With recent business disruption and challenges faced by business globally, now more than ever before successful businesses recognise that People are our greatest assets! As such, the need for exceptional People & Culture/ HR Leaders who understand commercials, lead all of business outcomes and connect individuals to those outcomes and impact are critical.
‘ Covid has forever changed and at the very least expediated the way we work and the expectations of employees. This includes how they engage with employer’s, deliver to their roles and where they work.’’
The future of work is exciting but for some, this can be daunting as we tackle some of the following areas for leaders and business:
Remote Working & Leadership:
More remote and flexible working arrangements, with an expectation of employers to operate in this new model and leaders having to find new ways to manage, engage, coach and develop their people.
In some instances this may mean a different style of leadership and ways of working need to evolve and that your existing leaders require different skills, coaching and support to achieve this, as will their teams.
Wellbeing & Culture – ‘People are at the Heart of your Business’
The challenge of keeping people well, safe and connected in the new models of working should not be underestimated and one size may not fit all. Supporting your business to find the right parameters around this, communicate the WHY and ensuring that culture, performance and overall business success is elevated vs negatively impacted, is a key current challenge for all businesses and one of the biggest challenges we see in 2021/2022.
Leading teams remotely and having less time together in person as well as across business functions means that collaboration, engagement and cues around individual’s engagement and wellbeing become somewhat more challenging to manage. This is a critical pillar to impact as HR leaders, with high commercial impact associated.
Technology & Getting Informed / Comfortable- ‘Technophobes beware’
Ensuring that you have the right platforms and visibility around key data, metrics and a strong handle on the numbers will ensure you can ‘hand on heart’ talk to the challenges and opportunities any business faces. Being able to present commercially viable options and solutions as well as position successful business cases which demonstrate a link to high impact and ROI initiatives is key.
Cyber security, risk, continuity planning and sustainable ways of working are all critical areas for businesses. Upskilling, engaging and linking this to people and culture strategy and activities should absolutely be on your radar, if not already!
This has the dual benefit of ensuring People & Culture/ HR Professionals are focusing in on the business and areas of highest value versus spending time in the weeds with unnecessary administrative and time consuming process, whilst lifting and developing capability.
Organisational Development & Workforce Planning:
How we structure, develop and retain top talent, including a definitive workforce development plan that looks across organisations as well as into the future is both critical and largely undervalued in NZ organisations. More than ever before, with remote working, talent shortages and business complexity this is an area we see requiring high focus, increased capability. This can be very easily be linked to strong ROI impact with hiring stats, engagement and retention data and associated costs to any business. Becoming and maintaining a status as an employer of choice requires ongoing time, energy and investment (as does choosing external partners, who genuinely take the time to understand your business and help promote your brand and culture with the greatest care).
Customer/ External Brand and Communications:
How we connect, engage and best service customers, internally as well as externally is absolutely HR’s concern and sits across every leadership function and at every level of successful cultures. Enhancing your skills and your team’s ability to link to external customer strategies, establish a culture of internal customers/consulting to the business and executing, with an eye on top business priorities for the greater good versus individual demands, will ensure that you stay commercially focused and are able to prioritise what will have the greatest impact, whilst communicating this to all concerned.
People are, no doubt, the most valuable asset any organisation has and People & Culture functions and leaders who are agile, able to pivot/adapt to changing business needs and adopt a future focused mindset will continue to be in high demand and make huge contributions.
How is your WOF as a people leader? Where can you pivot, invest or perhaps have conversations to ensure you are hitting the mark and genuinely contributing commercial thinking, impact and demonstrating value? Where are your areas of discomfort and how can you address them and adopt a learning mindset?
