ve used the right approach to define their needs and then innovate and collaborate on product development. Because of the journey, people have strengthened their commitment to improving our organization. This has created an atmosphere where we take initiative, strive to be better, and help each other to get there.

Excellence Canada’s framework promotes a sound, holistic approach that examines people, leadership, customers, planning and processes – all of which are critical as organizations strive for excellence in everything they do. At SE Health, we appreciate the extraordinary learning opportunity from this framework and we are grateful for the chance to celebrate our successes; to recognize our strengths through the process and to share these successes with our organization and beyond. We remain excited at building on Excellence Canada’s feedback and results to continue developing quality initiatives and programs in new and innovative ways.

Mary Lou Ackerman, SE Health

Process Management – online – covid-19. What a scenario. Could you really ask for a better “perfect storm” to be a student in a class conducted by someone like yourself? Engaging, animated, personable, informative, relevant, current – all come to mind when I think back on the lessons I “attended”. I am disappointed only in that they did not last another week. As I reflect back on previous seminars, courses, classes (in-person or online) throughout my career – hands down, bar none, your classes were the best. I responded well to your energy, and thought process. Thanks for sharing your expertise. And that is how I really feel!!!

Michelle Reynolds, Canada Post

I really enjoyed the CEP program and already find myself applying some of the learnings as we adapt to a COVID-19 world at the City.

Ben Macintosh, City of Toronto

I think both the course content and delivery added a great deal of value and have helped me to identify, clarify & refine processes related to my role. I will be pleased if my experience helps others choose Excellence Canada as their educational partner. Thanks again for the stimulating and valuable virtual distanced learning. Stay safe.

Craig Ervine LL.M, Ph.D., Canada Post

Thank you for the feedback on the assignment, it was a lot of fun to work on and look at recognition in Fire as it is something I was actively trying to figure out. I really enjoyed the course and everything I have learned from this past year. It has helped me broaden my view when it comes to projects, and I look forward to integrating it into all the work I do in the rest of my career. So excited to finally have my CEP designation!! I look forward to a possible reunion!

Laurel Sharp, Toronto Fire Services

Thanks for the feedback! I am happy to report that I am able to put my learning into action during these very challenging times.

Jeanne Martin, City of Toronto

Your videos have been key; I've been following them and reiterating key points to the Sr mgmt staff. Thanks for all you have done, and for continuing to make the music videos that pull us all together. My oldest is 11 and she now wants to make a video. Lol!

Renny Singh, H.BSc., City of Toronto

Thank you for your leadership on this course, your knowledge and expertise on the topic of process management was obvious and you were able to help us to identify and refine the process management in our various roles. Group sessions were very interactive and engaging allowing us to share ideas and expertise among each other with your guidance. All the best.

Sylvie Francoeur, Engineers Canada

I miss everyone from the CEP team. A few of us still keep in touch actually. I'm now helping lead the quality assurance team, tasked with the retrospective review of the investigations, documentation, etc. The QA initiatives have been ramping up and I'm trying to corral all the different processes to standardize things. I actually used a current state process map to identify hundreds of cases being missed and a future state map to temporarily address the problem. The MOH had to address it in the media. Shout out to CEP! Thanks again for all the support this past year Adam. Having the CEP program really helped me self-confidence and self-esteem wise. Plus, the actual content learnings and Leafs Nation capacity building.

Alexander DiBiagio, City of Toronto

In the last two weeks, we would like to thank you for a great session! We really enjoyed dropping in and hearing how you’ve engaged our colleagues through your expertise and instruction. A job well done, thank you for your continuous support and most importantly, facilitating the first ever virtual session – my colleagues and I agreed it was a great success.

Vivian Lüthi-Yang, Canada Post

I really enjoyed the courses and particularly working with a great cohort of my colleagues for an extended period. Lots of takeaways from this and have been applying lessons (hopefully well) almost constantly since the course began.

Rich Whate, City of Toronto

Thanks Adam. Really appreciate that you made the virtual course interesting. I enjoyed your storytelling along with each concept. Especially the way you shared your own normal life experiences. I strongly feel they are more relatable and would stick around better than one’s from famous random people. Overall the whole training was an amazing package with layers and layers of takeaways.

Gulveen Nerhan, Canada Post

Neil Crawford, Former Partner and Leader
Best Employers in Canada Study

Aon Hewitt

Frank Scarpitti, Mayor

City of Markham

Ken Greene, President & CEO

Delta Hotels & Resorts

John Carnella, President & CEO

Diversicare Canada Management Services Co., Inc.

Anthony Lacavera, Chairman and CEO

Globalive / WIND Mobile

Cherry Tabb, CEO and Co-Founder

Herzig Eye Institute

Tonie Chaltas, Chief Operating Officer

Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Marianne Harrison, Senior Executive Vice President & GM, Canadian Division

Manulife Financial

Mark Henderson, Executive Vice President

PowerStream Inc.

Dr. Hugh A. Drouin, Commissioner

Region of Durham – Social Services Department

Glenn S. Laverty, President and CEO

Ricoh Canada Inc.

Shirlee M. Sharkey, President & CEO

Saint Elizabeth

Kevin Dougherty , President

Sun Life Financial
Sun Life Global Investments