Start small with AI
Instead, she said, organizations should start with tools that are already integrated into their workplace, such as Google's Gemini or Microsoft's Copilot. It's a lower-friction way to build comfort with AI before asking employees to learn something unfamiliar from scratch.
That comfort gap is real, according to Lydia Di Francesco, a workplace wellness specialist and CEO of Fit + Healthy 365. She said there's not necessarily a full understanding of how to use AI or where to use it, or training for it. In other words, handing staff access to a tool isn't the same as teaching them what to do with it, and employers who skip that step may not see the productivity gains they're expecting.
Hybrid work and a multi-generational workforce
Hauver also pointed to her own workplace as an example of where things are headed. Ranovus, she said, is a multi-generational workplace, one of the realities HR teams now have to plan around when setting policy.
Leaders as culture carriers
Leaders are the culture carriers, she said, meaning how a manager behaves day to day matters more than what's written in an employee handbook. She backed that up with a striking number: she estimated only about nine per cent of employees will remember and understand their organization's business strategy. If leaders aren't reinforcing it constantly and personally, most of the workforce simply won't retain it.
Talking openly about menopause
Di Francesco also flagged a shift in what employees are willing to raise with HR. As more employees bring it forward, it's becoming part of the broader conversation about workplace wellness alongside AI training and flexible scheduling.
The Ottawa angle
These conversations aren't happening in the abstract. For Ottawa's own HR teams and hybrid offices navigating AI rollouts, return-to-office schedules and evolving benefits conversations, the trends identified here are less a forecast than a description of what's already underway.
What led here
Ottawa employers have been grappling with related pressures for a while. Earlier this month, ottown's earlier report covered the city funding research into social media's effects on kids, part of a broader local push to understand how technology is reshaping daily life, work included.
Sources: Ottawa Business Journal
