Challenge Factory

Meaningful workforce change requires more than ideas. Real progress needs traction. 🌍    At Challenge Factory, we work with organizations to move complex conversations into practical action.    Our approach starts with honest conversations, creates space to address real pain points, and turns those insights into solutions for the future of work.    Words like these, shared by someone we’ve worked with, reflect the impact we aim to create, helping leaders rethink workforce systems, talent, and how organizations prepare for what comes next. 💡    Quote from a Business Owner, Strategic Consultancy  ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/gwyViWph

15 years ago, Challenge Factory started asking a question most organizations weren’t ready for: what happens when your talent escalator breaks? 🔍 Today, that question is impossible to ignore. The cracks in workforce systems aren’t showing up by accident. They’re the result of decades of underinvestment in career infrastructure: the structures, pathways, and intergenerational relationships that keep talent moving, engaged, and purposeful at every stage of working life. Our Broken Talent Escalator® model was built specifically for this moment. Not to offer quick fixes. Not to hand you a list of tips. But to help organizations diagnose exactly where the system is breaking and build something that actually lasts. 📊 Because here’s the truth: meaningful, purposeful work across a full lifespan isn’t a perk. It’s the baseline expectation of every person in your workforce. And the organizations that rise to meet that expectation are the ones that will attract, retain, and develop the talent everyone else is struggling to find. This is the work. And we’re just getting started. 💡 ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/gwyViWph

Campus career leaders are increasingly being asked to build strong relationships with employers. Getting there requires more than one-off connections or events.     Join Challenge Factory and CACEE / ACSEE to learn how to strengthen employer engagement, support student outcomes, and build partnerships that have real staying power.     Webinar: Why Your Employer Partnerships Are Carrying More Weight Than Ever    📅 Thursday, June 25, 2026  ⏰ 12:00 to 1:00 pm ET    Register here: https://lnkd.in/g3Asf5pj   #CampusRecruitment #CareerEducation #EmployerEngagement #StudentSuccess #TalentStrategy #WorkforceStrategy #HigherEd #CACEE #ChallengeFactory 

Early talent pipelines don’t end with hiring. They depend on the systems, support, and career infrastructure people step into once they arrive.    Join Challenge Factory and CACEE / ACSEE for an upcoming webinar on How to Build an Early Talent Pipeline That Stays.    This session is designed for HR, talent, and business leaders looking to build the internal conditions early talent needs to grow, contribute, and stay.    📅 Tuesday, June 23, 2026  ⏰ 12:00 to 1:00 pm ET    Register here: https://lnkd.in/gzf5bexZ   #EarlyTalent #TalentStrategy #HRLeadership #WorkforceStrategy #CACEE #ChallengeFactory  

This week, our Founder and CEO, Lisa Taylor, CCDP, was a delegate at the Future Talent Summit (#FTS26) in Stockholm, Sweden.    With leading strategists from government, enterprises, capital markets, and academia, the summit is considered one of the world’s most influential events shaping the global agenda on the future of work and education.    What differentiates this community from other events is the careful curation of participants. Each speaker and delegate brings significant authority and expertise related to how work, talent, and careers must evolve to meet the realities of today—and tomorrow.    Reflecting on her experience, Lisa shared what mattered most: connections.    “The FTC Summit is challenging. It demands presence through intensive days and the courage to ask hard questions.     Everyone here is at the forefront of leading practices. This is not the place for basic knowledge gathering. Instead, it is where global conversations happen, and complex issues are explored.  Delegates rely on each other to get perspectives from outside their own sector, region, or area of expertise. The result is powerful connections between global leaders who meet and become fast friends, connections between ideas that otherwise might not collide, and connections to a broader sense of united purpose to shape a better, more adaptive future of work for all.”    The timing of this event coincides with Challenge Factory’s renewed focus on the importance of career infrastructure to business and organizational strategy. The hallway and session discussions reinforced that the need for new systems, structures, and governance is more urgent than ever and foundational to the success of transforming an ambitious vision into meaningful execution at the ground level.    Stay tuned. We have lots more to share from this summit in the coming weeks.    #FutureOfWork  #CareerDevelopment  #WorkforceInfrastructure 

Longevity is having a moment. 🧠 We talk about living longer. We talk about saving longer. We talk about staying healthy longer. But are we talking enough about working longer? Too often, the conversation puts pressure on individuals to reinvent themselves, while organizations continue using workforce systems built for outdated career timelines. With longer life expectancies, people need workplaces that support contributions across every stage of working life. That means leaders need to rethink: ✅ Ageism in hiring and advancement ✅ Career mobility across longer work lives ✅ Skills development at every stage ✅ Workforce design that supports talent from early career to later career At a time when organizations face labour shortages and skill shortages, overlooking older talent is not a personal issue. It is a business risk. The future of work needs stronger systems, not more pressure on individuals. 💼 ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/gwyViWph #FutureOfWork #WorkforceStrategy #Ageism #TalentMobility #WorkforceAgility

Earlier this week, our CEO Lisa Taylor, CCDP delivered the opening keynote presentation at Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada (AMC) UNITE, a convention and trade show that brought together Canada’s agricultural manufacturing community and their supply chains. 🔍 During her session entitled, ‘Talent, Tech, and Trust’ Lisa gave delegates a clear look at the forces reshaping the future of work — from shifting expectations to technology adoption — and she introduced Challenge Factory’s Broken Talent Escalator® framework, a powerful tool for understanding where career mobility is breaking down inside organizations today. As AMC’s team described it: “Her message is clear: workforce complexity is real, but with the right systems, it becomes a strategic advantage.” Thank you AMC for having us at this year’s convention. After the event, Lisa was also treated to the best of Sask hospitality. Here we’ve shared a few photos of her visit to a ranch too. ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/gwyViWph #ChallengeFactory #AMCUnite #AMCC26 #CareerDevelopment #FutureOfWork

If people within your organization don’t feel safe saying what they want, and if managers aren’t equipped to respond, then internal mobility will stall. This is why career conversations carry a lot of weight inside organizations today. They’re meant to surface ambition. Clarify direction. Support internal growth and mobility. But in practice, many of these conversations never fully happen. And too often, a sense of uncertainty sits just below the surface. In this excerpt of a recent CityNews Halifax radio segment, Lisa Taylor speaks to the role psychological safety plays in unlocking honest career dialogue and why, without it, even well-designed talent systems struggle to gain traction. Because when people can speak openly about how they want to grow, organizations gain the clarity needed to develop and deploy talent more effectively. 🎧 To hear Lisa’s full interview, click the link and jump to 1:48:00 https://lnkd.in/exbNgC4k 💬 How comfortable are people in your organization at having honest conversations about what comes next?  Your CHRO may be interested in our just released playbook to address this: 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. It shares how organizations can make internal pathways clearer, more connected, and easier to navigate.  ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/eCkndbeR #LeadershipDevelopment #TalentMobility #FutureOfWork #ChallengeFactory #HRThoughtLeadership

What if students could directly contribute to your business from day 1? This month, our newest cohort of co-op students joined Challenge Factory — and by the end of their very first day, videos had been produced, content had been developed, and ideas had been translated into tangible, usable materials. That's not luck. That's intentional organizational design. When you build the systems and structures that allow intergenerational teams to function at full capacity immediately, emerging talent becomes a present-day asset — not something you're developing for down the road. The organizations that will lead their industries in the next decade are the ones building those systems now. 📈 Being ready for the next generation means more than having a desk for them. It means having workforce infrastructure that lets them lead from the moment they walk through the door. We're very excited about what this cohort is already building. Watch this space. 🚀 ----------------------------------- https://lnkd.in/gwyViWph #ChallengeFactory #TalentMobility #WorkIntegratedLearning #IntergenerationalLeadership #CoopStudents