Challenge Factory
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Shaping workplaces where people thrive. Backed by research, driven by purpose, designed for action.
Challenge Factory is a trusted Canadian research and advisory services firm that helps organizations achieve productivity gains and impact that lasts. Grounded in best practices from the international field of career development, and guided by our conviction that the Future of Work is human, we bring an interdisciplinary lens to designing workplaces where people thrive and organizations meet today
06/22/2026
Campus career leaders, this one is for you.
Employer partnerships matter more than ever, and strong relationships need more than one-off connections.
Join Challenge Factory + CACEE for our upcoming webinar:
Why Your Employer Partnerships Are Carrying More Weight Than Ever
๐
Thursday, June 25, 2026
โฐ 12:00 to 1:00 pm ET
๐ฅ For campus career leaders
Save your spot. Register now.
Link below ๐
https://www.cacee.com/cgi/page.cgi/_evtcal.html?evt=1701
06/22/2026
Early talent needs more than an offer. They need the right infrastructure after day one.
Clear pathways. Manager support. Development systems. Career growth people understand and trust.
Join Challenge Factory and CACEE for our upcoming webinar:
How to Build an Early Talent Pipeline That Stays
๐
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
โฐ 12:00 to 1:00 pm ET
๐ฅ For HR, talent, and business leaders
Save your spot. Register now.
Link below ๐
https://www.cacee.com/cgi/page.cgi/_evtcal.html?evt=1700
06/19/2026
Scenes from Stockholm ๐ธ๐ช
This week, our Founder and CEO, Lisa Taylor, attended Future Talent Summit ( ) as an official delegate.
Considered one of the worldโs most influential events shaping the global agenda on the future of work and education, the summit brought together leaders from around the world to explore how work, talent, and careers must evolve for today โ and tomorrow.
Across two days of conversations, sessions, and shared ideas, one theme stood out:
Workforce challenges are strategic business challenges, and no strategy or ambition can be accomplished without people.
Todayโs economic and technological realities require new thinking about mobility, careers, learning, and contribution at every stage of life.
Lisa shared a longer reflection from her time at the summit in the comments below.
Stay tuned. We have lots more to share from in the coming weeks!
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https://challengefactory.ca/
Longevity is having a moment...but the workplace hasnโt gotten the memo yet. โณ
Weโre told to plan to live longer, save smarter, and stay healthier. But when it comes to actually working through that longer life? The support drops fast, and older workers are left to figure it out alone.๐ก
Ageism and labour shortages are happening at the same time. Thatโs not a coincidence. That's a design flaw.
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https://challengefactory.ca/
06/13/2026
Earlier this week, our CEO Lisa Taylor delivered the opening keynote presentation at AMC UNITE, a convention and trade show that brought together Canadaโs agricultural manufacturing community and their supply chains. ๐
During her session entitled, โTalent, Tech, and Trustโ Lisa gave delegates a clear look at the forces reshaping the future of work โ from shifting expectations to technology adoption โ and she introduced Challenge Factoryโs Broken Talent Escalatorยฎ framework, a powerful tool for understanding where career mobility is breaking down inside organizations today.
As AMCโs team described it: โHer message is clear: workforce complexity is real, but with the right systems, it becomes a strategic advantage.โ
Thank you AMC for having us at this yearโs convention. After the event, Lisa was also treated to the best of Sask hospitality. Here weโve shared a few photos of her visit to a ranch too.
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https://challengefactory.ca/
Career conversations are supposed to help people grow and move forward.
But often these conversations stay at surface-level.
People hold back.
Managers arenโt sure how to respond.
And what really matters goes unsaid.
Over time, that silence slows everything down.
In this recent radio interview, Lisa Taylor shares why psychological safety matters more than we think when it comes to career growth.
Because when people feel safe to be honest, internal mobility expands, and so does organizational capability.
๐ฌ How safe does it feel to talk about career goals in your organization?
Want to take action on this? Check out our newly released playbook, Career Development as Strategy: A Practical Guide to Internal Career Centres, co-authored by Lisa Taylor and published by CERIC with CACEE as a partner (link below).
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https://challengefactory.ca/internalcareercentreplaybook/
What if students could directly contribute to your business from day one? ๐
Today is the first day of the job for our next group of co-op students, and they are already doing real work.
Videos are being produced.
Content is being created.
Ideas are being turned into materials our team can use. ๐
That does not happen by accident.
It happens when organizations are ready to bring students into meaningful work from the start, with the right support and structure around them.
Students bring energy, perspective, and developing talent. When they get the chance to contribute early, they build confidence faster and see how their work connects to the bigger picture. ๐ฑ
Intergenerational teams work best when everyone has a role in moving the work forward.
What would change if more organizations gave students real work from day one?
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https://challengefactory.ca/
What happens when organizations stop investing in entry-level talent? ๐
A lot of the conversation right now is focused on uncertainty โ are entry-level roles declining? Should we still hire co-op students? What changes with AI in the mix?
But the bigger question is about leadership: where will future leaders actually learn how to lead?
Entry-level work is where people build judgment, confidence, adaptability, and real-world problem solving. When organizations stop creating space for that, they're quietly weakening the leadership pipeline they'll need later. ๐ก
๐ฌ Questions worth asking:
Are students getting real work or leftover tasks?
Are early-career roles part of your leadership pipeline?
If future leadership is on your agenda, entry-level talent needs to be there, too.
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https://challengefactory.ca/
Worried about keeping your best people?
Hereโs something worth your attention:
When employees canโt see opportunity inside your organization, they start to assume it doesnโt exist for them.
And thatโs when they think about leaving.
Invisible career paths โ people exit.
In this radio interview excerpt, Lisa Taylor shares why making opportunities visible inside your organization should be a leadership priority.
Because when people can see where they can go next:
Internal mobility increases
Engagement strengthens
And top talent stays
โ
๐ Want to go deeper?
Lisa co-authored a new playbook with CERIC (with CACEE as a partner):
Career Development as Strategy: A Practical Guide to Internal Career Centres
It explores how organizations can make internal pathways clearer, more connected, and easier to navigate. Check it out (link below).
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https://challengefactory.ca/internalcareercentreplaybook/
05/22/2026
Most organizations measure workforce success by what they spend on people.
Few measure whether those investments are working together to deliver impact.
Thatโs the gap CERIC set out to address.
And the national initiative they spearheaded, brought to life by Challenge Factory, changed how career development is understood across Canada.
Hereโs what that work produced:
๐ ๐ฒ๐ฎ ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐บ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ that can now be referenced in policy forums across the country.
๐ ๐ญ๐ฏ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐ฒ๐บ ๐ฝ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ณ๐ถ๐น๐ฒ๐, making the invisible infrastructure of career development visible for the first time.
๐ ๐ฑ,๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌ+ ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ป๐๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ ๐ด๐น๐ผ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ equipped with practical tools through the bilingual Retain and Gain playbook series.
What emerged wasnโt just data. It was a blueprint.
And the insight that connects all of it?
Career development isnโt a program. Itโs the infrastructure that determines whether your workforce investments compound or evaporate.
This is exactly why CERIC hosted a webinar recently, with Lisa Taylor and Carli Fink, where they discussed: ๐๐ฉ๐บ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต ๐๐ข๐ช๐ญ๐ด ๐ช๐ฏ ๐๐ณ๐จ๐ข๐ฏ๐ช๐ป๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด ๐๐ช๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต ๐๐ฏ๐ง๐ณ๐ข๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐ถ๐ค๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ. Designed for HR and career development professionals, the question it answers matters at every level of leadership.
Link below to watch the replay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8uJdf_vkwg
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