Your workforce investments are working.
The system connecting them may not be.
Challenge Factory is an international research and advisory firm that diagnoses where workforce systems break and designs the infrastructure to restore them.
As seen in:
What We’re Seeing
Most workforce challenges aren’t people problems.
They’re system design problems.
Across sectors and geographies, the same pattern surfaces: organizations are investing in hiring, learning, leadership development, and talent mobility, but those systems operate independently.
- Effort increases.
- Impact doesn’t scale.
- Leaders step in to compensate.
- Managers carry what the system should.
And over time, performance starts to depend on who is in the organization rather than how the organization works.
That’s where things become fragile.
Disruptions accelerating this fragility: AI adoption, longevity and demographic shifts, evolving growth strategies. These aren’t arriving in sequence. They’re compounding. And most workforce systems were not designed for this level of simultaneous complexity.
“It’s not a leadership gap.
It’s a system that wasn’t designed for this level of complexity.”
Career development is economic infrastructure.
The Challenge Factory Lens
When workforce systems stall,
Broken Talent Escalators® reveal why.
Every organization and workforce system depends on talent escalators. These are the structures that shape how people grow, transition, and contribute.
When they work, career and talent mobility are fluid. Transitions are supported, capability flows to where it’s needed, and strategy advances because of the workforce, not despite it.
When they begin to falter, a different pattern takes hold.
Inside organizations, mobility slows. Succession pipelines weaken. Teams and managers absorb gaps the system should be carrying, and costs rise as external hiring replaces internal capability.
Across workforce systems, the same dynamics scale outward. Transitions between education, work, reskilling, and later-career contribution become fragmented. Capability is underused. Labour shortages and underemployment begin to coexist.
These patterns signal Broken Talent Escalators®.
They develop in consistent ways across functions, institutions, and career stages, often well before they surface as visible performance issues or workforce risk.
That’s where Challenge Factory works.
We don’t start with programs or predefined solutions. We start by diagnosing how your system is actually functioning, making visible the structural dynamics that shape workforce performance, so leaders can move forward with clarity and confidence.
“The measurement of success isn’t the framework we deliver.
It’s when leaders leave the room thinking:
this is big…and it’s manageable.”
Our Work
We diagnose where and why workforce systems break.
Then we design the infrastructure to restore them.
Research & National Strategy
We benchmark global best practices and design measurement frameworks that treat career development as the workforce infrastructure it already is, at organizational, sectoral, and national levels.
Organizational Strategy & Implementation
We conduct workforce system reviews, assess career and talent development maturity, and develop visions, roadmaps, and ROI frameworks that connect people strategy directly to institutional performance.
Workshops, Training & Capability Building
We design and facilitate masterclasses, leadership programs, and multi-stakeholder summits, equipping executives, system leaders, and HR professionals with tools to build future-ready talent ecosystems.
Ecosystem Strategy & System Design
We convene cross-sector stakeholders, surface system bottlenecks, and develop regional and national workforce strategies that shift fragmented initiatives into coordinated infrastructure.
We create the infrastructure that allows mobility, capability, and leadership pipelines to function aligned with strategy
Trusted by:
Who We Work With
Built for leaders who carry the weight of workforce risk.
Challenge Factory works at the intersection of complexity and urgency, with leaders who are responsible for workforce outcomes at scale, and who need more than a program. They need a partner who can see the system.
C-Suite Executives
You are accountable for workforce performance across the organization. Challenge Factory helps you diagnose where systems are holding back agility, and where infrastructure investment will compound over time.
Government & Public Sector Leaders
We conduct workforce system reviews, assess career and talent development maturity, and develop visions, roadmaps, and ROI frameworks that connect people strategy directly to institutional performance.
HR & People Leaders
You see the symptoms every day. Challenge Factory helps you name the structural causes and build the business case for systemic change at the executive table.
Where We’ve Done This Work
From boardrooms to government.
From Canada to the world.
Challenge Factory works across sectors, geographies, and scales of complexity. What we learn in one system, we bring to the next.
Federal government department:
Designed career infrastructure for a workforce of 13,000+ employees across Canada and on global missions, delivering a full roadmap and ROI framework that our client presented to the Deputy Minister.
McMaster University:
Built workforce infrastructure that aligned individual leadership careers with institutional strategy, delivering faster recruitment, stronger succession pipelines, and a culture built to thrive through sustained change.
SE Health:
Redesigned orientation and onboarding as the first chapter of a workforce strategy, translating early-tenure investment into long-term retention and capability.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Human Resources Development Fund:
Benchmarked 16 countries and delivered 4 national frameworks that treat career guidance as the economic infrastructure it already is, in direct support of Vision 2030.
Singapore – Workforce Singapore:
Designed a Future-Ready Talent Ecosystems Masterclass, and delivered a workshop to equip HR and career professionals for inclusive, intergenerational, and AI-aware workforce planning.
We work upstream of solutions.
That’s what makes the difference.
Large advisory firms are often brought in to implement standardized solutions once decisions have already been made. Challenge Factory is built to work before that, diagnosing where and why systems are breaking, so the right decisions are made in the first place.
We are not incentivized by the scale of delivery. We are aligned to the health of your system over time.
That means we recommend doing less when less is the right move. We help organizations see what is really happening, not just what is visible, and we structure the thinking required to move forward with confidence, not just urgency.
What Makes Us Different
Diagnosis before prescription
We never lead with a solution. We start by understanding your system, its maturity, its breaks, and where intervention will have the greatest compounding impact.
Global intelligence, local application
With active work across Canada, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Europe, and beyond, we bring what we are seeing globally to the leadership tables we serve.
Stewardship, not dependency
Our work builds your organization’s capacity to navigate. We are a trusted partner, not a permanent requirement.
Led by a Global Authority
Lisa Taylor, Founder & CEO
Lisa Taylor is a global authority on the future of work and the systems that shape it.
As Founder and CEO of Challenge Factory, she advises governments, multinational organizations, and C-suite executives navigating workforces redefined by AI, longer working lives, and accelerating change.
She is the author of multiple books including The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work (University of Toronto Press) and a sought-after media commentator who has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Forbes, CBC, Toronto Star, OECD Future of Work reports and more.
She is a trusted partner to leaders across Canada, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Portugal, and beyond.
Your workforce challenge may be bigger than you think.
It’s also more manageable than it feels.
If you want to know what’s really driving performance and build infrastructure to move your organization or wider ecosystem forward with confidence, Challenge Factory can help.