CRA President’s Message: Big basket of benefits

We believe that the true value of membership in this or any trade organization comes from getting involved. However, we also believe that there should never be a time that any rental company questions the value of membership in our association.  So this year, your national board, the executive team, head office and the provincial chapters have been diligently working together to advance our common goals and to begin to offer real value to our members.

For most of the recent past CRA Insurance has been the cornerstone of our product offering. Insurance is and will remain a strong component in the overall package. Our protected self-insurance program continues to provide the best value in Canada for qualifying members. 

However, we are no one-trick pony. We’ve been busy this year strengthening the programs we offer our members and have rolled out three new programs.

Fiat Chrysler fleet program
This program will provide members significant savings on new vehicle purchases. The program is open to your employees as well, so it can be added to your companies employee benefit offering.

Legal assistance program
This program will provide 30 minutes of legal advice on an unlimited number of business or personal legal matters. It will also provide for a discount on hourly service charges once the half hour has expired. The program is offered through partnerships with a pre-screened group of legal experts with experience representing equipment rental companies. This program is also available to your employees.

Deluxe Payroll and HR support
CRA has partnered with Deluxe Payroll to offer payroll services to members. In addition to basic payroll processing, this program will allow members to opt in to receive human resources support from professionals at Deluxe. Trained HR professionals will be available to help employers navigate the challenges of complying with employment standards regulations or any other issues that arise while dealing with your employees.

We also continue to provide strong supports to our members through our Ready 2 Go tags; credit and debit card processing through FirstData; and Petro Canada fuel savings.

All of this before the association does anything to support your business through networking or educational events. Our plan is to develop our capacity at head office to continue to undertake more and better service in support of our industry in Canada. To do this, we’ll need to partner with you, our members, to help determine exactly what supports we can offer today and what to work towards going forward. We’ll also be asking for help from our members as we build out our safety and legislative offerings.

The Canadian Rental Association has been supporting the needs of the rental industry in Canada for 51 years. I’m looking forward to being a part of our changing industry and our continued success in it. The equipment rental industry is catching up with the broader retail sector in its adoption of automation and online services. Your businesses will not look the same in the future as they did  in the past, and neither will your association.

If you have anything you’d like to see your association provide, please reach out to me, head office or any other member of the CRA leadership team. Together we can raise the standard of our industry and our association.

Mike Maltby is vice-president of Ingersoll Rent-All in Ingersoll, Ont. Mike has been a fixture at CRA Ontario events since beginning his time with the association in 2006, and looks forward to connecting with CRA members nationally in the coming years.