Enhancing the employee experience in 2026: Practical steps for Canadian employers

Infographic Top trends and priorities for 2026

Top workplace trends and priorities for 2026

The employee experience is becoming a strategic priority for Canadian businesses of all sizes across Canada.¹ The employee experience refers to the interactions, processes and moments that define an employee’s journey, from hiring and onboarding to development and well-being.

Foundational HR processes (hiring, onboarding and offboarding) play a central role in this experience, as they shape people's early impressions and long-term engagement with the company. Research shows gaps in the efficiency of these HR processes.¹

This article outlines how employers can enhance the employee experience by identifying friction points, streamlining processes and using talent solutions.

Why is enhancing the employee experience getting more complex?

People trends are creating a new landscape for 2026:

• Rising expectations across the employee journey: Compensation and benefits play a crucial role in employee satisfaction. Flexible work and well-being support also affect daily workplace sentiment.¹


• Skills inventories are shifting: Employers say they are struggling to find candidates with a strong work ethic and key soft skills needed for business success.¹


• Artificial intelligence (AI) in talent and skills development: AI is increasingly viewed as a valuable tool for improving talent management and skills development.¹


• Multigenerational workforces require personalized support: Companies report challenges with work ethic, commitment, recruiting and retention.¹


• Challenges in managing distributed teams: Key challenges include employee training and development, as well as talent acquisition and retention.¹

Explore detailed benchmarks and frameworks in our Canada workplace trends for 2026 guidebook.

1. Identify friction points in the employee journey

Employers need visibility into where their people feel frustrated or disconnected to focus on the right areas to make improvements.

How to spot friction points

• Map the employee journey from hiring and onboarding to development, performance and offboarding.


• Collect qualitative feedback through pulse surveys, stay interviews and team check-ins.


• Identify common patterns, such as slow response times, unclear processes, inconsistent communication from managers or excessive manual steps.


• Review support tickets or recurring questions to find frequently reported issues.


• Assess handoffs between HR, managers and employees, as these often cause delays.

2. Streamline core processes to reduce friction across the employee journey

Enhancing the employee experience begins with identifying where processes slow people down. It’s essential to break down the journey into key stages, allowing you to identify where friction occurs and take steps to create a smooth and consistent experience for both employees and HR practitioners. The chart below highlights employee journey stages, examples of where friction may occur within each stage and ways to reduce it.

3. Use talent management solutions to support a better employee experience

Talent management systems bring together technology and people to support efficiency, enable accuracy and deliver a consistent employee experience. By streamlining processes, they can help reduce workplace frustration and boost employee satisfaction.

Ways talent management systems can help

• Automate administrative tasks, such as scheduling, reminders, documentation and repetitive communications.


• Consolidate employee information into one system, reducing errors and duplicated work.


• Offer employee self-service for time off, pay statements, benefits and policy access, so employees get information faster, reducing delays and HR workloads.


• Enable skills tracking with tools that map competencies, reveal gaps and support internal mobility, making it easier for employees and managers to plan career paths and development.


• Enhance communication with centralized digital web pages or AI-powered assistants that answer common questions quickly, reducing employee downtime and confusion.


• Strengthen onboarding with workflows, checklists and digital forms, providing a smooth and engaging start for new employees and minimizing paperwork hassle

4. Measure progress to understand the impact on retention

To measure improvements in employee experience and retention, employers need to track a small set of meaningful indicators. Employers can track a mix of operational, experience and retention indicators to assess improvement:

• Key metrics: Time to hire, onboarding completion rate, new-hire satisfaction, pulse survey scores, support request volume, manager satisfaction with talent solutions and processes, turnover rate


• Qualitative indicators: Feedback from stay interviews and manager check-ins, themes from exit interviews, pulse surveys, shifting patterns in common questions

Review these metrics regularly. Operational key metrics should be reviewed monthly, and quarterly reviews of friction points should be conducted to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, employee journey maps should be revisited yearly to reflect evolving expectations.

Turning trends into action

Across people, compliance and technology, employers must balance innovation with responsibility while ensuring people remain at the center of organizational strategy.

Get in-depth Canadian workforce data and practical action frameworks that help translate these trends into real business outcomes. Download the guidebook and explore what’s shaping HR in Canada.

FAQs

What are effective ways to improve the employee experience in 2026?

Employers can improve the employee experience by reducing friction across hiring, onboarding, development and offboarding. Using talent solutions can help automate manual tasks. It’s also important to track the progress of the improvements made to identify any easing or new friction points.

How can employers measure if employee experience tactics are improving retention?

Employers can measure progress by tracking metrics such as time to hire, support request volume and turnover. Combining these quantitative indicators with qualitative insights, such as stay-interview feedback, manager check-ins and periodic pulse surveys, helps employers understand if the improvements are impacting retention.

1. ADP Canada, Canada workplace trends for 2026 survey, internal analysis, 2025

This resource offers practical information concerning the subject matter and is provided with the understanding that ADP Canada is not rendering legal or tax advice or other professional services.