“AI is the next evolution of challenge our clients face. We’re building capabilities to help them adapt faster – the same way we’ve navigated major innovations over ADP’s 75-plus year global history. But the word ‘human’ in human capital management remains critical” 
Jim LordADP Canada

A: External validation like this award is how we know we’re focused on the right priorities. What the industry says about our services, our technology, and our delivery is the ultimate measure of success – not what we say about ourselves internally. This confirms we’re on the right track.

A: AI handles the nuts and bolts – the administrative work, the compliance checks, the pattern recognition. But interpreting that for a client’s specific situation, advising on strategy, building a relationship with a business owner – that still requires people. Our approach is ‘one plus one equalling something greater than two’. The technology and the human expertise together create something neither can deliver alone.

A: We created the ‘Alex’ persona to remind our teams who these clients are. They are someone’s cousin, grandmother, uncle – a person who has built something from scratch and is hiring their first or fifth employee. We slow down, we thank them, we congratulate them. That empathy is the foundation of everything.

GreenShield was founded in 1957 as the creator of North America’s first prepaid drug plan. Nearly seven decades later, it remains the only major group insurer in Canada operating as a 100 per cent Canadian non-profit, and that structural choice is not incidental to its success. It is the strategy. 

JP Girard, executive vice president and head of insurance at GreenShield, which is headquartered in Windsor, ON, says, “We generate revenue like any business, but we reinvest our surplus into social impact rather than paying shareholders. That means every dollar we make goes back into better health for Canadians.” 

The non-profit model creates a virtuous cycle, Girard argues: it attracts people who genuinely care about the mission, which drives better service, which drives the revenue that funds the mission further. It also helps win awards, he notes, because the same instinct that draws caring talent to GreenShield draws the votes of HR professionals in the Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR who want a benefits partner with purpose.

The company’s product edge is its GS Plus platform, an integrated ecosystem that allows plan members to submit drug claims, access virtual medical and mental health support, and have prescriptions delivered, all in one place. GreenShield describes its position as “preparer, payer, and provider” – terminology it introduced to the Canadian marketplace. It has also moved into territory larger competitors have been slower to explore, including fertility coverage and gender-affirmation benefits, staying consistently ahead of what employers are being asked to offer.

As a mid-sized, 100 per cent Canadian-focused organization, GreenShield moves faster than its larger competitors. “Our agility allows us to pivot much faster than massive organizations,” Girard says, “while maintaining 100 per cent focus on the Canadian market, where larger competitors may only dedicate a small percentage of their global resources.” That combination of mission, speed, and focus is not available from any multinational insurer.

Operationally, GreenShield runs with deliberately flat hierarchies. Any of its approximately 1,800 employees – according to GreenShield’s 2024 Impact Report –  from Halifax, NS, to Vancouver, BC, can contact the chief executive directly. Hiring prioritizes attitude and cultural fit over technical skills, built around an internal mantra of “Stay humble, hustle hard.” The company met its 2025 target of improving the health of one million Canadians and has set a 2030 goal of reaching three million through an investment of more than $200 million in its social mission.

The Manulife Wellness Report 2026, which drew on responses from nearly 4,700 employees across 159 Canadian organizations, found that four in five employees experience at least one work-related mental health risk factor and that health-related absences and presenteeism together cost the average employee the equivalent of 46 lost working days each year. GreenShield’s integrated model – drug claims, virtual care, mental health support, and prescription delivery under one platform – is a direct response to that reality.

“AI is coming to your job, not for your job. It’s designed to enhance the client experience, not to replace the people who build those relationships” 
JP GirardGreenShield 

A: It validates something important: that our social mission and our business performance are not in conflict. HR professionals voted for us because of the quality of our team and the value of our platform. That recognition also helps us attract the kind of talent that keeps the cycle going. Purpose and performance reinforce each other.

A: Traditionally, a group insurer was a payer – you submit a claim, we pay it. We want to be there before the claim happens: virtual care, mental health support, prescriptions delivered to your door. Preparer, payer, and provider. That is a fundamentally different offer, and it is what HR professionals are increasingly asking for from their benefits partner.

A: It is our North Star. Every program we build, every partnership we pursue, every product we launch is evaluated against whether it moves us toward three million lives impacted by 2030. We met our 2025 target and we are building the capability to meet this one. The investment is real – more than $200 million back into the mission. That is what “no margin, no mission” looks like in practice.

For an HR professional, the right employment lawyer is not the one with the most credentials on the wall. It is the one who translates what the law means for your specific situation on the day you need it – clearly, practically, and without burying the answer in qualifications. That is the standard Lorenzo Lisi has built his practice around at Aird & Berlis LLP in Toronto, ON, and it is why his employment and labour group has earned the vote of Canadian HR Reporter’s readers in the 2026 Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR. 

The regulatory environment that Canadian employers are navigating in 2026 has made access to practical employment law advice more important than ever. Ontario’s updated Pay Transparency Act took effect on January 1, 2026; the Pay Equity Act continues to roll out federally; telework protections under the Occupational Health and Safety Act were expanded in October 2025; and the Employment Standards Act was amended with new rules on layoffs and illness leave. Each change requires employers to update contracts, policies, and processes – often on short notice. The group at Aird & Berlis LLP has built its reputation specifically on translating these developments into clear, actionable guidance for people managers, fast.

The group has grown from scratch over more than a decade into what Lisi describes as being “known on the street for practical legal advice.” It is a team of nine to 10 lawyers, and what defines it is not its size but its culture. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the group achieved the best office attendance of any practice group in the firm – not because attendance was mandated, but because people genuinely wanted to be there. Lisi is direct about what drives that: modelling the behaviour he expects, being honest about what the law can and cannot do for a client, and hiring lawyers whose values and working style align with the group before they learn the product.

“The secret sauce is creating an environment where people want to work, are committed to excellence, and deliver exceptional client service,” Lisi says. “That is self-reinforcing. Once the culture is right, it attracts more people who fit it, and it keeps getting stronger.” Culture is the engine, but it delivers through client-facing output. The group runs four to five webinars per year plus an annual live conference for HR professionals and employment clients – consistently drawing 1,300 to 1,400 sign-ups per session – all focused on translating legal developments into practical decisions people managers can act on the following week.

On AI, the group uses tools including Microsoft Copilot to handle commodity administrative work. Lisi is candid about the effect: it has made the strategic advice his lawyers provide more valuable, not less. “AI can handle the nuts and bolts,” he says. “But it cannot interpret the law for a client’s specific situation the way an experienced lawyer can. That is where the value sits now – and frankly, it always was.”
 

“We teach our lawyers to communicate law in a practical, pithy way – to simplify the legal concept and apply it to what the client actually needs to do, rather than forcing a business problem into a legal framework” 
Lorenzo LisiAird & Berlis LLP

A: We deliberately hire lawyers whose work style, values, and beliefs align with what we have built – from internal promotions and from laterals. Once someone integrates into the culture, they naturally adopt the collaborative working style. The best office attendance in the firm since 2020 is not a coincidence. It tells you whether people actually want to be here. They do.

A: The webinars are the best example. Four to five per year, an annual live conference, 1,300 to 1,400 sign-ups each time. The content is always business-oriented: What does this legal development mean for your day-to-day decisions as an HR leader or a business owner? Not the theory – the application. What do you do on Monday morning? That is the question we are answering.

A: It tells us the HR professionals who work with employment lawyers every day have noticed something. Over the past 10 to 12 years, we have grown from scratch to become known on the street for practical legal advice. We are not the biggest employment group in Canada – we have grown deliberately, not at all costs. Being chosen by readers over larger competitors validates that going deep in a niche and being genuinely useful is the right strategy. Short-term, we focus on meeting client expectations with quality work and having the bench strength to deliver. Long-term, we focus on attracting and retaining good people doing good work. That is all we have ever tried to do.

Queen’s University’s Industrial Relations Centre (IRC), based in Kingston, ON, has now won the Canadian Readers’ Choice Award for HR in labour relations training 13 times. The figure is not just a measure of consistency – it is a measure of what the IRC has understood for almost 90 years: there is a profound difference between knowing about labour relations – the study of the relationship between employers, employees, and their representatives – and being able to practise it, and closing that gap requires an environment where the stakes feel real. 

Canadian union density remains a significant context for why this training matters. Approximately 30 per cent of the Canadian workforce is covered by a collective agreement – with the public sector rate at around 77 per cent – meaning that for the HR and legal professionals who serve those workplaces, labour relations expertise is not optional. It is the core requirement. 

“The IRC fills a unique gap in the Canadian market,” says Lindsay Van Zuylen, sales and marketing manager at the Queen’s University IRC in Kingston, ON. “We are one of the only institutions dedicated to comprehensive labour relations education, and we do it in a way that deliberately brings union and management into the same room.” That approach, which the IRC calls the “living lab,” is the program’s defining feature and the reason it continues to earn the vote of practitioners in the Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR year after year.

The centrepiece is a five-day negotiation skills program in which participants role-play their way through a complete collective agreement bargaining process. A collective agreement is the legally binding contract negotiated between an employer and a union that governs wages, hours, and working conditions. Participants are assigned to union or management teams, coached by facilitators who have personally sat at actual bargaining tables, and put through scenarios drawn from real workplace situations. Sessions run from early morning into the evening.

“Most of our facilitators are practitioners, not academics,” Van Zuylen says. “They bring lived experience into the room and the scenarios are based on situations participants could actually face. That makes the stakes feel real – and when participants leave, they go back to work with practical tools they built themselves, not ones they were handed.”

The IRC has moved deliberately with the market. Virtual delivery – launched following the COVID-19 pandemic and now accounting for roughly half of all program participation – has opened the door to public sector employees from Western Canada who previously could not justify the cost of travel to Kingston, ON. Recordings are available for four months after each session, removing time-zone barriers entirely. 

In response to growing demand from HR professionals navigating AI integration in their workplaces, the IRC launched its first AI-focused program in 2026, covering talent strategy, skills development, and organizational readiness. The 13th Canadian Readers’ Choice Award win is built, as Van Zuylen puts it, on decades of relationships: with participants, facilitators, industry associations, and unions across Canada.
 

“Understanding labour relations intellectually and being able to apply it under pressure are completely different things. When you have sat through a simulated bargaining session that runs until 9 p.m., with coaches pushing back on your positions, you go back to work with something you could not get from a lecture” 
Lindsay Van ZuylenQueen’s IRC

The IRC’s programs also pursue something more fundamental than skills training. “Our goal is to break down the ‘us versus them’ culture between unions and management,” Van Zuylen says. “Both sides can have healthy relationships and reach mutually positive decisions. Demonstrating that is as important to us as any skill we teach.” It is a philosophy that distinguishes the IRC from programs that treat collective bargaining as a zero-sum game.

A: We stay close to the people we teach. Participant feedback, facilitator expertise, industry partnerships, and our own HR trends research all feed into how we design and update our programs. We also build custom programs for organizations that need something specific. The 13th Readers’ Choice win is a product of that continuous evolution – always listening, always updating, never assuming the program is finished.

A: Because understanding labour relations intellectually and being able to apply it under pressure are completely different things. When you have sat through a simulated bargaining session that runs until 9 p.m., with coaches pushing back on your positions, you go back to work with something you could not get from a lecture. The practical tools are there because you built them yourself. That experience stays with participants in a way that a slide deck does not.

A: Dramatically. We have participants joining from Saskatchewan at 6 a.m. their local time because it is worth it to them. The 50/50 split between virtual and in-person tells you that both formats are meeting real needs, just for different audiences. We have not lost anything by going online. We have gained a much wider reach.

In January 2026, Osgoode Professional Development introduced a new full session to its Labour Relations Certificate Program: “Back to the Office.” It was a direct, immediate response to a wave of employer mandates requiring full-time office attendance after years of hybrid flexibility – and the workplace conflicts, grievances, and legal questions that followed. For HR professionals and labour lawyers navigating return-to-office disputes in real time, the addition landed at exactly the right moment. The ability to move that quickly – from identified legal development to taught curriculum – is the central reason Osgoode has kept its program relevant across 16 consecutive years of the certificate’s existence. 

Osgoode Professional Development is the continuing and professional education arm of York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto – Ontario’s oldest law school, established in 1889. The Labour Relations Certificate Program is a five-day, fully online program covering approximately 34–35 hours of instruction, priced at around $5,000. It is not a credit program toward a degree, but a practical qualification for HR professionals, union representatives, and lawyers who need to apply what they learn immediately. David Thomas, program lawyer, attributes its 2026 Canadian Readers’ Choice Award for HR recognition to a single consistent principle: the faculty teach what they practised last week.

“Our faculty are practising lawyers – people who are doing this work right now, on both the union and management sides,” Thomas says. “They are not teaching theory. They are teaching what they did last week in a boardroom or at a bargaining table.” 

Program director John Craig, a partner at Matthews Dinsdale in private practice in Toronto who also teaches at Western University in London, ON, and on Osgoode’s Master of Laws (LLM) program, embodies that combination of frontline legal experience and teaching rigour. The faculty, Thomas adds, are very busy, high-profile professionals who volunteer their time as a form of giving back to the legal community and to workplace professionals across Canada despite the demands of full private practice. Evaluation surveys conducted at the end of each day consistently show that participants find the content directly applicable to their day-to-day work. Many return for additional Osgoode certificates and credit the program in annual performance reviews.

The curriculum of the Osgoode Certificate in Labour Law has evolved substantially across its 16-year history, tracking the law rather than lagging behind it. Labour and employment law moves faster than almost any other legal discipline, and the program’s faculty update materials continuously. Key curriculum additions and expansions since the program’s inception include:

• Privacy law in the workplace

  • A minor element in the early years, privacy law now occupies a full day of instruction – driven by the proliferation of workplace monitoring, employee data rights, and privacy obligations under Canadian legislation.
     

• Workplace investigations in unionized environments

  • Barely covered in early iterations of the program, this topic – covering union representative roles, investigation procedures, findings, and discipline under collective agreements – now accounts for a full day, reflecting the dramatic increase in formal workplace investigations over the past decade.
     

• Return-to-office mandates (added January 2026)

  • Added in direct response to the 2025–26 wave of full-time office return mandates, this session addresses the legal obligations of employers, the rights of employees and unions, grievance processes arising from mandate disputes, and case law developing in real time. It did not exist in the 2025 program.
     

The core curriculum – collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, labour law fundamentals, and public vs. private sector distinctions – remains the backbone of the program, but it is continuously updated with the most recent case law, regulatory changes, and arbitration decisions. 

“What a participant learned here five years ago will look different from what the next cohort learns today,” Thomas says.

Like Queen’s IRC, Osgoode moved to fully online delivery following the COVID-19 pandemic, after a hybrid period in which the overwhelming majority of participants chose virtual attendance regardless of the in-person option. The shift removed a significant financial and logistical barrier for HR professionals and lawyers across Canada, particularly those in Western provinces who previously could not justify travel to Toronto. Participants receive 120-day online replay access to all recorded sessions, eliminating time-zone barriers and allowing re-viewing of complex content.
 

“Laws constantly change, and labour and employment law moves faster than most. The back-to-office session we added in January 2026 did not exist a year ago. The curriculum will always reflect what is actually happening at bargaining tables and in HR offices right now” 
David ThomasOsgoode Professional Development 

A: It starts with the faculty. We have practising lawyers from both union and management sides who are deeply embedded in the field – people litigating cases and sitting at bargaining tables right now. The program was designed from day one to be practical, not academic. And every year the curriculum changes because the law changes. Daily evaluations tell us whether that is landing, and they consistently say it is. Participants are not here for theory – they are here for what they can use on Monday morning.

A: Dramatically. Privacy law barely featured in the early years – it is now a full day. Workplace investigations in unionized environments were barely mentioned – also a full day now. We added the return-to-office session in January 2026 because employers are mandating full-time returns and the conflicts that follow are landing on HR desks right now. The law does not stand still. Neither does the curriculum. That is the whole point.

A: It validates the mission. Osgoode Professional Development as a whole grew from three staff when it was founded in 1996 to over 60 today, built largely on word of mouth. The Labour Relations Certificate specifically has been running for 16 years and has never relied on advertising – its reputation travels through the participants who carry it back to their organizations and pass it on. A win from HR professionals across Canada confirms that reputation is deserved, and motivates us to keep raising the bar.

The landscape for HR vendors and service providers in Canada is being reshaped by forces that are not going away: AI is becoming table stakes rather than a differentiator, compliance obligations continue to expand, and HR budgets are under sustained pressure. The winners of the 2026 Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR already embody the posture that will matter most in this environment.

Ashlee Langlois of CPHR Saskatchewan argues that the defining competitive advantage of the next several years will not be a product feature or a price point. It will be depth of integration. Vendors that function as embedded infrastructure partners – woven into the payroll, compliance, and people-data workflows of their clients – will be far harder to displace than those who sit alongside those systems. Seamless API integration, unified HR and payroll data, and the ability to anticipate regulatory change rather than react to it are moving from desirable capabilities to minimum requirements. KPMG Canada’s Generative AI Adoption Index 2025 found that 83 per cent of Canadian employees say they want or need to upskill for AI, yet fewer than half – 48 per cent – feel their employer provides adequate training. That gap is the next frontier for HR technology vendors.

In benefits, the direction of travel is toward holistic well-being rather than transactional claim processing. The Manulife Wellness Report 2026 found that four in five Canadian employees experience at least one work-related mental health risk factor, with health-related challenges costing the equivalent of 46 lost working days per employee annually, with the vast majority of that loss occurring through presenteeism rather than absence. HR professionals are increasingly evaluating group insurance partners not on price alone but on the breadth of health, mental health, and wellness services they can offer as a single integrated solution.

In training, Edgar of future foHRward points to a parallel shift: the organizations that win will be those that can demonstrate measurable behavioural change, not just content delivery. Both Queen’s University IRC and Osgoode Professional Development are building toward this through curriculum evolution and AI-focused program additions, already moving before the market demands it. In employment law, the trajectory is toward strategic partnership over transactional advice, a shift being accelerated by AI tools that are reducing the cost of commodity legal work and concentrating value in experienced, relationship-based counsel.

Three specific developments will shape the HR vendor landscape in 2026–28. First, pay transparency obligations will expand: Ontario’s requirements took effect on January 1, 2026 for employers with 25 or more staff, and British Columbia’s phased roll-out reaches all employers with 50 or more employees by November 2026. For payroll and HCM vendors, this means another layer of mandatory functionality. For employment law practitioners, it means a new and recurring source of client advisory work. Second, the wave of return-to-office mandates is generating a body of case law that does not yet exist. Arbitrators and courts are beginning to rule on the limits of employer discretion when workers have structured their lives around hybrid flexibility – and those rulings will reshape what HR professionals need from their legal advisors in the next 12–24 months. Third, the AI skills gap will become a vendor differentiator: KPMG Canada found in 2025 that 83 per cent of Canadian employees want AI upskilling, yet only 48 per cent feel their employer provides adequate training. The vendors that build genuine AI literacy into their service model – not just AI features into their product – will be the ones that survive the next wave of vendor consolidation.

The 2026 Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR winners share a quality that no marketing budget can manufacture: they have been chosen, by ballot, by the people who depend on them. ADP Canada has built trust across nearly 50 years of Canadian payroll and HCM. GreenShield Canada has made a non-profit mission into a competitive advantage in group benefits. Lorenzo Lisi and his colleagues at Aird & Berlis LLP have made a culture of practical legal excellence into a brand. Queen’s University IRC has been developing labour relations professionals for almost 90 years and is still finding new audiences. Osgoode Professional Development has spent 16 years ensuring that every cohort leaves with tools they can use the following week.

None of these organizations tries to be everything. Each has identified a specific lane, invested in genuine expertise, and kept earning the vote of the practitioners who know that lane best. In a market crowded with vendors claiming to solve every HR challenge at once, that focused, niche excellence is exactly what the Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR rewards – and exactly what Canadian HR professionals need from the partners they choose.

Canadian Readers’ Choice Awards for HR

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  ADP Canada
   
  
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  Queen’s University Industrial Relations Centre (IRC)
   
  
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  Aird & Berlis LLP
   
  
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  GreenShield Canada
   
  
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  Osgoode Professional Development