5 themes that define Canada’s top HR teams right now

As the 2026 Canadian HR Awards approach – with the gala set for Oct. 1 – a picture is emerging around trends with this year's finalists. Whatever their industry or size, the HR leaders and teams shortlisted for top honours share a set of priorities: employee listening, mental health and wellbeing, HR technology investment, a belief in the irreplaceable human element of the profession, and a push to secure a genuine seat at the executive table.

The most consistent thread across the finalist cohort is a commitment to hearing from employees before acting. Miller Thomson, the national law firm operating across 10 cities in Canada, made employee feedback the cornerstone of its journey to finalist status in both Excellence in HR Team Performance and Excellence in Employer Branding and Talent Attraction.

"What we've seen in terms of the story that we've been able to tell about working at Miller Thomson, it clearly has resonated with individuals in the market," says Jessica Watkins, Chief Administrative Officer at Miller Thomson in Toronto. "It's proof that data-driven decision-making can really work."

Terry Doyle, Senior Director of People and Culture at Miller Thomson, describes a three-year process of listening to firm members that guided benefits redesign and employer branding, leading to recognition as a top workplace. “It was really about how we listened to our people, our leaders, our firm members, and it started to really help us  formulate what is it that's going to resonate with them from a people and culture standpoint,” says Doyle. “We saw tremendous results in the market, but we've also seen over these last three years a tremendous result in the number of employees that have stayed with the firm – we've seen increased retention and engagement, and these have all been validated by external awards we were winning.”

On a smaller scale, Melaina Slater, Director of Human Resources at the Calgary Humane Society, leads a two-person HR team that achieved an 81-per-cent employee engagement score in 2025 – powering the organization's finalist recognition in Excellence in Workplace Culture and Employee Experience for the third time. Colleen Falco, Senior HR leader at Niagara Casinos in Niagara Falls, Ontario – a finalist in both HR Team of the Year and Senior HR Leadership – says she anchored strategy around two employee-led cross-functional committees, yielding an eight-point increase in overall engagement scores year over year.

Wellbeing is no longer optional

Wellbeing is a consistent priority across every finalist who spoke with HRD Canada – not as a nice-to-have but as a strategic imperative, and organizations of all sizes are building it into core operations.

At Miller Thomson, this meant a significant redesign of the firm's total rewards offering. "We leaned heavily into mental health services,” says Watkins, adding that parental leave benefits were also expanded in direct response to employee feedback. “That was something that we were very proud of.”

At the Calgary Humane Society, where emotionally demanding animal welfare work is a daily reality, building resilience into the team is foundational, according to Slater, who lists employee programs such peer support, psychological first aid training, wellness resources, and recognition initiatives offered in her organization. "We don't pretend that this difficult work is going to be easy,” she says. “We just want to ensure that our team members have the support and the tools they need to navigate this work."

Diana Valler, Chief Human Resources Officer for the Americas at H.I.S. Americas – a travel organization spanning Canada, Peru, Hawaii, Brazil, and Mexico – and a finalist in the Woman of Distinction category as well as a previous winner at the Canadian HR Awards, expanded mental health and wellness programming in her organization, partnering with Manulife and GoodLife to deliver sessions in-office and remotely.

Technology investment is accelerating — thoughtfully

Many awards finalists are investing deliberately in HR technology, but they’re using it to improve the employee experience rather than simply automate it.

Aman Malhi, Director of People and Culture leader at Refrigerative Supply, is a finalist in Excellence in Employer Branding and Talent Attraction. She describes the past 12 months as "pretty life-changing" for her team. According to Malhi, they undertook a comprehensive upgrade of their entire human resources information system (HRIS) stack while developing a competency framework built from more than 100 interviews, one for each unique role in the organization.

"I'm a fan of AI. I think AI has such a great potential of making such a positive difference in our lives, so I really wanted to have the technology that's leveraging AI and making sure that we are at the forefront of HR technology," says Malhi.

At H.I.S. Americas, Valler's team integrated AI-assisted onboarding, replacing repetitive in-person presentations with a bot-narrated module that, according to Valler, generated measurable return on investment and time savings. At Niagara Casinos, Falco oversaw multiple system implementations concurrently: Workday refinements, a new central scheduling platform, a guest service survey system, and an upgraded employee recognition platform, she says.

Keeping the human in human resources

Even as technology investment grows, the finalists who spoke with HRD Canada are unanimous: no system replaces the human work at the centre of this profession.

"I think it all comes down to just keeping the human in human resources," says Malhi. "There are AI pressures, economy pressures, and results — and all the mental health issues and family issues haven't gone away, so all this other stuff has just been added to the ones we already had.”

For Malhi, the people and culture is now more important than ever, and she says that “anybody who thinks that AI can do what these teams do, I think that's a misunderstanding."

Falco, who faces the challenge of preserving a human-centred guest experience amid growing automation, identifies this tension as one of HR's defining priorities ahead, while Slater says HR is evolving quickly.

HR's seat at the table

That evolution of HR's status includes increased influence at the executive level — and a conviction that the function must understand the business deeply to maintain that standing, according to Slater. "I think it's key to have HR representation at the executive level," she says. "I'm really grateful that we've had a CEO here who really sees the value in having a strong human resources department and bringing this position to the level of sitting around the table with the rest of our directors."

Watkins and Doyle at Miller Thomson say they align their people and culture strategy directly to the firm's business priorities, presenting regularly to the executive committee. Valler goes further, arguing that the HR function must evolve from "business partner" to "strategic business partner" – one that not only supports strategy but shapes it, she says.

With the Canadian HR Awards gala approaching, this year’s cohort of finalists offers a snapshot of what is working in Canadian human resources: listening deeply, investing in wellbeing, using technology with intention, preserving the human core of the profession, and earning the right to sit at the table where decisions are made.

The 2026 Canadian HR Awards gala will be held on Oct. 1 at Rebel in Toronto. Registration for the event is open now, with Early Bird pricing ending Sept. 27.