Nothing dramatic. No single headline law.
Just a steady tightening of employment and health & safety expectations across Canada.
Provinces are refining leave rules, tip handling, and enforcement standards. Ontario continues to raise the bar on documentation, transparency, and how employment decisions are recorded. Federally, regulators are signaling stronger accountability around safety programs, training, and employer responsibility.
Individually, these changes feel manageable. Together, they shrink the margin for error.
For automotive employers, this shows up fast. Hiring decisions, role changes, leave management, and safety practices that once relied on informal processes now carry real risk if they aren’t clearly documented.
The question for 2026 isn’t whether you care about compliance.
It’s whether you can prove it.
Read the full breakdown of the 2026 employment and health & safety changes automotive employers can’t ignore, and what to review now to reduce risk and protect your team.
Health and safety compliance in automotive is expanding beyond physical hazards.
Across Canada, regulators are treating psychological safety, harassment, and mental health risks as legitimate workplace hazards. Québec’s updated OHS rules make this shift explicit, requiring formal policies, training, and reporting procedures by 2026. Other provinces are moving in the same direction.
For automotive employers, this changes how risk is assessed, how managers are trained, and how safety efforts must be documented.
Read how workplace health & safety expectations are evolving in 2026, and the practical steps HR teams should take this quarter.
Ontario’s Working for Workers Acts continue to expand employer obligations, and many of the risks in 2026 aren’t obvious at first glance.
From virtual harassment definitions to job posting record retention and candidate notification requirements, small compliance gaps can add up quickly, especially in fast-moving dealership environments.
We’ve put together a practical breakdown of what Ontario automotive employers should review now, along with a simple January compliance checklist.
Read the article: Ontario’s Working for Workers Acts – A January HR Checklist for Automotive Employers
Dealership retention continues to be one of the most talked-about challenges heading into 2026. Yet despite more leadership training, engagement initiatives, and culture conversations, turnover remains stubbornly high across departments.
That disconnect raises an important question:
What if retention isn’t breaking down at the strategy level at all?
In a new article on the DriveHRIS website, we explore a different lens, one that looks at daily habits and operational friction, not motivation, as the real drivers of retention success or failure.
When expectations shift by the manager, onboarding depends on who has time, processes live in people’s heads, and leaders are buried in admin, even with the best intentions struggle to stick. Over time, that friction wears people down, especially in fixed ops, where technicians feel the impact first.
This article breaks down:
Why leadership behaviour alone doesn’t scale
How daily work environments quietly influence turnover
What high-retention dealerships do differently to create consistency
If retention has felt harder than it should be, this perspective will likely resonate.
Read the full article:
Why Dealership Retention Breaks Down at the Habit Level (Not the Strategy Level)
In 2026, HR compliance risks in automotive are shifting from administrative details to executive-level concerns.
Evolving safety standards, hiring transparency requirements, and enforcement trends are increasing exposure for dealerships, dealer groups, and automotive suppliers, especially where practices are informal or inconsistent.
Read what HR compliance trends will define 2026 for automotive employers and what to audit now.
Interview scheduling shouldn’t slow hiring down.
DriveHRIS now offers calendar-based interview scheduling with email invites, built-in calendar attachments, and real-time response tracking, so recruiters and managers stay aligned without the back-and-forth.
See how this feature fits into everything DriveHRIS can offer.
Compliance alone no longer reduces incidents.
Automotive employers seeing better safety outcomes are embedding psychological safety and hazard conversations into daily leadership routines, not just audits and policies.
Read how to move beyond compliance and build a stronger safety culture in 2026.
We closed out December with meaningful product improvements.
DriveHRIS introduced 35 new enhancements, including tools that help teams schedule interviews faster and keep candidates and managers aligned.
Book a demo and see how simple it can be to lead from anywhere.
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We’re more than just a software provider; we’re a Canadian company built for Canadian dealerships. From compliance to culture, every feature is designed with your unique challenges in mind. Supporting local businesses matters, and we’re proud to stand beside dealerships across the country as a truly Canadian partner.
