Long-term talent pipelines need intentional architecture – not just better job postings – to drive growth, says senior talent exec
Only five per cent of Canadian hiring managers report having the headcount and skills to complete high-priority projects, according to Robert Half Canada's 2026 survey of 1,500 hiring managers – with 57 per cent reporting active skills gaps in their departments. Those figures are accelerating a shift from vacancy-driven recruitment to proactive talent pipeline management as a core business strategy, according to one senior talent leader.
The solution to building and maintaining an effective talent pipeline within an organization isn’t faster hiring, but a deeper structural change in how organizations build and sustain their workforce over time, says Ray Chaaya, Vice President of Talent and Culture at Zurich Canada in Ottawa. Chaaya has spent more than 20 years working across talent acquisition, development, and organizational culture, and he says when every organization competes for the same pool of experienced professionals, no one actually grows the talent supply.
"If every insurer is competing for the same people, then we're largely just moving the talent around the industry rather than creating new talent," says Chaaya. "We can't really recruit our way out of a structural talent challenge – we also have to just create new talent."
Assessing skills needs first
At Zurich Canada, that conviction has produced a concrete change in how hiring decisions begin, according to Chaaya. Before any role goes to market, the team asks what capabilities the business strategy actually requires and what the most effective path to develop them is. That might mean an external hire, growing internal talent, or identifying candidates with adjacent skills who can build sector expertise over time, he says.
One visible outcome is Zurich Canada's apprenticeship program, developed in partnership with Seneca Polytechnic, a college in Toronto, which allows individuals to earn professional credentials while gaining real work experience inside the organization – creating a structured entry point for those who wouldn’t have found one through the sector's traditional channels. Building non-traditional pathways in is increasingly how forward-looking employers are responding to structural talent shortfalls.
Such partnerships also expose the organization to people who may not have considered the industry at a potential career, widening the pool of potential talent, according to Chaaya.
Building the pipeline, connecting the architecture
The failure Chaaya identifies most consistently is not within individual programs – it’s between them. Talent acquisition, talent development, and talent management are routinely managed as separate functions. Each may operate well independently, but the pipeline breaks at every handoff, he says –leaving the skills gaps reported in the Robert Half Canada survey, 2026 Demand for Skilled Talent: Human Resources.
An outstanding internship program produces graduates with no clear next step. Learning and development investments go unconnected to visible internal opportunities. Succession conversations happen in isolation from recruitment decisions, meaning roles that could have served as internal development moves are instead filled from outside.
"Can an employee see where they could go next, and do we know what experiences we need to create to help them get there?" Chaaya says. "If we, at the end of the day, cannot answer that question, then you don't really have a system yet. You just have really good programs that aren’t necessarily connected."
In his organization, early-career pipelines, apprenticeship pathways, development programs, internal mobility, and succession planning are being deliberately linked into a single architecture – not to layer on more initiatives, but to ensure people can move through them from one career stage to the next, with the organization actively creating the conditions for that progression to happen, according to Chaaya.
“You can't just attract someone to the industry and then expect them to figure everything out for themselves – there needs to be very intentional structural design work that happens in terms of career pathing,” he says. “If we genuinely want new talent entering insurance, we have to make it possible for someone who doesn't already know the industry to see it in a way where they consider it as a serious career and also see a future once they come into it.”
Succession begins earlier than some leaders think
The most counterintuitive element is about the timing of succession planning, says Chaaya. Succession is commonly treated as a late-stage conversation – a shortlist assembled when a senior vacancy is imminent. But he believes that by that point, the pipeline has already been shaped by decisions made years earlier.
"A lot of what determines that succession pipeline – those decisions already happened long before that conversation," says Chaaya. "Those decisions typically happen when we first hire somebody for a specific skill set or capability – and it happens when specific people are given opportunities or secondments, or when they're promoted into a specific job, or when we move them and give them exposure of the business from a different perspective."
The practical implication on how succession planning addresses the talent crisis in Canada is that early-career talent must be assessed for potential, not readiness. "We're looking for signs of potential. We're not looking for readiness," says Chaaya. "Our job isn't simply to identify people who already look like successors – it's really to give talented people the experiences that allows them to then become successors."
Chaaya also flags AI-enabled judgment – the capacity to make sound decisions as artificial intelligence handles more transactional work – as a leadership capability organizations should begin tracking in junior employees today.
Identifying potential, not just readiness
Chaaya's own career gives the philosophy texture. He studied film and behavioural psychology, moved through frontline operations and learning and development, and arrived at senior HR leadership at a major Canadian insurer – because leaders were willing to invest in what he could become, not only what he had already done. "I've benefitted from leaders who were willing to look at what I could potentially do, not just what I've already done," he says.
"A strong talent pipeline should have different ways in, different ways to grow, and real opportunities for people to move," Chaaya says. "Sometimes developing great talent means being prepared to let your best people leave, move, or come out of your team because the next opportunity is somewhere else in the organization – and that typically is a lot easier said than done."
