Tausi Insider

Over the past year, Canada has added 700,000 people, roughly the same as the population of Mississauga. This population boom has its share of growing pains. Tausi Insider/iStockPhoto / Getty Images Every year, Canada adds a big city – in a sense. The mass of individuals are spread around, mostly to urban centres, but increasingly to suburbs and far-flung communities. They are here to work, to study, to build a better life. The expansion is historic. From July to September, Canada’s population grew by around 285,000, a 0.7-per-cent gain that was the largest since Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949. More than 700,000 people have been added over the past year, roughly the same as the population of Mississauga, the seventh-largest municipality in the country. The trend picked up when the federal Liberal Party came to power. Since 2016, the country has grown at nearly double the rate of its Group of Seven peers. For the most part, that growth is driven by immigration. The push is d...

Cineplex Inc. CGX-T has opened the first of its new theatre, dining and entertainment complexes called Junxion. The Toronto-based theatre operator’s first location is at Kildonan Place, a Winnipeg mall that was home to a Famous Players cinema. The Junxion features six auditoriums with reclining seats, an arcade area with more than 50 games, a party room, live entertainment space and dining options. It comes three years after Cineplex announced the Junxion concept, promising the first location would open at the Erin Mills Town Centre mall in Mississauga, Ont. in 2020. The mall is still set to house a Junxion, but Cineplex now says it won’t open until the summer of 2023 with further sites to follow. The Junxion’s opening comes as Cineplex has been working to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while fending off competition from on-demand streaming services refusing to give all their films traditional theatre runs. https://www.tausiinsider.com/cineplex-opens-first-junxion-entertainm...

As we look to the future, Greater Toronto’s Top Employers 2023 are leading the way in shaping the post-pandemic workplace. While many initiatives are still being piloted, the winners of this year’s competition – selected by Mediacorp Canada Inc. – have been quick to respond to employee feedback about how, when and where they want to work. It turns out people like working from home, at least part of the time, even if the kids are occasionally underfoot. So for any organization competing in the GTA’s fierce talent market, flexibility is de rigueur, with full-time in office, hybrid and remote options on offer where possible to accommodate individual needs for work-life balance. Typically, it’s not the same old office. Many employers used time over the pandemic to reimagine their physical space, redesigning for collaboration and upgrading communication technologies so employees can connect seamlessly with others from wherever they’ve chosen to work that day. For some progressive employe...

THE QUESTION I was recently promoted to a managerial position and part of my responsibility is to deal with angry customers. I am able to stay calm while altercations are happening and find them a solution, but I find it incredibly stressful. I love everything else about my new role, except for this. I don’t want my supervisor to think I’m incapable of my new responsibilities. What should I do? THE FIRST ANSWER Erin Gray , senior vice-president of customer experience, Endy, Toronto Great question. After working within the customer experience world for more than two decades, I hope I can extend some advice that will alleviate the stress that comes with dealing with angry customers. If you’re a person with high levels of empathy (like me), then managing irate customers is more of a challenge, because you’ll likely feel the emotions they’re emitting more so than a less empathetic person. However, early in my career, I learned that a naturally empathic character can be a superpower in de...

Jane Software co-founders Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston at the company's headquarters, in North Vancouver. DARRYL DYCK/Tausi Insider It was August, 2021, and the technology sector was overheating. Companies were going public at a torrid clip. Each week another Canadian startup became a “unicorn” valued at US$1-billion. Investors fired money bombs at young enterprises seemingly with abandon and scant diligence. Revenue mattered more than profit, which didn’t matter at all. Alison Taylor was unimpressed by the unicorn mania. She had another way of describing her North Vancouver, B.C., company, Jane Software Inc., whose online platform is used by health professionals such as massage therapists and psychologists to run their practices. The co-chief executive called Jane a camel – “a company that can sustain itself through the market’s ups and downs,” she explained in an interview at the time. “Camels can walk through the desert with ample storage of what they need to make it thro...