Amazon Canada is supporting employees who are new Canadians through its new immigration legal referral program.
The program, which is available to all full- and part-time employees across Canada, provides access to legal counsel for themselves and their families at an affordable price. The available legal services, provided through immigration law firm Green and Spiegel and immigration consultant Nitin Immigration, include permanent residency and citizenship applications, as well as spousal and family sponsorship matters.
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Salman Cheema, an immigration strategist at Amazon who manages the program, says it was developed following feedback from employees across the company’s Canadian sites. “We really tried to figure out how can we support this population, who are typically self-sponsored — either they’re students or they’re in a refugee- or humanitarian-based status or are spouses of work permit holders who typically fall outside of corporate sponsorship. We wanted to figure out, how can we meet them where they are and help them with their needs.”
While speaking to employees, he says two themes became readily apparent. “One of them was that these workers are really seeking out high-quality legal services from immigration counsel — and that can be difficult, given the expense involved.”
Cheema also raises the issue of trust and making sure employees feel comfortable with the service providers. “Unfortunately, we heard about a lot of workers who were dealing with instances of fraud, so we set out to partner with trusted, vetted providers who would be able to greatly extend the preferred pricing to [Amazon employees].”
The legal benefit supports Amazon’s existing employee resources and benefits, which include mental-health support, financial planning and career coaching. “There are definitely goals that [our benefits team] has set around enabling benefits, particularly around financial benefits, and our goal is really just supporting that group and filling a niche.”
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