Future-ready HR: Talent fluidity, responsible AI, and outcome-driven flexibility
HR plans rarely survive contact with the year. That's the point. Agility is the plan. As one leader put it, you pivot to meet people where they are while the ground shifts under your feet.
Leaders from Roche Canada, YVR, and Surerus Murphy are aligning on a few priorities: build fluid, skills-based careers, integrate AI responsibly, treat flexibility as an outcome question, lean into pay transparency, and put wellness on the front burner. Underpinning all of it is a simple principle: keep people at the centre of change.
Talent-first strategies across three very different employers
Roche Canada: remove friction for career moves
Roche's focus is "talent fluidity." With 2,000 employees across nine functions and a mix of global, scientific, and technical roles, opportunities are everywhere - access is the bottleneck. As Alvin Raskina shared, employees don't always know how to find their next move, and leaders aren't sure how to guide them.
The people and culture team is building clearer pathways so employees can see roles, projects, and learning in one place - and move. The goal: make internal mobility feel obvious, fast, and safe.
Surerus Murphy: project-ready workforce planning
In a project-based construction business, headcount expands and contracts. Michelle Dulmadge is pushing proactive workforce planning on par with financial planning. That means sharper visibility into skills, intentional job design, and a bench that's ready before the bid is won.
They're investing in skill development and leadership capability so teams can flex to project needs without burning people out.
YVR: programs rebuilt around skills and mobility
YVR has ~1,000 direct employees and another 27,000 working across the airport ecosystem. Richard Beed is rebuilding programs around a "talent-first" concept - invest early, enable movement, and retain.
As work shifts (including with AI), skill transition paths are being designed into programs so employees can move across functions with less friction.
AI: useful, ethical, and human-led
All three organizations are moving fast on AI - and staying deliberate. YVR is rolling out enterprise tools (including corporate ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot access) with training that starts from the work itself: what changes, where AI helps, and where human judgment remains the decider. The message is clear: AI assists; people decide.
Surerus Murphy is applying AI in recruiting and process efficiency while planning for governance next: bias, transparency, privacy, and ethical use in people decisions. As Dulmadge noted, if AI removes admin work, HR must create growth paths so people develop higher-value skills.
Roche Canada is using AI in performance, hiring, analytics, and talent predictions - and building "everyday AI" habits to normalize safe experimentation. Raskina stressed common language, clear guardrails, and a culture that replaces fear with curiosity.
Flexibility without losing outcomes or culture
Surerus Murphy runs on-site construction, yet keeps flexible work as a differentiator for eligible roles. The principle: measure outcomes, not activity. Hybrid time is used intentionally to protect team culture and connection.
At YVR, frontline roles are on-site; office teams spend at least three days in person. Flexibility shows up in practical ways - staggered starts, medical appointments - while keeping teams together to solve problems in real time.
Roche Canada treats flexibility as table stakes across time zones. Support for office time is thoughtful: carpooling, toll subsidies, EV charging. The expectation stands: culture and community matter, and in-person connection is part of the deal.
Pay transparency: stop resisting and use it
Roche Canada has long operated with wage equity principles and applied consistent guardrails across provinces as legislation emerged. It signals trust to employees and candidates.
YVR has shared pay ranges internally for six years and externally for a couple of years. Beed's take: transparency moves the pay conversation to the front, which saves pain later. Dulmadge adds that it supports cleaner market analysis and better candidate fit early.
If you need a reference point, review provincial guidance such as B.C.'s Pay Transparency Act for practical requirements and reporting expectations. See details here.
Employee experience in a tougher economy
Listening is the lever. Surerus Murphy uses engagement data to decide where to put time and money across a multi-generational, culturally diverse workforce. The commitment: make changes people can feel.
Roche Canada doubled down on inclusion and belonging through a turbulent year for DEI while strengthening benefits and career development. Purpose matters - and so do promotions, skills, and real growth.
YVR is pushing leaders to reconnect at a human level: know your people, what's working, what isn't, and adjust for both the business and the person.
Wellness isn't a perk - it's a capacity strategy
Wellness, mental health, and psychological safety show up across all three employers. Support the whole person, equip leaders to respond well, and go beyond a basic EFAP. And a reminder from Raskina that often goes unsaid: HR needs to protect its own energy to be effective.
Your next 90-day HR playbook
- Map skills and mobility: inventory current skills, publish internal career paths, and launch a "try-before-you-move" project marketplace.
- Stand up AI guardrails: approved tools list, privacy/bias guidance, and a review forum for edge cases. Teach prompts, review, and verification as essential skills.
- Redesign roles for AI: rewrite top 20 job profiles with "work with AI" tasks, decision rights, and quality checks.
- Make hybrid outcome-based: define team-level norms for in-person days, collaboration windows, and measurable outputs.
- Publish pay ranges everywhere: postings, internal job boards, and manager toolkits for comp conversations.
- Double your listening: quarterly pulse on workload, fairness, career energy, and manager support. Close the loop fast.
- Upgrade wellness: manager training for tough conversations, fast access to care, and norms that protect focus time.
- Protect HR's capacity: set team boundaries, rotate on-call duties, and block learning time so you don't run on empty.
Helpful resource for AI upskilling
If your team is formalizing AI literacy by role, a curated library can save time. Explore practical options by job function here: AI courses by job.
Final word
The theme across these leaders is simple: be agile, make skills the unit of progress, keep AI human-led, and measure outcomes. Do that, and you'll keep your people at the centre - and ready for whatever this year throws at you.
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