Ever had an employee claim they're underpaid compared to the market? In this episode, I chat with compensation expert Carolyn Kildare about the nuts and bolts of effective salary benchmarking.

We dive into how to respond when employees bring outside salary data to you, where to find reliable compensation surveys, and how to build credibility in your benchmarking process. Carolyn shares practical wisdom from her years at Mercer and as owner of Cadence Compensation to help you navigate these challenging conversations.

Key topics we cover:

• Building a solid compensation philosophy as your foundation
• Why data quality matters (and which surveys to trust)
• Handling employee challenges to your compensation structure
• The difference between inflation and salary increase budgets
• When and how to "age" older salary data

Perfect for HR professionals looking to strengthen their compensation strategy and confidently handle those tricky "but everyone else pays more" conversations.

Find Carolyn at https://www.cadencecompensation.ca/ or on LinkedInFind me as always: https://thehrhub.ca

Is your L&D team flying blind? In this episode, I sit down with edtech strategist and author Lori Niles-Hofmann to unpack why data-driven learning design is a game-changer for HR professionals.

Lori reveals how borrowing tactics from marketing can transform training effectiveness and explains her practical "duct tape approach" for organizations without perfect data systems. We explore everything from using digital body language to predict learning needs to her bold prediction about AI coaches replacing traditional courses.

Whether you're struggling to measure learning impact or looking to modernize your training approach, this conversation delivers actionable insights for mid-career HR professionals ready to elevate their L&D strategy.

Guest: Lori Niles-Hofmann, EdTech & AI Transformation Strategist and author of the upcoming "The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation"

Topics covered:• Why intuition alone fails in learning design• Essential data points every L&D team should track• Overcoming common barriers to data-driven approaches• How A/B testing can revolutionize your training effectiveness• The future of personalized AI-powered learning

This episode is also sponsored by iSpring - an all-in-one e-learning solution that makes creating training easier.

Also check out: 👉 Lori's new book "The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation" coming this spring👉 Lori's course on LinkedIn Learning about Data-Driven Learning Design https://www.linkedin.com/learning/data-driven-learning-design👉 My website for consulting to SMBs - https://thehrhub.caALSO this episode is sponsored by iSpring - an all-in-one e-learning solution that makes creating training easier. Check out my demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8q-zhHHvkUhttps://www.ispringsolutions.com/They have offered discount codes (good until the end of 2025) as follows: 'ANDREA-SUITE' - For purchasing iSpring Suite with a 10% discount.'ANDREA -SUITE-MAX' - For purchasing iSpring Suite Max with a 10% discount.

Connect on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-adams1/ or find me at https://thehrhub.ca for consulting to SMBs.

Let's plan for 5 years down the road with a thousand moving pieces - many of which you have zero control over. That's strategic workforce planning.

I have had a growing interest in workforce planning with the rise of AI. I don't want to be doing miserable HR - like mass layoffs when you didn't plan for the shift in 30% of tasks to AI.

My guest this week, Ross Sparkman, has literally wrote the book on strategic workforce planning. When you google 'workforce planning books' his book, 'Strategic Workforce Planning: Developing optimized talent strategies for future growth' comes up and the 2nd edition came out last week! He is currently the Sr. Director of Workforce Planning at Walmart and held similar roles at Nike and Meta.

It's complicated, but we need to plan for the future:

- What roles and skills do we need now? In the future? When in the future?

- What risks impact our plans? And how will we mitigate?

- Do we have the right mix of full-time, part-time and contingent workers?

- Are we hiring in the right places?

And so many more. Workforce planning is the pinnacle of big picture HR. Ross tells us how to do it in the short-term and then how to scale up to the bigger picture.

Check it out! And read the book - I can hardly think of another topic where reading the book would be more important.

Find Ross' new book on Amazon! It was just published last week: Strategic Workforce Planning: Developing optimized talent strategies for future growthYou can find Ross on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ross-sparkman/You can find me https://thehrhub.ca/or on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-adams1/

80% are just fine, 15% skirt the edges, and 5% are evil.

The latter 20% explain why compliance is such a big thing in HR.

Anyone who follows my show closely knows I am interested in understanding the impact of power. I spoke with Dr. Catherine Connelly who is an expert in HR and in Canada's temporary foreign worker (TFW) program. The TFW program, arguably, represents one of the greatest power imbalances in any Canadian workplace.

So what can HR learn from this power imbalance? Unsurprisngly, a lot:

😇 The TFW program demonstrates why compliance exists. Most of us are fine, but some are not and it's for the latter that compliance rules exist.

👺 It would be naive of HR not to be alert to rogue managers.

😥 When an employee with low organizational power complains, it may have taken a lot of bravery for them to come forward. If you dismiss them, they may never speak up again - and you will have missed an opportunity to learn.

😱 Some senior leaders are shocked to find out what is happening on the front lines. Organizations need good people processes to ensure this doesn't happen.

The temporary foreign worker program is not tied directly to many of us in HR. But it provides inside into what can happen when there are unchecked power imbalances.

It's a sober learning opportunity - check it out!

Find Dr. Connelly's Book Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Find Dr. Connelly in any of the following places

LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-connelly-57b70762/

https://connellyresearch.com/

https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/connell

Find me, as always on LinkedIn or at https://thehrhub.ca

If you do any meeting or workshop facilitation, this video will make it easier! It provides an overview of facilitation and many tactical insights which I plan to apply at my next facilitation.

You never need fear that guy who slouches in his seat with his arms crossed ever again.

My guest for this was Robin Parsons. Robin owns a facilitation company called Parsons Dialogue. She has been doing this work for 10 years and even teaches facilitation through ICA Associates. After talking with her I can see how I would have benefited from facilitation training. Things like:

- It is important to start with ground rules.

- Humans are emotional creatures. There are stages a group goes through and you can't skip the step in which they talk about their emotions.

- If your client wants you to get the group to 'come up with the right answer themselves' beware. This is as much manipulation as facilitation.

- Robin has many HR people in her classes because we know we need the skill but didn't learn it in university.

This honestly was such a useful episode. I have some upcoming facilitation and will refer back to it. Check it out!

https://ica-associates.ca/

https://www.parsonsdialogue.com/

https://thehrhub.ca

What if your employees had the willingness and ability to respond quickly and flexibly to changing business needs? Sounds a little like a fairytale.

Maybe not. There are things you can do to build resilience in the workplace.

This whole conversation with Beverly Beuermann-King about building resilience in the workplace was a revelation. Beverly talks about resilience a lot at conferences as well as presenting workshops and participating in panels. Her company, Work Smart Live Smart is a resiliency and corporate culture focused company helping people deal with reactions to stress and live better lives.

A few things I noted:

- A lot of what she talks about aligns with what we know of engagement - but not all.

- The most intriguing part for me was about hope. Why don't we talk about hope at work more often? It makes total sense.

- We need employee creativity and ideas. So working them to burnout is not the answer.

Beverly has thought about this a lot and the message was so welcome. Check out the full discussion.

Find Beverly at Work Smart Live Smart

https://worksmartlivesmart.com/

And of course find me at https://thehrhub.ca/

This is a special episode and is part of podcasthon. Podcasthon is a global movement bringing podcasts and channels together in service of all the AMAZING not-for-profits out there. This discussion revolves around doing HR in this kind of organization.

There are so many great NFPs out there, but I am on the board of Trinity Place Foundation of Alberta. They provide housing for people who are hard to house and those with limited income. Given current housing conditions and the personal struggles of some people, this is so so important!

I was happy to interview Jennie Deneka, the dynamic and passionate CEO of TPFA. Jennie has a background in healthcare and has been at the helm of TPFA for 4 years. She is currently guiding the organization through a transformation and was happy to talk about what NFPs TRULY need from HR. LIke:

- Be a generalist. Many NFPs are smaller so you will have to do a lot of things.

- You have to be realistic. NFPs often have small budgets and you have to make do.

- Maybe you can also be really creative and get some great things done

- The mission of the organization will fuel you. It's not the only thing that matters, but it helps a lot.

It was a pleasure to do this and highlight the great work of so many charities and not-for-profits in all of our communities filling gaps and helping critical causes in our communities.

Consider donating to a charity in your community or to TPFA. You can reach TPFA at

info@tpfa.ca

HR is often shouldering the burden and leadership around the impact of societal shifts. We have to ensure the organization is prepared to respond, culture is aligned and any risks around the shift are mitigated. So we need to think about the future of work.

I was delighted to have this conversation with Anthony Ariganello, CEO of CPHR Canada and President of the World Federation of People Management. AND he is a member of the Order of Canada!

Anthony shared is big picture perspective on the future of HR. Somethings will be advanced and only get better from where they are today and there may be big shifts - like the one in the video below.

🧠 We need to continue focusing on mental health. We have made great strides but the work is not done.

😵‍💫 Employee engagement will continue to be critical - we need to lead around effective remote work and things like quiet quitting.

🙂 Immigrants will be important to meeting our labour needs when we are not having enough kids. HR creativity may be warranted.

🤝 We may be moving away from the hyper focus on collaboration. I'm not sure how because I think it is the reality of how work gets done, but we need to monitor.

♾️ HR is part of a system involving the HR associations and government to effect the change that our organizations need.

It was a wonderful big picture conversation with a global leader in HR. Check it out!

Check out CPHR at https://cphr.ca/

Find me at https://thehrhub.ca/