Looking to earn CPD credits towards your CPHR accreditation? Tech Talent North is a pre-approved CPD partner allowing you to earn up to 10 certified education hours towards your CPHR designation.

CHRP, CHRL and CHRE members of HRPA may self-report hours for CPD.

Design your personalized learning experience based on your primary track of interest.

Never before has the fight to attract and retain top talent be as fierce as it is today. Here in the final innings of a pandemic that has lasted too long, the complexities of how we work, where we work, and what we need to do to build incredible teams intensifies. How do we enable our teams and culture to stand out so we can bring on the best people and keep them when they arrive, navigate an unpredictable future, and thrive in the new world of work? 

In this engaging, research-backed, and actionable keynote, hear from workplace culture expert and bestselling author Eric Termuende as he shares insights and out-of-the-box thinking that we can immediately implement to better prepare for an uncertain future and build incredible teams.  

What you will learn: 

• How to build a deeper sense of trust across the team 
• Where the heart of engagement lies and how to improve it 
• How culture has evolved over the pandemic and where it resides today 
• The three rules of recognition and what we can do today to improve alignment 
• What cilantro can teach us about attracting top talent 
• The importance of a culture of experimentation and where to start  

Our industry-leading platform allows for you to move between tables, and interract face-to-face with your peers and other HR leaders in tech from across Canada – just as you would at a physical conference! Have a private one-on-one meeting, catch up with old contacts, or share ideas as a group in our Networking Hub.

Join our culture, marketing and strategy experts as they explore how organizations can create a strong and compelling employer brand remotely, and that has global appeal. 

You will learn:   

• The foundational building blocks from both a marketing and people perspective of building a culture which connects with candidates.   
• The challenges of scale and maintaining your culture as you grow.   
• The flavour of how decentralized work is changing how leaders think about building and promoting culture.  

One of HR’s key roles in a fast-growth business is to ensure a steady flow of potential succession pool candidates for promotion and new roles. That begs the question, do you buy this talent from the marketplace or do you build the talent internally? Join Laurie Murdock, Vice President, P&O, at Sony Imageworks, and Mike Desjardins, CEO at ViRTUS, for an engaging 30 min conversation on the buy versus build question.  

Curious how to link strategy, continuous performance and people?  It may be time to look at your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to track progress, create alignment, and encourage engagement around measurable goals instead of traditional performance management reviews. 

You will learn:  

• How to set OKRs and link them to 1:1s as continuous performance management  
• Integration of recognition and feedback  
• Increasing alignment and transparency around performance  

Do you need to grow your technical team fast? Is it time to internationalize your workforce? Issues such as payroll, benefits, taxes, cross-culture, compliance, immigration, time zones, pay equity etc. for international employees can feel overwhelming. Although the process for hiring global talent or helping international tech talent relocate to Canada isn’t as complicated as it may feel – the playbook is different. 

You will learn: 

• Key tools for attracting, hiring, managing and retaining international employees 
• Steps to relocate international tech talent to Canada 
• To understand the top challenges and solutions of hiring without borders

Traditional DEI behaviour change approach has been ineffective and harmful. Sharon specializes in a radical new approach to diversity and inclusion that is measurable, strategic, and based on a strong foundation of design thinking. She will guide you through what an innovative structural change approach looks like practically and its benefits and outcomes.     

Canada is projected to see exponential growth in the need for tech talent and software developers in particular for the foreseeable future. Retaining top talent reduces your need to compete for talent. With happy employees being less susceptible to talent poaching, understanding their intrinsic motivation to stay (or join) your company is key. Can you compete for talent against deeply funded tech companies moving into Canada?

Although salaries need to be competitive, money isn’t everything! Learn innovative strategies, including values-based approaches for keeping your high performers, even as a smaller organization.  

You will learn:    

• Competing for top software development talent 
• How to attract top software developers and keep them   
• To develop your employer value proposition (holistic benefits, work life balance, selling your executive team, work environment, etc.) and strategies for retaining a great team.    
• Employer retention programs that don’t focus on money.    

While paying attention to the strategic side of rapid growth is important, many companies underestimate the critical role culture plays as this growth strategy becomes reality. The oversight of cannibalizing culture during rapid scaling can dampen a company’s growth plans. Hear about the challenges and strategies of three tech companies who have exploded during COVID and how they are preserving their corporate culture.