'Not every generation wants a pool table in the office'

As Canadian workplaces become more diverse than ever, HR executives are grappling with the challenges and opportunities of managing a workforce that spans five generations. At today’s HR Leaders Summit Canada in Toronto, executives from across healthcare, financial services, and social impact sectors gathered to discuss how organizations can harness the strengths of a multi-generational workforce to drive engagement, innovation and retention.

“Today’s workplace has five different generations — the most diverse in history. That brings an incredible opportunity, but also complexity in how we engage, communicate, and ultimately retain talent,” said Sean Paulseth, Head of Revenue for Canada at Zezou, who facilitated the discussion.

Understanding What Employees Value

The panelists agreed that while generational trends exist, HR leaders must avoid painting entire age cohorts with the same brush. “I’m always careful to say a whole generation thinks exactly the same. That’s the one thing we’re really careful when we are looking at employee feedback,” said Sarah Schroeder, Head of HR Business Partnering at CI Financial. She emphasized the importance of using both data and dialogue to understand employee needs, cautioning against one-size-fits-all solutions.

Tom Dalby, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at CBI Health, echoed this sentiment. “You don’t want to paint an entire generation with the same brush and assume that it’s homogenous within that group. What we’ve done is divide our groups into personas based on time with the company and age,” he said. This approach enables organizations to tailor benefits and engagement strategies more precisely.

The Role of Data and Technology

HR technology is playing a critical role in helping organizations understand and respond to generational differences. Corey Shaw, founder of North Star Talent, highlighted the value of collecting data at multiple touchpoints — from candidate experience surveys to exit interviews — and using it to test hypotheses about workforce trends. “You definitely want to try to align your HR technology stack to capture all that data. Often it’s there when you’re running candidate experience surveys, new hire surveys, you’re doing those things like exit interviews and then looking at how that data breaks down,” she said.

Dalby added that technology can help HR leaders move beyond assumptions and deliver targeted solutions: “It’s really about honing in and looking at that data to really understanding the different workforces and what guides them. Because at the end of the day, maybe not every generation wants a pool table in the office. You have to find things that are relevant to each part of the workforce.”

Bridging Communication Gaps

Effective communication remains a cornerstone of cross-generational engagement. Shaw described a successful initiative in which employees created their own communication personas. “Something that I saw worked well with an organization was everybody created their own personas of how they wanted to be communicated, coached, developed, rewarded, and then really everybody shared what their personas were like. We made it a bit fun; we gamified it a little bit with what we called our emoji wall,” Shaw said.

Dalby noted the importance of a coaching leadership style: “That sort of coaching leadership style is one way to bridge the generations, because you’re listening, you’re understanding what that person needs from you, which is very different across the teams, but at least that way you’re listening, because it really does need to be personalized and focused.”

The Human Connection

Despite advances in technology, the panelists agreed that human connection remains at the heart of effective HR leadership. “No matter what the technology is, it has to start with that very human connection and then you build from that,” Dalby said.

As organizations continue to adapt to a rapidly changing workforce, HR leaders who listen, personalize, and foster authentic connections will be best positioned to leverage the strengths of every generation.