‘With this conference, we really wanted to create an intentional experience,’ says co-organizer
The pension and benefits industry have spent the last several years in a state of upheaval. Notably, as the COVID pandemic compressed years of expected change into months, the pace hasn’t let up.
Despite the pandemic being in the rearview mirror, that’s the challenge confronting delegates at this year's Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute (CPBI) Saskatchewan Conference, themed "turning turbulence to transformation,” according to one of the organizers.
"We can go back to the onset of COVID 19, which really just accelerated, let’s say, transformational change," said Larissa Bayet, co-organizer of the conference, who’s also a product trainer and enablement at Saskatchewan Blue Cross. "[The benefits and pensions] industries have just been on an expedited growth journey ever since. And there's no slowing down either, it looks like."
The conference, a three-day event taking place next week at the DoubleTree in Regina, is built around the idea that talking about problems is no longer enough. Bayet said the organizing committee wanted to push attendees past diagnosis and into action.
“With this conference, we really wanted to create an intentional experience. Every keynote, workshop and breakout session has a purpose. We're no longer just talking about what is happening, but we're actually taking these turbulent times, flipping the narrative, looking at where we can find our own personal power within the niches that we work within and putting solutions forward,” she added.
CPBI is a national, member-driven organization, and the Saskatchewan regional committee is made up of volunteers who work inside the pension and benefits space. Because the organization is member- and volunteer-led, it can create a space where people speak openly about what they are facing in their work, including problems, pressures, and successes. That exchange allows the group to function as a practical forum for sharing ideas and comparing experiences across the industry, said Bayet.
"We're able to almost be like a little think tank where we come together. It's a meeting of the minds," she said, adding that by drawing on both members’ firsthand experience and the learning that comes through industry education, including the conference itself, the organization can identify what its audience most needs each year.
While the conference does include standalone sessions and flexible and on-demand options for people who need to learn on their own schedule, the broader goal is to create a more connected and engaging experience, she noted.
Bayet believes this matters because pensions and benefits can be a dense field, full of technical language, policy, and regulation, and that kind of environment can make learning feel dry. She believes basking in enjoyment and genuine interaction is not a distraction from the content but part of what makes the content stick.
She also pointed to the value of social connection in an industry centred on well-being, arguing that people learn faster when they are engaged and enjoying themselves. Rather than leaving with pages of notes and no clear next step, attendees are meant to come away with a smaller number of ideas that feel relevant and usable. She pointed to the networking spaces as the part of the conference she finds most valuable, where a passing comment or a shared reaction to a session can turn into something bigger.
"We’ll get a little sideline conversation, and we might share a spark of an idea that, that little ‘Aha’ moment that came through. All of a sudden, we've put together some links or some creative ideas of what we're going to do in our organizations," she said.
“It's like getting those embryo ideas here. The seeds are planted at conference, you have a spot to nourish them, and you can go back into the world and move forward with action,” she added. “It's a very action focused conference and environment that we're creating.”
The schedule of the conference is also designed to keep things from becoming a lecture marathon. Before registration opens, teams can take on escape rooms at the DoubleTree in Regina. An Indigenous elder will open the conference with a land recognition and ceremony. After-hours sessions move off site to Crave, across the street, and the second night includes a murder mystery dinner.
Additionally, a Cinco de Mayo-themed social reception on May 5 will feature a mariachi band. Bayet will also lead wellness sessions between content blocks, framing them as a chance to absorb what has been discussed or simply take a mental break.
The overarching goal, she emphasized, is for attendees to leave seeing opportunity where they once saw only disruption. She acknowledged that'd not easy as people are wired to resist change, even when the status quo isn't serving them.
"Change is scary. And as humans, we love homeostasis, we'd love to stay the same. Even if the same isn't necessarily good for us, we prefer it instead of stepping outside that comfort zone or pushing our edges," she said.
The conference is designed to counter that instinct, pushing people to think differently and helping them rebuild confidence after a few turbulent years. The program spans a broad range of pension and benefits topics, with sessions mapped out to avoid overlap. It also weaves in personal development alongside the professional content.
"We've put a lot of these different items in there to break up the content heaviness that conferences can sometimes be, especially over multiple days," she said. “We've also been intentional to curate some opportunity for personal development too, because we know that has a ripple effect and just transcends to every other area of our lives as well.”
Ultimately, Bayet emphasized the practical value of the conference. She framed the event as a space for strong conversations and useful workshops that help people think about their own leadership and leave with actions they can take back to their workplaces and communities.
“The time is now to be having these collaborative conversations, to be getting in these spaces and leaning into what it is ourselves that we have to offer as leaders in any role, shape or capacity that we're in and how we're going to meet our members, our clients or those that we serve where they're at so we can actually build a stronger Saskatchewan and Canada together,” said Bayet.
