Looking to 2025, employees are calling on HR for support and guidance, making it a key function of organisational transformation.
By Simon Kent
Wherever employees are in the world and whatever they do, they are influenced by the same world events, share the same aspirations, and are always looking for answers. This idea was very apparent during the opening panel discussion at the HRO Today Forum EMEA. It brought together four HR leaders from diverse organisations to examine the current challenges their people and their organisations are facing at a time of great uncertainty. Drawn from the tech industry, food, and logistics sectors, it was perhaps surprising to find similarities identified and experienced across these businesses, but clear themes emerged in the way these HR professionals were responding to circumstances around them.
The panelists were Ekaterina Firsova from Altenar, Johana Hatutale from Namibia Ports Authority, Johanna Wolfbauer of FrieslandCampina, and Lee Searle of ALT21. Across these businesses, there were instances of expansion and downsizing, bringing further levels of uncertainty to the workplace, and challenges for HR. How is it possible, for example, to give reassurance to a workforce when a business is clearly changing around them? Can HR really give certain promises as to what the future will hold, how the workforce or an individual will be affected, and what their workplace will be like?
Both Firsova’s and Searle’s businesses are expanding rapidly, not only changing their global footprint and size, but consequently the role and responsibility of HR as well. Firsova emphasised the need for effective communication around the business to ensure everyone knows what is happening—or simply to know that change is happening. Firsova spoke of the need not just to have a “Plan A” and “Plan B,” but also a “Plan C,” demonstrating how changing circumstances and priorities still need to be thought of in advance so that HR can stay ahead of the curve.
Firsova also detailed the need for good communication between team leaders to move the business forward. Sometimes moving ahead means finding a suitable compromise rather than allowing one view to lead. In this context, she argues, the business needs to work together to own every situation and work for the best of everyone.
Hatutale also emphasised the need for HR to make sure the right manager is in the right place to handle the change going forward. HR’s role is therefore becoming more challenging and complicated, addressing the management of change on the one hand and ensuring the right personnel are in place to manage change on the other. This gives HR more influence and profile among the senior leadership of an organization, providing them with the talent and the prepared workforce through whom change can be made.
For Searle, one of the most important things to concentrate on at this time of uncertainty is the culture of the business. Culture, he said, can be complicated, but also it can effectively change every time a new person is recruited. Therefore, in a growing business such as his own, he is constantly looking to communicate and reinforce the culture of the business. “Culture is the way you behave,” he asserts, which means it is to do with the way everyone in the business behaves towards customers and towards each other—from leadership levels down.
Searle also notes that his business has a high percentage of younger people in the workforce, and this has an impact on the kind of employee support resource required. The impact of the pandemic on the younger cohort has been particularly significant and mental health support is in great demand with 60% of the workforce accessing counselling services provided by the business, he said.
Wolfbauer emphasised the importance of addressing management level staff in creating the right approach for an organisation. It is all very well to have great HR policies, but unless those policies are understood and followed throughout the organisation, the workforce may feel unsupported. She was not alone in advocating for “authentic” leadership within HR and throughout the business, an approach which can make HR leaders vulnerable and needing to be there for people when required.
Wolfbauer also advocated for HR’s role in ensuring change within an organisation doesn’t happen at too quick a pace. Employees can be overwhelmed by change and the rate at which they need to adopt new ideas and processes. It can be a difficult message to get across, but HR needs to be able to advise the business to slow down, to take more time in moving people forward, and enable them to adapt to change.
The pace of change was highlighted by other panel members. There is a sense that businesses are changing and adapting so quickly there is less time for people to make connections with each other. Moreover, if your culture is encouraging people to perform at their best, making this happen at speed can be challenging. Without the right approach and support in place, it can lead to employee burnout.
Searle also noted that every HR department in every business has to deal with a level of rumour and gossip around organisation change, and indeed around the direction of a company in general. The need to address such talk before it becomes damaging for an organisation or leads to greater misunderstanding is clear. He feels companies need to have an effective communication strategy to address this kind of talk–one which works both internally and externally so that the business is always able to counteract uncertain whenever it can.
There is no doubt that the pandemic and other national and global events have put HR in the spotlight, at once giving it huge challenges and the opportunity to prove itself. This situation has continued, and it is interesting to note that the power and ability of HR to help organisations transform is now placed front and centre. At a time of uncertainty, HR is being looked to for guidance and support, and this has given the function the chance to be the reliable centre of a business, whatever happens.
