Edna Wollf, Vice President, Consulting

I was 21 years old when I was offered my first salaried role in Human Resources. At the time, I was working in a clerical position, paid hourly with incentives. I made what seemed like a perfectly reasonable assumption: a professional HR role must come with a higher salary. I was wrong. To move into HR, I actually had to take a step backwards financially before I could move ahead professionally. Looking back, it makes complete sense. I had no HR experience. I was just beginning my HR education. Someone was willing to invest in my potential before I had [...]

I had a conversation with a CEO several years ago that has stayed with me. We were talking about organizational effectiveness, and operational sustainability, and what happens when businesses hit a point where difficult decisions become unavoidable. At one point, I asked a simple question: “If the organization had to reduce, where would you start?” I expected the answer to focus on middle management. It didn’t. The CEO pointed immediately to senior leadership. Not because leadership wasn’t valued or skilled. Quite the opposite. The concern was that too many leadership roles had gradually become disconnected from the actual functioning of [...]

There’s a moment when strong performance, trusted relationships, and a role that has become part of your identity ends in a single conversation, a single decision, a single reality creating job loss. The world around you goes quiet. I’ve sat in that moment alongside others where everything just changes. What followed wasn’t just a list of practical questions – though those came quickly. What do I do first? How do I explain this? Where do I even begin again? But underneath all of that was something harder to name. A tension. Not just uncertainty, but a strange, disorienting pause. Because [...]

AI adoption is in full swing, and in many Canadian workplaces, so is Shadow AI. I have gained a friend in AI, and I am not alone. Employees are turning to AI because it helps them work smarter, improving productivity, reducing admin time, and unlocking new ways to problem‑solve. AI is already embedded in everyday workflows, reshaping how work gets done faster than many organizations can keep up with. At an equally fast pace, Shadow AI is also gaining traction. Shadow AI refers to employees using AI tools that haven’t been formally approved or governed by their organization. And in [...]

There are two sides to every coin... oops, I mean pay decision. On the surface, compensation is math: salary bands, budgets, and market benchmarks. But underneath those numbers is the story people tell themselves about what they’re worth. Every pay decision carries both sides of a coin. One side is transactional. The other is emotional. It’s in the emotional spaces of trust, communication, and perceived fairness, where the real ROI of compensation lives. Are the tides shifting? For years, we believed that well-compensated individuals were naturally more engaged and more loyal. I believe that is true to some extent, and [...]

Fall has always been a season of reflection for me. The crisp temperature, the colours in the trees, the warm winds that carry change, and the quiet promise of something new. It energizes me as I think through what this next season will bring. This past weekend, I returned to my hometown in southern Manitoba, the place where I spent 15 years growing, stumbling, and learning about life. While watching a basketball game in their new sports complex, my eyes landed on a plaque and photo. It was the familiar face, kind eyes, and warm smile of the man who gave [...]