AGENDA
10:00am
MC Kick Off
10:10am - 10:50am
Inside the Boardroom: What the C‑Suite Really Wants from HR Now
A CEO/CFO and CHRO lift the curtain on the real pressures around growth, productivity, cost and risk and what they need from senior leaders. In this candid, off‑the‑record conversation, you’ll hear how HR priorities land in the boardroom, which conversations change capital allocation decisions, and where HR is still seen as “support” rather than “critical infrastructure.” Expect direct insights you can use to reposition your agenda with your own CEO and board.
10:50am - 11:05am
Coffee Break
11:05am - 11:40am
Cyber Is an HR Problem: Accountability, Insider Risk and What Boards Are Now Asking
Cyber sits on every board agenda now and the people side of cyber sits squarely on HR's. Senior leaders share real examples of incidents, near misses and AI rollouts that had to be paused or redesigned because of risk, accountability or governance gaps. How HR worked with risk, legal and technology to protect financial position and reputation when it mattered. Where accountability actually lives when something goes wrong. And what boards are now asking for in terms of assurance, questions that didn't exist 24 months ago.
11:40am - 11:45am
MC Intro
11:45am - 12:25pm
The Operating Model Reset: What's Actually Working Under Pressure
Cyber sits on every board agenda now and the people side of cyber sits squarely on HR's. Senior leaders share real examples of incidents, near misses and AI rollouts that had to be paused or redesigned because of risk, accountability or governance gaps. How HR worked with risk, legal and technology to protect financial position and reputation when it mattered. Where accountability actually lives when something goes wrong. And what boards are now asking for in terms of assurance, questions that didn't exist 24 months ago.
12:25pm - 1:25pm
Lunch
1:25pm - 2:10pm
The People Side of the Deal: How HR Realizes (or Destroys) M&A Value
Major transformations and deals are often sold on spreadsheets but delivered (or derailed) through people. In this panel, senior executives share real cases where HR was central to realizing value from transformations and M&A: from due diligence and workforce modelling to leadership selection, culture integration and tough calls on roles and locations. You’ll see how they quantified people‑related risks and synergies, how they reported progress to the board, and what they would redesign next time.
2:10pm - 2:15pm
MC Intro
2:15pm - 2:50pm
Workforce Planning & Leadership Pipelines that Don’t Break Under Pressure
Two organizations share how they actually run workforce planning with finance and strategy: time horizons, scenarios, governance rhythms and the trade‑offs that never make it into the slide deck. In back‑to‑back case stories and a joint Q&A, they’ll open up how they map critical roles, handle succession and manage senior performance—what’s working, what’s folklore, and what they’d redesign if they could.
2:50pm - 3:05pm
Coffee Break
3:05pm - 3:50pm
The AI Implementation Files: Case Studies in Ethics, Risk and What Got Paused
AI is no longer new but the lessons from real implementations are only just becoming clear. This focused session walks through detailed case studies of AI in talent acquisition, listening/analytics and learning, highlighting where ethics, bias, privacy and adoption challenges emerged in practice. You’ll see what governance models and contracts looked like, when leaders chose to pause or stop an initiative, and how they now evaluate ROI, value creation and risk in AI‑enabled HR tools.
3:50pm - 4:25pm
Executive Decisions Forum: Three Big Calls I’m Making This Year
The session built around the calls that are actually on senior leaders' desks right now. A curated group of CHROs each share one high-stakes decision they're working on this year and one knotty challenge they're not yet sure how to handle - restructures, work models, tech bets, M&A, executive performance. Guided by the MC and shaped by live input from the room, you'll see how peers at the top are weighing options, risk and values when there's no clear right answer. The closing Day One conversation for the leaders making the calls.
4:25pm - 4:30pm
MC Closing Remarks
4:40pm - 6:00pm
Networking Drinks
9:00am - 10:00am
Registration
10:00am - 10:10am
MC Kick Off
10:10am - 10:45am
Keynote Panel: Canada’s HR Reset – The Decisions Defining 2026
Three of Canada's leading CHROs open HRFest 2026 with a candid take on where HR really sits right now - what's getting funded, what's been quietly killed, and the calls being made behind closed doors. Leave with a clear view of what's on the table for 2027, and how HR can shape the business case instead of reacting to it.
10:45am - 10:50am
MC Intro
10:50am - 11:30am
Live Debate: Is Hybrid Still the Hill HR Should Die On?
Two teams. One question that refuses to go away. Is hybrid still worth fighting for, given new regulations, OHS obligations for telework and shifting business priorities, or is it time to reset the model? Hear the strongest arguments on both sides, vote live, and leave with the exact language you can use the next time this debate lands at your executive table.
11:30am - 11:35am
MC Intro
11:35am - 12:15pm
Panel: AI Is Already in the Building - Redesigning Work Around What’s Actually Here
What happens when you design work as if AI is already in the building - not "someday," but right now? Leaders share how they're re-architecting teams, roles and leadership expectations from the ground up, and what "responsible use" actually means to employees and regulators. Expect real use cases, a few "we lost the plot" moments, and practical ways to use AI to drive productivity and EX - without turning your organization into a cold one.
12:15pm - 12:20pm
MC Announces Lunch
12:20pm - 1:00pm
Lunch
1:00pm - 1:05pm
MC Intro
1:05pm - 1:45pm
Panel: The Wellbeing Receipts: Where Investment Actually Moves the Numbers
Burnout, childcare gaps and mental health challenges are no longer side stories; they’re central to workforce performance. This session connects wellbeing to the hard numbers: retention, productivity, absenteeism and safety. You’ll hear how everyday leadership behaviors, flexibility and benefits design show up in the P&L, and leave with the exact language to link wellbeing investment to business outcomes.
1:45pm - 1:50pm
MC Intro
1:50pm - 2:50pm
Live Podcast: The Achievement Crisis – When Doing Everything Right Still Isn’t Enough
In this live Career Cravings‑style recording, we dive into the “achievement crisis”: people who have ticked all the boxes but still feel stalled or overlooked. Explore how this plays out in pay, equity and promotion decisions, and what HR can do to reduce burnout, disengagement and mid‑career exits. Expect candid stories, real Q&A and practical insights.
2:50pm - 2:55pm
MC Intro
2:55pm - 3:35pm
Panel: Risk Radar 2026–27 - The Calls Keeping Canadian HR Up at Night
Termination clauses, severance and non-competes. Pay transparency and AI disclosure. Restructurings and reputational risk. This is where every "what if?" question lives. Employment lawyers and senior HR leaders compare notes on the biggest risks on their radar and invite the room to vote on which ones keep you up at night. Leave with sharper messaging for your executive team and board, plus a prioritized wish list of the guardrails and decisions you need next.
3:35pm - 3:40pm
MC Intro
3:40pm - 4:15pm
Fireside Chat: View From the Top - A North American CPO on What Canada Gets Right
For our final session of the day, a leading North American CPO joins us for a candid fireside on what they see from the top and what they think Canadian HR is getting right, getting wrong, and missing entirely. Expect a frank conversation on the differences between leading people in Canada vs. the US, where Canadian HR has a genuine advantage, and the bets they're personally making for 2027. The honest closing conversation that sends you into drinks with something real to talk about.
4:15pm - 4:20pm
MC Intro
4:30pm - 6:00pm
Networking Drinks
10:00am - 10:10am
MC Kick Off
10:10am - 10:55am
Coming for HR: What AI Is Actually Doing to the Function
Three leading voices in AI sit down to talk honestly about how the function itself is being reshaped — which HR roles are already changing, which ones are quietly disappearing, which new skills are becoming the new minimum, and what the HR team of 2028 actually looks like. 30 minutes of candid conversation, 15 minutes of your questions. The session HR teams need but most conferences won't put on the agenda.
10:55am - 11:00am
MC Intro
11:00am - 11:30am
Legal Hot Seat: Live HR “Ask Me Anything”
The session where you get to ask the questions you usually pay for. A live, no-holds-barred Q&A with one of Canada's sharpest employment lawyers, covering whatever's actually on your mind: AI in hiring and Ontario's disclosure rules, posting pay ranges, the latest on termination and severance enforceability (bonuses and LTIPs included), non-competes, non-solicits, telework, harassment obligation. Bring your real scenarios. Hypothetical questions welcome too, but the real ones make better answers.
11:30am - 11:35am
MC Intro
11:35am - 12:00pm
Psychological Safety, the Real Version: Stories From the Other Side of Restructure
Three HR leaders take the mic and tell the truth about rebuilding trust after restructures, layoffs and the kind of weeks no one warns you about. Each tells one real story; what broke, what they tried, what actually worked, and what they'd never do again, across hybrid teams, frontline workforces and everything in between. Expect specifics, not slogans, and a few moves you can quietly steal for your own team.
12:00pm - 12:05pm
MC Announces Lunch
12:05pm - 12:45pm
Lunch
12:45pm - 12:50pm
MC Intro
12:50pm - 1:10pm
No Spin EVP: What to Promise When You Can't Promise Much
The honest conversation about what employers are still over-promising and what candidates and employees have stopped believing. How do you actually align EVP with the real employee experience when hiring is slower, budgets are tighter and the gap between the brochure and the desk has rarely been wider? You'll hear how the best Canadian employers are positioning what they genuinely offer, using employee voice credibly, and avoiding the platitudes that quietly torch credibility. Leave with phrases and guardrails you can use in your next job ad, interview, or town hall.
1:10pm - 1:15pm
MC Intro
1:15pm - 1:40pm
The Caregiving Crunch: The Quiet Workforce Crisis Hitting Canadian Employers
Childcare costs are biting. Eldercare is rising. And caregiving is now showing up in your attendance data, your performance reviews and your exit interviews whether you're tracking it or not. This session looks at what Canadian employers are actually trying, from subsidies and backup care to scheduling flexibility, and what's measurably moving retention, productivity and loyalty in their numbers. Leave with the real options on the table and a clear view of where the early movers are pulling ahead.
1:40pm - 1:45pm
MC Intro
1:45pm - 2:10pm
Skills Over Titles: Hiring and Mobility When Headcount Freezes
Three short talks on the talent strategy everyone says they want and most organizations are still botching. You'll hear how Canadian employers are running skills-based hiring in a market that's simultaneously talent-short and demand-cooled, why internal mobility has become the talent pipeline that actually matters, and what it takes to upskill front-line managers in Ontario's shifting regulatory landscape. Three speakers, three angles, one clear picture of where this is heading.
2:10pm - 2:15pm
MC Intro
2:15pm - 2:40pm
Trauma‑Sensitive HR: Leading When People Are Not OK
A 20-minute expert talk on what trauma-sensitive HR actually looks like in the hardest parts of the job; performance management, investigations, restructuring, and a 5-minute reflection to make it personal. You'll get the language, the boundaries and the behaviors that protect psychological safety, and a clear view of where trauma sensitivity ends and your legal obligations begin. Honest, practical, and built for the situations no policy fully prepares you for.
2:40pm - 2:45pm
MC Intro
2:45pm - 3:05pm
Deals and People: The M&A Landmines That Take HR Down
Most HR teams discover what they don't know about M&A on the day the deal closes. This 20-minute session covers the share-vs-asset-deal basics every HR leader needs in their back pocket, plus the human issues that quietly derail deal value: holding onto the key talent who actually make integration work, handling employees on leave when ownership changes, and communicating through a process where you can't say half of what you know. Compact, candid, and the session you'll wish you'd attended next time the rumour mill starts up.
3:05pm - 3:10pm
MC Intro
3:10pm - 3:35pm
L&D on a Diet: Building Learning Cultures When the Budget Disappears
The first thing to get cut is almost always learning and development and the long-term cost of that decision is bigger than most CFOs realize. This 25-minute setup session looks at how the best Canadian HR teams are protecting learning cultures with shrinking resources: blending AI-enabled learning tools with real human mentorship, making development sharper instead of bigger, and proving the ROI in time for the next budget conversation. Stick around afterwards for the crowd-solving session that turns this into your own problems, solved by the room.
3:35pm - 3:40pm
MC Intro
3:40pm - 4:00pm
L&D Live: Bring Your Budget Problem, Solve It With the Room
Real L&D challenges from the audience. The whole room solving them in real time. Following on from L&D on a Diet, this open-mic session hands the floor to you - bring the specific budget problem you're wrestling with right now (the program you can't afford to lose, the case you can't make to finance, the team you're trying to keep developing on a shoestring) and let the room work it through with you. Live polling, peer exchange, and the most useful 20 minutes you'll spend if L&D is in your remit. Sign up to share your challenge or come to listen and steal good ideas. Either way, you'll leave with more than you came with.
10:05am - 10:50am
Comp 201: Diagnosing a Pay Structure That’s Quietly Broken
Most pay structures look fine on a slide and fall apart on closer inspection. In this hands-on diagnostic workshop, you'll learn how to spot the cracks in existing structures using a real-world case; misaligned ranges, compressed levels, grades that no longer reflect the work. You'll walk through the techniques for adjusting ranges and levels to improve transparency, internal equity and market alignment, and leave with a diagnostic checklist you can run against your own structure on Monday.
10:50am - 10:55am
MC Intro
10:55am - 11:40am
From Surveys to Storytelling: Making People Analytics Land with the C‑Suite
The dashboard isn't the deliverable, the decision is. Join this session as Dr Kalifa Oliver walks through how to turn engagement and EX data into clear narratives that drive business decisions, not just slides that get nodded at. You'll practice framing insights, choosing the visuals that actually land, and linking people data to financial and operational outcomes. Leave with a narrative framework you can use the next time you walk into the boardroom with a survey result.
11:40am - 11:45am
MC Intro
11:45am - 12:30pm
After the Deal: M&A Workforce Integration for Canadian HR
Deals get signed in the boardroom. They get won or lost in HR. In this case-based workshop, you'll work through HR's real role in Canadian M&A, mapping workforce and severance exposure pre-deal, structuring offers in asset deals, retaining the key talent that makes the deal work, and communicating through the process without over-promising. Leave with an M&A workforce integration checklist and a clear view of the calls you'd need to make in your first 90 days post-close
12:30pm - 12:35pm
MC Intro
12:35pm - 1:20pm
AI in HR Lab: Build Your First Three Real Use Cases
Are you doing AI by accident; a tool here, a pilot there, no real plan? In this hands-on lab, you'll map your team's actual pain points against the AI opportunities that exist now across EX, efficiency and analytics, and walk out with 2–3 use cases you've actually drafted and a starter AI roadmap for your HR function. We'll cover the governance essentials too, bias, monitoring, data privacy, transparency, so the use cases you take home are ones you can actually defend.
1:20pm - 1:25pm
MC Announces Lunch
1:25pm - 2:05pm
Lunch
2:05pm - 2:10pm
MC Intro
2:10pm - 2:55pm
Conscious Leadership Lab: Auditing Your Team’s “Buckets”
A movement‑based lab where your leadership team maps how “full” or depleted their physical, mental, emotional and purpose “buckets” really are. You’ll surface what’s driving strain—workload, ambiguity, home pressures—and co‑design 2–3 simple experiments (meeting hygiene, boundaries, buddy systems, recharge norms) captured on a one‑page Team Wellbeing & Wholeness Canvas you can take straight back to work.
2:55pm - 3:00pm
MC Intro
3:00pm - 3:45pm
Feedback Lab for Teams: The Golden Rule That Changes the Conversation
The feedback conversation almost everyone gets wrong, rebuilt live. In this interactive workshop, you'll dissect real feedback exchanges that went badly, from both the giver's and receiver's side, and rebuild them using one simple guiding principle. You'll leave with a team feedback charter, a set of phrases that work in tough moments, and practices that make difficult conversations clearer, more constructive and less risky..
3:45pm - 3:50pm
MC Intro
3:50pm - 4:20pm
Ice Breaker
4:20pm - 4:25pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:00am - 10:05am
MC Kick Off
10:05am - 10:50am
How They Actually Got the Job: Three HR Leaders on the Moves That Worked
Join us for this opening session with a Director, VP and CHRO talking honestly about how they got to where they are today. The lateral moves that opened doors, the promotions they nearly turned down, the bets that didn't pay off but mattered anyway. Not generic career advice. Real Canadian HR career paths from the people ahead of the game.
10:50am - 10:55am
MC Intro
10:55am - 11:35am
The CFO Conversation: How HR Leaders Win the Budget Fight
The skill that quietly decides whether your projects get funded, your team grows, and you get promoted. In this session, you'll learn how to translate people priorities into the language CFOs actually respond to — numbers, risk, returns and trade-offs — and rehearse the specific conversation you're going to walk into next quarter. Bring a real ask from your current organization. Leave with the script.
11:35am - 11:40am
MC Intro
11:40am - 12:20pm
Promoted, or Replaced? What AI Means for the Mid-Career HR Move
Join this session as we delve into which HR careers are quietly getting reshaped by AI. Which roles are growing? Which are being absorbed? Which new skills have become table stakes for a Director-level move that didn't require them three years ago? A candid conversation with senior HR leaders and a workforce strategist on what the next promotion actually looks like in an AI-shaped function and how to position yourself for it.
12:20pm - 1:00pm
Lunch
1:00pm - 1:05pm
MC Intro
1:05pm - 1:45pm
Internal Comms Without a Comms Team: HR's Quiet Second Job
Most HR leaders have a second job they were never hired for: internal comms. The restructure announcement. The AI rollout email. The benefits change FAQ. The manager messaging when something blows up. This session is the practical toolkit for the comms moments HR ends up owning whether you have a comms team or not, the principles that actually land with employees, the templates you can adapt, and the language that holds up when the news isn't good.
1:45pm - 1:50pm
MC Intro
1:50pm - 2:30pm
The Promotion Conversation: How to Ask for the Job You Actually Want
Most HR people coach others through career conversations and quietly avoid their own. This session walks through the conversation that gets you the Head of or Director role: how to build the case before you have it, when to time the ask, how to read the politics, and what to do when the answer is "not yet." Practical, slightly uncomfortable, and the session you'll wish you'd attended before your last performance review.
2:30pm - 2:35pm
MC Intro
2:35pm - 3:15pm
The Career Clinic: Three Real Decisions, Coached Live
Three audience volunteers. Three real career inflection points. One senior HR leader coaching live on stage. A job offer you're unsure about. A promotion conversation you keep avoiding. A decision to stay or leave that's been sitting on your desk. Sign up in advance to be one of the three, or come to listen and steal the framing.
3:15pm - 3:20pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:00am - 10:05am
MC Kick Off
10:05am - 10:40am
The Economist in the Room: What 2027 Actually Holds for Canadian HR
What should senior HR leaders be modelling for 2027? A leading Canadian economist opens Day Two with a clear-eyed read on where the economy is heading, what tariffs and Canada–US relations mean for the labor market, and which recession signals to actually take seriously. The macro context every CHRO is expected to bring to the boardroom, connecting what's happening in the broader economy directly to the decisions already on your desk.
10:40am - 10:55am
Coffee Break
10:55am - 11:30am
Immigration & Global Talent: From Policy Shock to Strategic Advantage
Immigration rules and political signals are shifting fast across North America, with real implications for how senior HR leaders secure scarce skills, manage compliance risk and sustain diverse workforces. This session goes beyond "how the system works" to unpack the most consequential pathways and the risk hotspots and shows how one organization has embedded immigration directly into its workforce, DEI and risk strategy. The honest conversation about where immigration should sit in your 2026 talent agenda, and what to do when the policy ground moves underneath it.
11:30am - 11:35am
MC Intro
11:35am - 12:20pm
Executive Hot Seat: Live HR Decisions Under the Microscope
CHROs put real decisions on the table and work them through live — with an expert moderator, anonymous audience polling, and short "what would you do?" moments shaping the conversation in real time. We'll unpack 2–3 complex calls (restructures, work models, AI risk, executive performance) and compare how different people leaders at the top would handle each one. The session for the leaders who want to see how their peers actually think before they move.
12:20pm - 1:20pm
Lunch
1:20pm - 2:00pm
The Rewards Audit: What's Working, What's Wasting Money, What's About to Stop Working
Three executive stories on how organizations have used data to redefine EVP, reshape total rewards and financial wellbeing (especially for lower-paid and under-represented groups), and build learning cultures that actually protect revenue, productivity, retention and labor cost in tight markets. Where the investment has paid off. Where it hasn't. And how senior leaders are now evaluating the trade-offs between cost, competitiveness and equity including which levers in their own portfolio may no longer be earning their keep.
2:00pm - 2:15pm
Coffee Break
2:15pm - 2:55pm
Selling the Stack to the CEO: An HRIS Transformation Story
A CHRO and a senior tech executive walk through the full inside story of an HRIS and analytics transformation, from business case and vendor selection to rollout, adoption and the issues no one warned them about. How they sold it to the CEO and CFO. Where they overreached. Where they under-invested. The governance model that sits around the data now. And how the new stack actually shapes board-level discussions on people, cost, revenue and strategy, not just HR dashboards.
2:55pm - 3:00pm
MC Intro
3:00pm - 3:25pm
Board Seats and Beyond: Expanding Your Influence as a Senior People Leader
A senior executive or board member shares a candid perspective on building influence beyond your current role; board positions, advisory roles, and external leadership opportunities. How to position your experience for what comes next. How to decide which opportunities to accept and which to politely decline. And how to keep growing your career and your impact once you're already in the top job internally. The closing Day Two conversation for the leaders thinking about what's after this one.
3:25pm - 3:30pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:00am - 10:05am
MC Kick Off
10:05am - 10:40am
Panel: Hiring in 2027 - Legal, Transparent and Actually Human
Pay transparency, AI disclosure, telework protections and immigration changes have reshaped the hiring rulebook. This conversation breaks down what’s new in Ontario and beyond - from job‑posting salary ranges to AI in recruitment and cross‑border risk - and shows how to balance compliance with a genuinely human candidate experience. You’ll leave with a clearer, defensible hiring process and practical language to use when resetting expectations with leaders and candidates.
10:40am - 10:45am
MC Intro
10:45am - 11:25am
Panel: Work That Doesn’t Break People - Designing Teams for Performance and Health
The title says it all: a lot of work, right now, is breaking people. This panel looks at how organizations are structuring roles, workloads and teams so performance and wellbeing can actually co-exist, even under sustained pressure. You'll hear practical approaches to managing long stress-related absences fairly, resetting unrealistic expectations, and building the micro-rituals that keep people engaged and in their roles instead of burning out and leaving.
11:25am - 11:30am
MC Intro
11:30am - 12:10pm
Panel: The Generational Reckoning – What Younger Workers Actually Want in a Brittle World
In a more polarized environment, younger employees are asking for more and a lot of organizations are guessing wrong about what that actually means. This cross-generational panel digs into what they really expect around inclusion, accessibility, psychological safety and purpose, and how leaders are responding without burning out their existing teams. You'll hear how everyday behavior shapes culture more than any policy, and how three or four different generations end up experiencing the same workplace in completely different ways.
12:10pm - 12:15pm
MC Intro
12:15pm - 12:55pm
Panel: If You Were Building HR From Scratch Today, What Would You Keep?
If you were designing the HR function from scratch today, would it look anything like what you have now? In this interactive session, you'll redraw your own HR operating model, deciding where AI, EX, compliance, wellbeing and data should really sit, and test it against real constraints. We'll look at where people analytics and listening platforms belong, which skills your team can't afford to be without, and which roles are quietly ready to evolve.
12:55pm - 1:00pm
Announce Lunch
1:00pm - 1:35pm
Lunch
1:35pm - 1:40pm
MC Intro
1:40pm - 2:20pm
Talent in Their Prime: The Business and Legal Case for Getting Menopause Right
Mid-career women are leaving the workforce in their highest-earning, highest-impact years and most organizations still don't know what to do about it. In this candid main-stage session, a leading medical expert grounds the conversation in what peri-menopause and menopause actually involve day to day, alongside a lawyer unpacking the Canadian employer's legal reality: where accommodation duties already apply, where discrimination risk is rising, and what's likely coming in regulation next. Leave with the practical language, policies and leadership moves to keep your most experienced talent and stay ahead of the law before it catches up to you.
2:20pm - 2:25pm
MC Intro
2:25pm - 3:05pm
Fireside Chat: Who Looks After HR? A Candid Conversation on Leading the People Function in 2026
This conversation is built for the people doing one of the hardest, most important jobs in business right now. A leading CHRO joins us off-script for an honest conversation on what it really takes to lead the people function in 2026; the calls they're proud of, the ones that taught them the most, and what they've learned about leading well without burning out. Expect hard-won wisdom, a few laughs, and the kind of frank conversation you only get in a room like this one.
3:05pm - 3:10pm
MC Intro
3:10pm - 3:30pm
Closing Keynote
Speaker reveal coming soon.
3:30pm - 3:35pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:00am - 10:05am
MC Kick Off
10:05am - 10:30am
The Squeeze Is On: Pay Compression, Minimum Wage and the Financial Stress Hitting Your Workforce
Minimum wage is climbing across Canada. Internal equity is cracking. And financial stress is now showing up in every engagement survey from the front line to the C-suite. This session breaks down what's actually changing, where the pressure is biting hardest, and what employers can dowithout blowing the compensation budget. You'll leave with a clearer read on where minimum wage shifts intersect with your pay structure, and how financial stress is quietly costing you in performance, engagement and retention.
10:30am - 10:35am
MC Intro
10:35am - 10:55am
Money Talks: Coaching Managers for Honest Pay Conversations
Even the best pay framework can fall apart in a one-on-one. Most managers are quietly fumbling the pay conversation, over-promising, getting defensive, or shutting it down entirely, and the trust damage takes months to undo. This session gives you the simple framing, the exact phrases, and the do's-and-don'ts you can cascade to leaders so financial conversations build trust instead of eroding it. Short, sharp, and stuff your managers can use on Monday.
10:55am - 11:00am
MC Intro
11:00am - 11:25am
Termination & Restructure Clinic: Getting the Law and Optics Right
Expert-led, no-nonsense, and built for the calls you're already making. We'll cover 2026's termination and restructuring risk profile in Ontario, the latest on enforceability of termination and severance clauses (including the treatment of bonuses and long-term incentives), non-competes and non-solicits, EI and severance optics, and what repeated cuts do to your numbers and your reputation. We'll also unpack anticipated Court of Appeal guidance and how HR can shape messaging and fairness perceptions when the news lands.
11:25am - 11:30am
MC Intro
11:30am - 11:50am
When Cuts Keep Coming: HR’s Playbook for Rolling Restructures
The third or fourth round of cuts is a different conversation than the first. People are exhausted, managers are wary, and your credibility is on the line every time you say "this is the last one." This session is about how to keep faith with employees and leaders through rolling restructures, framing what's actually happening for different audiences, managing expectations without lying, and presenting a credible path to stability that doesn't fall apart at the next earnings call. The session for the HR team that's been here before, and is here again.
11:50am - 11:55am
Announce Lunch
11:55am - 12:35pm
Lunch
12:35pm - 12:40pm
MC Intro
12:40pm - 1:05pm
Talent on the Move: Why Canada Is Suddenly the Destination and How to Capitalize
Canada is having a moment. As political and policy turmoil reshapes other markets, disillusioned talent is looking north and the employers who get this right will pull ahead of the ones who don't even notice. This session shares real examples of cross-border talent flows, plus the compliance and immigration considerations when employees live and work across borders. You'll leave with a practical lens for managing the risk and a clearer view of how to position Canada and Toronto as the safe, inclusive destination they genuinely are right now.
1:05pm - 1:10pm
MC Intro
1:10pm - 1:30pm
Inclusion in a Polarized World: Holding Space Without Breaking Apart
The conversation HR has been quietly dreading. As the world gets more polarized, leaders are increasingly stuck between two bad options — turning the workplace into a battleground, or pretending nothing's happening. This session focuses on the everyday practices rather than the slogans: concrete examples of setting guardrails for respectful disagreement, responding when global events spill into the office, and protecting psychological safety for people who fundamentally disagree on what's happening in the world. Honest, practical, and built for the room that knows this is harder than it looks.
1:30pm - 1:35pm
MC Intro
1:35pm - 2:00pm
The Manager Problem: Why HR Strategy Lives or Dies One Level Down
Every HR strategy works on a slide. Almost none of them survive contact with a middle manager who hasn't been set up to deliver. This session looks at why manager capability is the single biggest variable in whether HR strategy actually lands and how the best Canadian HR teams are setting expectations, building real skills and giving managers the tools to execute consistently. You'll leave with a sharper view of where to focus, and how to measure whether it's working.
2:00pm - 2:05pm
MC Intro
2:05pm - 2:35pm
Live Podcast: My Biggest Compliance Surprise of 2025
A live podcast recording where practitioners share the compliance plot twists that actually caught them off guard in 2025 and what HR teams should know going into 2026. Stories may touch on AI disclosure rules in recruitment, pay transparency enforcement, the cross-border remote work issues no one saw coming, or termination-clause litigation that landed in a place nobody predicted. Candid, current, and a fast read on how the ground is shifting under everyone's feet.
2:35pm - 2:40pm
MC Intro
2:40pm - 3:15pm
Audience Open Mic: 5‑Minute Plays – “If I Ran HR for a Day…”
The most fun session on the schedule and possibly the most useful. Audience members take the mic for 5 minutes each to pitch the bold thing they'd change if they ran HR for a day. Light prompts will nudge people toward wellbeing, feedback, humane leadership and the other unfinished business of HR in 2026 surfacing genuinely bold but realistic ideas your team can take home and debate next week. Sign up to pitch, or come to listen. Either way, prepare to be surprised..
3:15pm - 3:20pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:05am - 10:50am
Leading Under Pressure: A Personal Audit on Sustainable Performance
The session about you, not your team. Most senior leaders are running closer to empty than they'd admit. In this hands-on lab, you'll take a personal audit of where you're depleted and where you're holding steady across the things that drive your performance: energy, attention, recovery, boundaries and purpose. Identify the patterns quietly costing you, design 2–3 experiments to test this month, and leave with a personal sustainability plan you can put to work this week.
10:55am - 11:40am
AI Sandbox for HR: Safe Experiments, Real Use Cases
The Day 2 follow-up to AI in HR Lab - this time, less roadmap, more sandbox. In this guided session, you'll work through concrete AI experiments for EX and HR efficiency, then move into the practical implementation steps that turn pilots into adoption. We'll cover the guardrails that matter (human review, employee communications, transparency) and leave you with an experiment plan and a comms template you can use to launch your first (or next) AI rollout safely.
11:45am - 12:30pm
Hard Conversations, Done Well: A Trauma-Sensitive Workshop on Restructures and Investigations
Most HR leaders carry at least one conversation that didn't go well and the ones that come next deserve better. In this workshop, you'll apply trauma-sensitive approaches to the hardest parts of the job: performance management, complaints, investigations and layoffs. Using real-world scenarios, you'll learn the language, the pacing and the boundaries that matter, and where trauma sensitivity intersects with your legal obligations and documentation requirements. Leave with a scenario playbook of phrases, sequences and red flags you can use the next time you walk into a difficult room.
12:35pm - 1:30pm
Lunch
1:35pm - 2:20pm
Posting the Range: A Practical Lab on Pay Transparency and Equity in Canada
Ontario's job-posting requirements have changed the game, and Quebec, federal and broader pay equity frameworks aren't far behind. In this practical lab, you'll get a clear read on Canada's full pay transparency landscape, then move into hands-on practice: building fair, explainable pay structures using simple job architecture examples, setting and adjusting ranges under transparency rules, and learning how to monitor equity once you're back at your desk. Leave with a pay structure starter template and the language to credibly explain individual pay decisions to candidates and managers.
2:25pm - 3:10pm
EX Roadmap Lab: Designing Your Next 12 Months of Employee Experience
The EX program for the next 12 months, built in 45 minutes. You'll work through a guided process to design your own EX roadmap covering listening strategy, the moments that genuinely matter, and lifecycle design, with employee listening data and basic people analytics as your inputs. The focus is the balance most EX leaders are wrestling with in 2026 - keeping the function credible and stable while pushing for the growth and authenticity the business needs. Leave with a 12-month EX roadmap drafted in your own hand, ready to refine with your team next week.
3:10pm - 3:15pm
MC Intro
3:15pm - 3:35pm
End of Day Ice Breaker
3:35pm - 3:40pm
MC Closing Remarks
10:00am - 10:05am
MC Kick Off
10:05am - 10:50am
How HR Becomes Strategic: The Quiet Moves That Change How You're Seen
Most mid-career HR leaders hit the same wall: respected as a function expert, not consulted as a business leader. This session is about how to cross that line. The cross-functional bets that build credibility. The projects worth saying yes to. The small shifts in how you show up that change how the business sees you. You'll hear from HR leaders who've made that transition, what they did differently, what they wish they'd done sooner, and the 90-day plan you can put into action when you get back to your desk.
10:50am - 10:55am
MC Intro
10:55am - 11:35am
Reconciliation in Action: What Canadian Employers Are Actually Doing
The honest conversation about reconciliation in the Canadian workplace, beyond the land acknowledgment and the corporate statement. Real examples from Canadian employers — hiring partnerships, cultural safety, leadership representation, procurement and supply chain — and what HR leaders can actually do to move this forward in their own organizations. Honest about where progress has been slower than promised. Practical about where to start if you're building from scratch, and where to push if you're already underway.
11:35pm - 11:40am
MC Intro
11:40am - 12:20pm
You're the First HR Hire: Now What?
The session for HR leaders at growth-stage Canadian businesses where the policies are mostly post-its and someone needs to figure out comp philosophy by Tuesday. Senior HR leaders who've built functions from scratch on what to do first, what to do later, and what to never do at all. The order matters far more than most people realize, get it wrong and you spend the next two years undoing your own work. Get it right and you're the person they didn't know they needed to hire next.
12:20pm - 1:00pm
Lunch
1:00pm - 1:05pm
MC Intro
1:05pm - 1:45pm
Beyond the Day Job: How HR Leaders Build External Profiles Without Burning Out
Writing. Speaking. Advisory work. Podcasts. Board roles. The HR leaders building external profiles aren't doing it for fun, they're doing it for influence, optionality, and the career insurance of being known beyond your current employer. Three practitioners talk honestly about what they've built, what it's opened up, what it's cost them, and what they'd tell someone earlier in their career thinking about it now. Useful whether you're ready to start tomorrow or just curious about what's possible.
1:45pm - 1:50pm
MC Intro
1:50pm - 2:30pm
Who's in Your Corner: Mentors, Sponsors and the Promotion You Don't See Coming
Almost every promotion has an invisible third party, a sponsor who advocated for you in a room you weren't in, a mentor who told you to apply, a peer who put your name forward. This session breaks down the difference between mentors, sponsors and peer networks, how to build each one without it feeling transactional, and what to do if your current organization doesn't offer the relationships you need. From HR leaders who've done it well, and a couple who learned the hard way.
2:30pm - 2:35pm
MC Intro
2:35pm - 3:15pm
Closing Keynote – One HR Leader’s Story: The Career That Got Me Here
We close The Loft with the honest version of a career. A senior HR leader walks through the path that got them here — the bets that paid off, the ones that didn't, the moments they nearly walked away, and what they'd do differently if they were starting over. Inspirational without being preachy. The closing conversation that sends you out of HRFest with a clearer view of your own next chapter.
3:15pm - 3:20pm