Category: HR/Associate Development

There will be a variety of posts, encompassing everything from hiring checklists to training ideas and documents based on more than 25 years of experience and learning from the best people in the business.

BUILDING FUTURES: Hiring Summer Students

Paul Wagenaar

Every summer, organizations hire students to fill short-term roles. Few stop to consider that they are shaping long-term futures.

For many students, a summer job is their first real encounter with responsibility, accountability, and workplace culture. It is where reputations begin. It is where habits are formed. It is where confidence is either strengthened or quietly eroded.

For employers, hiring students is not simply a staffing decision. It is a leadership decision. It is a choice about whether to treat young people as temporary labour, or as emerging professionals.

When approached intentionally, summer employment becomes more than seasonal work. It becomes mentorship, community investment, and the foundation of someone’s career.

“A Reasonable Expectation of Humanity”

Paul Wagenaar

We move through and interact with dozens of organizations and people every day, healthcare, government, work, housing, commerce, and community spaces. Most interactions are brief, yet over time they quietly shape our sense of dignity, trust, and belonging.

This post explores a simple idea: a reasonable expectation of humanity in those interactions. Not perfection or special treatment, but clarity, respect for time, basic human regard, competence with humility, fairness, and accountability when things go wrong.

As you read, notice where these standards are present in your own interactions, and where they quietly fall away. And if you work inside an organization that holds power over others, consider how humanity is supported by design, not just individual effort.

As with most of my posts, this is a little longer than most, thank you for taking the time to read.

Retail: The Lessons, the Pressure, and the Price

Paul Wagenaar

Retail has a way of shaping you for what comes next. It builds judgment under pressure, people skills that actually work, and leadership grounded in reality, not theory.

In my latest blog, I explore how experience in retail prepares you for future growth: which skills travel well beyond the sales floor, how to keep evolving without burning out, and what it takes to build a career rooted in integrity and purpose.

If you’re in retail now, transitioning out, or rethinking your next chapter, this piece is written with you in mind.

Atypical – Just Another Word for Discrimination?

Paul Wagenaar

Point of view … perspective … life experience … and what we learn each day. The more I learn about other people, their challenges, and their resilience, the more I am determined to help illuminate what many of us do not see. Please take a few minutes to read this post and to share it; the people in all our communities who live with disabilities and barriers could really use our help.

Do You Remember a Time When Your Life Changed?

Paul Wagenaar

More than a hundred years ago a book was written that continues to reverberate with many people, myself included even today. In a world full of negative commentary and conflict, it serves as a source of positive influence and hope.

Take a few minutes … its lessons might change your life.

Redefining the Perfect Hire: Who’s in Your Blind Spots?

Paul Wagenaar

Does the best candidate always get the job?

Does everyone who can do the job get equal consideration?

Or do our unconscious biases, misconceptions, and traditional image of the “ideal candidate” create hiring blind spots preventing us from seeing different and perhaps better hiring solutions?

… a process and a journey

Paul Wagenaar

How does someone become motivated?

In life, at home, and in particular when they are searching for a job. Motivation becomes more complex when people experience stress and frustration. Whether neurodiverse or neurotypical, we all all affected.

I find it helps to think of motivation as a learned skill, a journey, and a process of a series of small steps that will get you where you want to be. Today’s post, lays out a path you or someone you know might consider.

Is it you or is it them – Frustrated at work

Paul Wagenaar

When you can’t go forward, you can’t go back, and you can’t stay where you are; this is a horrible situation to find yourself in. Being stuck is something that happens to many of us in our careers. Today’s post is a short guide, based at least in part by my own experience, on how to become unstuck.

Bipolar Disorder Does Not Erase a Person’s Potential … misunderstanding does

Paul Wagenaar

Did you know more than half a million Canadians live with bi-polar disorder? About 3 out of 100 people in your lives experience this medical condition but few of us really know much about what they experience. Most of what we know likely falls into myths, misconceptions, and stigma unfortunately.

This blog is a very short introduction into what we should all know, whether we are employers, co-workers, friends, family, or community members. By learning more we can help them open more doors to employment and understanding. We can help them overcome the barriers society and our lack of knowledge has created.

We owe them that.

Failing Should Be Taught More …

Paul Wagenaar

Learning to fail seems counterintuitive to everything our success culture seems to value. I believe people who say they never fail likely aren’t trying enough new ideas or ways of doing things. Failure isn’t the end, I believe it is simply an additional step on becoming successful. What is important, is learning how to fail so that failure doesn’t discourage you and lead to giving up.