Alimentation Couche-Tard Recognized for Workplace Culture

LAVAL, Quebec — Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is the recipient of the 2023 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award (GEWA) for the second consecutive year.

The GEWA recognizes the world's most engaged workplace cultures. In a year beset by geopolitical crises, global economic challenges and the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Gallup recognized Couche-Tard for its ability to foster and maintain strong employee engagement across its global team.

"Gallup's 2023 GEWA winners proved that even during some of the most challenging times, strong cultures are resilient and find new ways to get work done and meet customer needs. These organizations continued to make employee engagement a central cultural priority as part of their business strategy, and they maintained record levels of employee engagement while achieving or exceeding their business goals," said Jim Harter, Gallup's chief scientist of workplace management and wellbeing.

GEWA winners' ratio of engaged employees to actively disengaged employees is 16 times higher than the international average. Worldwide, only 21 percent of employees are engaged — that is, committed to their work and connected to their workplace — and just 32 percent of employees in the U.S. workforce are engaged. Seventy-two percent of employees at winning GEWA organizations are engaged.

"I am very proud of the One Team culture we have fostered at Couche-Tard. It's reflected in the results that our team continues to deliver for our business, despite complex global economic headwinds," said Couche-Tard President and CEO Brian Hannasch. "It's an honor to be included among prestigious global organizations whose success is driven by effective employee engagement, and we are looking forward to applying what we learn from this year's survey to continue making meaningful progress. I want to thank all our team members for their continued commitment to our customers and communities."

Gallup's meta-analysis on team engagement and performance is the most comprehensive workplace study ever conducted, with data on more than 2 million employees in 276 organizations across 54 industries and 96 countries, according to the company. Highly engaged organizations significantly outperform their peers in important business outcomes, including customer ratings, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism, quality, wellbeing and organizational citizenship.

"Our mission is to make our customers' lives a little easier every day, and that is only possible with employees who are engaged, understand and embrace their role in our success and seize opportunities to learn and grow in their careers," said Ina Strand, chief people officer of Couche-Tard. "Our annual myVOICE employee engagement survey, powered by Gallup, has been invaluable in helping us identify opportunities to continue improving our team members' experience, and we are pleased to see those efforts paying off for the second straight year as a GEWA recipient."

Laval-based Alimentation Couche-Tard is known globally for its Couche-Tard and Circle K banners. It operates in 24 countries and territories with more than 14,300 stores, of which approximately 10,900 offer road transportation fuel. Approximately 122,000 people are employed throughout its network.