SUBSCRIBE

EMEA May/June 2021

The Leadership Equation

Identifying employee potential, creating career paths, and developing hard and soft skills all add up to future success.

By Simon Kent

Identifying and developing leadership talent is a particular challenge for HR. From succession planning and development to external talent acquisition, HR leaders need to ensure there are practices to identify and place talent that will help the business thrive. Even in the face of the pandemic, forward-thinking organisations have prioritised their leadership programmes, ensuring their businesses have a strong direction despite stormy waters.

Keeping Compliant

Remote and hybrid workforce models add another layer of risk and complexity.

By Simon Kent

The challenge of delivering compliance across a remote and now increasingly hybrid workforce is summed up by Robert Hicks, group HR director at Reward Gateway: “The easiest way to think about it is if you have 100 staff, you have 100 locations, and you need to make sure each one is managed as you would just one location,” he says.

Maintaining Momentum

Many factors have actually increased employee engagement over the last year. Now, the challenge is to keep it on the rise.

By Simon Kent

For some businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic heightened the emphasis on employee engagement, resulting in improvements to worker attitudes and productivity. But a survey by Targus found that despite everything, 40% of office workers across Europe haven’t discussed new work arrangements with their bosses. Without those conversations, the risk of disengagement at this point in the pandemic cycle is very real.

Editor’s Note: Learning Curve

By Simon Kent

HR could be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief this year. Whilst it is by no means over, the immediacy and severity of the pandemic seems to be declining in many regions -and companies around the world are emerging, blinking in the light of economic upturn after months of lockdown and decline. And yet, for those in charge of employees across the business world, this is no time to rest on laurels.