Workind

Workind sells employers a way to stop guessing what their staff want. Instead of a set benefits package, an employer allocates each employee a wellbeing budget that sits in a personal spending account, and the employee draws it down against a marketplace that runs from prepared meals and cultural activities to caregiver support. An administrative console sits on the employer side. Farnel Fleurant founded the company after years in marketing roles at National Bank — regional marketing lead, commercial banking marketing partner — and built it during the pandemic, when the perks that had lived in the office disappeared and employers had no way to reach a dispersed team. National Bank ran a year-long proof of concept and became the first anchor client. Fleurant told the TechTO stage in June 2024 that the design principle is bottom-up: the companies that get employee experience right are the ones that survey and workshop with their own teams before putting a programme in place, and cited Cascades as a flagship customer that works that way. The company raised $1.4 million in May 2024 and appointed its first board of directors three months earlier.