People and culture

Sun Life's culture and values guide our thinking, behaviours and decisions, shaping our continued growth and transformation. Our culture is deeply rooted in our core values: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring and impactful.

We're committed to ensuring our culture continues to reflect our strengths and is enhanced in key areas to drive performance. To ensure our culture continues to be a strong enabler of our Purpose and performance, we actively manage it: clearly and regularly communicating to our employees, shaping culture and behaviour, and monitoring and managing changes in our culture over time.

Our Culture Management Framework is published as part of our Culture Management Enterprise Operating Guideline. Available to all Sun Life employees on our intranet, the Framework ensures we systematically foster and reinforce our desired culture, declared values and key behaviours. These elements are aligned with our Purpose, vision, strategy and brand. Through ongoing communications, and by embedding culture into our programs and initiatives, we make it easy for our people to act in alignment with our culture and values. It’s a deliberate, ongoing effort to help our people understand the way things get done at Sun Life, and what they can expect–and ask–of others.

Sun Life embraces a hybrid work model - an approach that combines in-office collaboration with the flexibility of working elsewhere. This sets us apart as an employer and delivers significant advantages: attracting top talent, fostering employee well-being, and driving engagement that fuels exceptional business performance.

We offer in-house and online training and leadership development programs facilitated by internal and external experts for all employees and leaders. For example: Our e-learning portal, Viva Learning, contains more than 30,000 courses, tools and resources on everything from project management and leadership development, to Microsoft Teams tips and tricks. In 2025, employees around the globe engaged with the content in Viva Learning, building skills and capabilities to develop in their careers and performance. In addition, 70% of those who utilized the portal were repeat users.

• We offer job rotation, tuition help and experiential opportunities outside of an employee’s day-to-day role. For example, our gig marketplace gives employees the chance to work with teams across Sun Life on short-term projects, regardless of their location or employee level. This provides them with an opportunity to gain new skills and experience – putting employees in the driver’s seat of their own career.
• All employees must complete yearly training on a range of topics focused on developing the knowledge, skills and behaviours to be risk-ready and help us protect our Clients, our brand and, most importantly, each other.
• For the most effective learning, employees can create a custom learning path based on their particular needs.
• Virtual classrooms, simulation/gamification and social learning are among the technologies we offer to support diverse ways of learning.

To ensure the future of our business, there is a pressing need to find and nurture emerging talent and leaders. We have adopted many programs to help us build a strong talent pipeline. Examples include:

• Practical learning opportunities for people still in school (co-op and work-study arrangements).
• Leadership development journeys for aspiring leaders to strengthen their skills for their current and for future roles.
• A leadership program, which fast tracks the development of top-talent directors into more senior roles.
• The Sun Life Leadership Education and Development program, which helps new people leaders in various parts of North America and Asia build core management skills and capabilities.
• The Sun Life Executive Development Program, which is an immersive learning experience for senior leaders.
• The Sun Life Leadership Academy for all Assistant Vice Presidents and above leaders, which supports cultural change through common learning experiences and embedding of new behaviours.
• The Dean Connor Sun Life Inclusion Scholarships for Black and Indigenous Students in Canada, which provides selected eligible students with monetary support, a summer internship with Sun Life, a Sun Life mentor and a chance to be offered a full-time role with Sun Life after graduation.
• Yearly talent reviews that help us identify and develop future senior leaders across Sun Life.

We encourage open, two-way dialogue with our people and seek their input through various channels. These channels include:

• Real-time feedback where employees provide and receive regular feedback from the people they work closely with.
• An annual goal-setting process, bi-annual performance reviews and ongoing check-ins on development progress and performance feedback.
• Quarterly engagement surveys and just-in-time pulse surveys. 
• Career planning sessions. 
• Internal and external social media platforms.