With its exclusive study Key Trends in Total Compensation for 2025-2026, Lussier offers a practical tool for human resources professionals. Here are the highlights of this first survey, which is quickly becoming an annual benchmark.
Excluding wage freezes, Quebec workers received 3.36% increases this year. In 2026, these increases are expected to reach 3.21%, a figure like that projected by the Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines. It should also be noted that two out of three companies (65%) offer uniform increases to all employee categories.
At the same time, 72% of organizations do not have a discretionary budget for promotions, reevaluations, or off-cycle adjustments. This trend likely reflects a gradual reduction in salary flexibility during the year, in a context of weaker market pressures, marked by rising unemployment and falling inflation (consumer price index).
Success rewarded
That said, 51% of participating organizations have adopted a short-term bonus program, lasting one year or less. The most common distribution mechanisms are performance-related bonuses as a percentage of base salary (21%) and profit sharing through bonuses based on the company's financial results (20%).
These results (profitability, growth, etc.) rank first, at 34%, among the main criteria when offering bonuses. Individual performance, whether qualitative or quantitative, ranks second, at 30%. Among emerging factors, more and more companies are awarding bonuses based on collective objectives, for example to specific teams or departments.
Voluntary transparency
In terms of equity, diversity, and inclusion, the distribution is almost equal between companies with an integrated policy or strategy (35%), those taking ongoing action or preparing a possible strategy (32%), and those that have adopted neither a strategy nor a formal policy (32%). Of the 49% of organizations that occasionally evaluate their fair and inclusive compensation practices, 17% do so on a regular basis.
On the other hand, 41% of companies have integrated salary transparency measures. Of these, 38% took the initiative themselves without being forced to do so by law.
AI: recognized, but not yet integrated
A sign of the times, 46% of organizations have moderate to high knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI), while only 10% have not yet explored this topic. More specifically, only 7% have established a formal framework for using AI. For example, by implementing a clear policy, processes, and guidelines in this regard.
In addition, 80% of organizations do not have a skills development plan. This reflects a gap between the recognition of AI and the measures taken to adapt to it, which poses a risk in terms of loss of competitiveness. Finally, in terms of use, the automation of administrative or repetitive processes is the most popular, at 22%.
Adapting to new realities
In the ranking of HR priorities for 2026, skills development and succession planning (17.35%) and employee retention and engagement (17.12%) take the top spots. They are ahead of improving the employee experience (10.05%), recruitment (9.59%), and improving HR processes (9.13%).
Without a doubt, 2026 will be marked by the quest for balance. Organizations will seek to offer competitive compensation without losing sight of the overall consistency of that compensation. All while better integrating HR levers and managing digital transformation to maximize its human impact.
To succeed, they will need to balance attractiveness, financial viability, and meaning for their employees by investing as much in the clarity of their practices as in the development of skills and the sustainable mobilization of their teams.
Faced with so many challenges and in a context of socio-political instability, Lussier’s total rewards specialists are here to support you, refine your action plans, and enable you to address these issues through broader and more strategic thinking.
Methodology
Online survey conducted from June 10 to July 15, 2025, among 127 participating companies (including 118 SMEs) from 17 regions of Quebec representing 18 sectors of activity. Nearly three out of four (73%) have fewer than 100 employees, while 84% are not unionized.
