CFIB / FCEI reviews

Wow! You clearly didn’t have a great experience working at CFIB. As readers of our reviews on Glassdoor know, I’m always happy to respond to any constructive criticism of the organization. Despite our best efforts, we don’t get everything right. I have to admit, I’m surprised that the only positive you have found is the flexible hours our District Managers have. Everything we do at CFIB is designed to improve the odds of a business owner's success. While we do promote our special deals, like the one we have with Chase for credit card processing, this area is only one of the three main pillars of what we do: advocacy, savings/benefits and business counselling. Our work on credit card fees hits all three of these pillars as we advocate for lower costs with both government and the industry, we field hundreds of calls from small merchants each year to provide advice and support AND we’ve negotiated some great pricing with Chase, Mastercard and American Express. I’m incredibly proud of the fact that we were able to negotiate these great deals based on our members $13 BILLION in total credit card processing with Chase. I’m a bit surprised this wasn’t motivating to you as it really demonstrates the power of our 110,000 members when they come together through CFIB. You are quite right that we are very focused on membership growth. The reason we focus on growing our membership is not to build a giant bureaucracy, but to ensure that we have the clout with governments and large corporations to promote our members' interests. With more members comes more influence. We work hard to keep our membership fees very reasonable (most members pay far more for cable TV each month) and many receive more direct savings and benefits than they pay us. As for shifting away from our advocacy focus, I’d invite you to do a Google search or follow me on Twitter (@cfib) to see how many issues we take on for our members. Just in the past few years, CFIB led the fight against federal small business tax changes, won major battles against new labour laws in several provinces and is currently pushing back against the federal carbon tax. There are dozens of issues we are taking on at any given time. I’m sorry that you did not succeed while working at CFIB. It isn’t a job for everyone and, like everywhere, has its challenges. But we have over 400 staff who come to work every day committed to serving small- and medium-sized business from across the country. I have found that incredibly motivating over my 25 years at CFIB, and we have dozens of other employees who have felt the same while working with us for 20, 30 and now even 40+ years. While I will continue to listen, be accountable and make ongoing changes to serve our members and staff even better, I wish you the best with a future employer. I hope they meet your expectations. Dan Kelly President and CEO

While I take all input from current and former staff seriously, I have to admit I'm a bit puzzled by your review and invite you to share more with my Human Resources colleagues. I'm really not sure what you mean by wasting money at CFIB. The vast majority of our expenses support our team of advocacy, support and field colleagues. With 110,000 small business members to serve in every corner of Canada, it is certainly true that we do spend a significant amount of money, but we work very hard to spend our members' resources wisely. If you have any specific suggestions on how we can do better, I welcome your ideas. Dan Kelly President and CEO