GoodLife Fitness brings workplace wellness to HRFest Canada 2026

With more than 750 human resources (HR) professionals expected by event organizers in Toronto this November for HRFest Canada 2026, GoodLife Fitness is stepping in as the event's official wellness sponsor — and Kristen Gill, Director of Corporate Partnerships and Sales at GoodLife Fitness, believes it’s a good time to be involved.  

Gill believes that workplace wellness has moved well beyond gym discounts and the occasional lunch-and-learn, with burnout being described as an epidemic and mental health challenges mounting across hybrid and remote workplaces. And employees are increasingly choosing employers based on how well their wellbeing is supported, according to Gill. 

For GoodLife, those pressures make HRFest Canada 2026 a timely and strategically important platform. 

"Good Life has supported workplace wellness initiatives for well over 20 years now," says Gill. "It's a very important part of our culture in terms of supporting corporate Canada." 

HRFest Canada returns this year in November and is building early momentum with registrations well underway since the event opened to attendees in June. Artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace will feature prominently on the agenda alongside the HRFest Canada’s established focus on leadership, culture, and talent strategy — making it one of the more comprehensive gatherings of people leaders in the country. 

Direct conversations on wellness 

At HRFest Canada, Gill says GoodLife has two core goals: direct one-on-one conversations with HR leaders, and the chance to share new science-based research her team has been developing. Programs, she says, are increasingly built in direct response to what partner organizations are telling her team they need most. "What I really appreciate is the opportunity to have that individual connection with people and find out the issues that they are dealing with," says Gill. "Increasingly, the programs that we work on and develop are in direct response to our partners and, for lack of a better term, the pain points with which they're dealing." 

Those pain points are significant. Mental fatigue, stress, and burnout are currently costing Canadian organizations the equivalent of approximately 46 working days per employee each year, according to a Manulife report — a figure that makes a compelling case for proactive investment. 

Goodlife fashions itself as a “one-stop wellness shop” for organizations looking to support employee wellness, says Gill. “From our conversations with HR folks, we have a lot of respect and appreciation for not just the work, but the workload that they're increasingly taking on, and anything that we can do in the space to make their lives easier is the goal,” she says. 

Wellness is broader than just a gym pass 

GoodLife's corporate wellness offering is considerably broader than many HR leaders might expect, according to Gill. Beyond corporate fitness memberships and gym passes — which allow employees to join directly through employer-sponsored programs — the company delivers on-site, virtual, and recorded fitness experiences, educational seminars, individual nutrition consultations, and on-site massage therapy, all tailored to each partner organization's specific needs, she says. 

"We fashion ourselves as a one-stop wellness shop for a lot of organizations," Gill says. "Obviously we've got the fitness component to it, and increasingly organizations are reaching out to us for that educational component as well." 

Gill is clear that GoodLife's programming is built around flexibility, not prescription. No two organizations face the same wellness challenges, and a blanket fitness initiative that ignores underlying stress or mental health concerns is unlikely to deliver results. "Most HR people recognize that wellness is not a one-size-fits-all proposition," she says. "So we have multiple touch points to assist organizations and really create that curated experience for them, so they can come away with something that’s comprehensive and very cost effective as well." 

The financial and staffing costs of doing nothing 

The conversation around employee wellness investment has shifted, and Gill says the business case has never been clearer or easier to make. She frames it not as a question of what a wellness program costs, but what the absence of one will ultimately cost. 

"It isn't just a case now of wellness being a nice to have," says Gill. "Employees are increasingly making their decision on where they choose to work and whether they choose to stay at work based on not just compensation now, it's based on how does that company support me over the long term." 

She believes the financial argument runs deeper than attraction and retention. "If you can come at the challenges that are faced within an organization from a pre-emptive standpoint, you’re ultimately saving money in the long run," says Gill. “Having a wellness program for employees has always been a great way to attract and retain the best talent, and that certainly helps our HR folks.” 

The most common mistake she sees — and it’s a costly one — is organizations investing in wellness initiatives without first consulting their workforce on what it actually needs. "There's not much sense in bringing in a fitness class if people are just dealing with ongoing internal stress and internal challenges," Gill says. "We want to make sure that the solution is going to match the challenge that they have at hand." 

That diagnostic first step is where Gill says GoodLife can provide real value. The groundwork of listening, assessing, and understanding workforce-specific challenges is something that, once done, makes the rollout of a tailored program far more straightforward, she says. The growing pressures of hybrid and remote work have created an entirely new set of wellness demands that generic programs simply cannot meet. 

HR: the wellness advocate who needs to look inward 

Gill doesn't shy away from addressing the most uncomfortable truth in the room that should be discussed at HRFest Canada: the HR professionals tasked with championing employee wellness across their organizations may be, themselves, among the most burned-out people in the workforce. 

"I know for myself as an employee, as a wife, as a mom, I can't look after other people if I'm not looking after myself," says Gill. "So you need to put on that safety mask first in order to be able to take care of the ones around you as well." 

Within GoodLife, senior leaders and HR staff are encouraged to lead by example and to share their wellness journeys openly, according to Gill. "We’ve had some folks — including very successful people within our organization — who have been very candid and shared their stories to let others know that self-care is not a nice to have," she says. "It really is something that you need to prioritize." 

Building wellness momentum with a first step 

Gill's message to any HR leader hesitating to take the initiative on workplace wellness: "I would say don't hesitate to take that first step and just have those conversations; dip your toe into the wellness pool," she says. "There's a lot more available to you and it's a sequential thing — you take that baby step first and then there are lots of other opportunities that can follow from there." 

She adds that attending events such as HRFest Canada has shown her that HR people are usually at the forefront of the idea of health and wellness. “From my own personal experience attending these events, we have some really remarkable conversations with HR leaders who are doing some really wonderful things that are transforming their whole company culture,” she says. “They can be really small things too, but they're things that are very transformative for the organization.” 

HRFest Canada 2026 is scheduled for November 10 and 11, 2026. Registration is now open.