By Yanouk Poirier, Managing Partner, Montreal

You play a key role in organizing the Disrupt RH events in Quebec, in partnership with Humanis. How do you explain the natural alignment between TWINN and Humanis, both in terms of values and the desired impact in the HR community?

Organizing an event like DisruptHR in Montreal and Quebec City is no mean feat. We’re talking about coordinating over 200 participants and a dozen speakers. It’s a major project that requires a team that’s not only well-structured, but also perfectly synchronized.

This is precisely where the natural alignment between TWINN and Humanis comes into its own. Of course, there’s the whole logistical aspect: planning, coordination, shared leadership. Our two teams work together with a fluidity that allows the event to unfold like a well-oiled machine.

But beyond the organization, the affinity between Humanis and TWINN goes much deeper. Humanis is a key player in recruitment, often the first point of entry into the HR world for many companies. Their job is to rethink the way organizations attract top talent, a major challenge in itself. And once these companies are thinking about how they can stand out from the crowd, offer a stronger value proposition, improve their benefits to appeal to candidates, that’s exactly where I come in with TWINN.

At TWINN, we’re transforming the world of employee benefits to help organizations not only attract, but above all retain and value their people. In this sense, Humanis and TWINN are perfectly complementary: Humanis is revolutionizing recruitment, and TWINN is revolutionizing the benefits that support it.

Working together, we unite two truly disruptive forces. Not only to create a landmark event, but above all to help transform the way HR leaders in Quebec think about attracting talent and ensuring the well-being of their teams.

For many years, you have been helping organizations optimize their benefit plans. In concrete terms, how does your approach make a real difference for your customers… and for the employees who benefit from it?

The employee benefits industry is still very much a traditional one. Genuine innovations have been few and far between since its inception. As I often say, “When innovation slows, consolidation grows”. We see major American investors entering Canada, and right here in Quebec, to absorb local firms. At TWINN, I wanted to take a different path.

Typically, companies choose either a consulting or a brokerage approach. Consultants charge by the hour and offer a detailed analysis, much as a law firm would. Brokers, on the other hand, are often limited to acting as intermediaries and collecting commissions, which adds costs without necessarily adding value.

So I decided to create a hybrid model. We bring our consultants’ specialized expertise to bear, while negotiating with insurers to ensure that our fees are covered, rather than being borne by the customer.

Most importantly for me, I’ve seen how quickly companies and their employees find themselves lost in the jargon of the field. My priority is to explain complex concepts in layman’s terms, so that my clients understand not only their health and dental coverage, but also their retirement plans and the strategies for optimizing them. I’ve noticed a significant gap in education, both for plan administrators and employees, and we’re relying on technology to bridge that gap.

That’s why we’re launching TWINN Links in the second quarter of 2026. It’s an application designed to simplify access to paramedical services such as psychology, massage therapy, chiropractic and physiotherapy. Employees will be able to book easily, without having to pay out of pocket, and use artificial intelligence to find services that match their budget and needs, without getting lost in the complexity of the insurance world.

My approach always starts with a deep understanding of the needs of the customer and his employees. I then propose suitable plans, coach employees on how to take full advantage of them, and help companies integrate these plans into their compensation and attraction strategy. Finally, I make sure that the finance team has a clear view of the impact of these plans on the organization’s forecasts.

In short, I aim to create an approach that really makes a difference, both for organizations and for the people who benefit from these advantages on a daily basis.

You divide your time between Toronto and Montreal, you work in French and English… and you even delivered a Disrupt RH presentation in “franglais” this spring! How does this dual culture influence your practice and the way you advise organizations?

One of the things I’m most proud of is that I was born in Quebec, and more specifically in Montreal. It’s a privilege to be able to express myself fluently in French and English in a city where changing languages in the middle of a sentence… is just part of the lifestyle. Franglais, as it’s often called, is almost the mother tongue of Montreal, and it’s also the way I naturally think. This dual culture plays an essential role in my practice. It allows me to work not only in Quebec, but across Canada, because I understand the linguistic and cultural nuances of each context.

This cultural experience is particularly valuable when I’m presenting benefit plans or retirement programs. I’ve noticed a recurring challenge in our industry. Many consultants deliver very long, jargon-filled presentations that quickly turn employees off. My primary goal is to understand the culture of the city, the culture of the employees and the culture of the organization, in order to deliver customized presentations that really grab attention. I want these sessions to be dynamic, accessible and allow participants to retain at least a significant part of the information. In a country where financial literacy isn’t as high as it should be, achieving a retention rate of around 25 percent is, for me, a success.

I always adapt my presentation to the audience, as I did at DisruptRH 3.0 with a presentation in French to illustrate the reality of the HR environment in Quebec. The vast majority of HR professionals here need to be bilingual to meet the needs of all their employees, and I make sure that my interventions reflect this reality. On the other hand, I’ve learned that what works in Ontario or Toronto often needs to be adjusted for a Quebec audience, which reacts differently depending on the style of engagement. Tax laws also vary from province to province, which means that the benefit plans I design for a team in Toronto can be very different from those offered to employees in Montreal.

After all, living fully in two cultures and two languages is not just a personal advantage. It’s a real business strategy. This allows me to pass on information in a relevant, human and adapted way, to help every organization and every employee, wherever they may be.