Recently, two WTW experts; Sarah McDonagh (our Employee Experience leader for GB & Ireland) and Keith Coull (Senior Director, Work & Reward) had a conversation with two Chief People Officers; Nicola Grant, at Hiscox1 and Usha Kakaria-Cayaux at ofi,2 a global leader in food & beverage ingredients. They discussed their stand out parts of the recent HR in 2023 conference, how the new hybrid working environment is affecting their organisations and how HR leaders need to act in order to stay ahead.
Sarah McDonagh (SM): We heard a lot of data and perspectives at this afternoon’s HR in 2023 conference. Usha, is there is anything that particularly stood out for you?
Usha Kakaria-Cayaux (UK-C): I like that keynote speaker Robert Peston said, “Wow” to everyone in the room for working in HR. The last couple of years have been incredibly volatile; hearing him talk about all the things we have had to take on really sums it up. We should think a lot about our own function and how we keep pace with what’s going on. We have a very interesting journey ahead of us.
Nicola Grant (NG): I echo that. From my perspective, the point Robert made about just how many people are opting out of the workforce stood out. Talent acquisition is harder and harder, and the fact that we have three hundred thousand people who are opting out for no other reason than that they don’t want to be in the workforce is interesting. How do we tap into this potential workforce?
Keith Coull: At the moment, company strategies often look disjointed, from reward strategy through to pay equity and data. We need to think about the bigger picture and drive towards that. A big part of this is collective accountability between Reward/HR and line managers in discussions on reward and managing realistic expectations with colleagues and teams.
SM: What are the most important attributes for HR leaders to have? And have they changed because of this environment?
NG: I am not sure how much they have changed, but they may be magnified as things become more volatile. Understanding the environment you’re operating in is important. If I think about the characteristics needed, it’s having the ability to juggle a hundred and one balls at once. Over the past two years, so many different things have been thrown on HR’s plate, especially having to pivot and deal with a pandemic on top of everything else already on the agenda. It’s about juggling, resilience, and being able to be human – we talk about human resources, and for me it is more about the human than the resources. Connecting with our people and communities is vitally important now.
UK-C: It’s so important to know the context of your business and really understand how it runs. Adding to what Nicola said – as we become strategic partners, we don’t move away from the other incredibly important role we have, which is as employee advocates. The pandemic amplified the importance of putting the ‘human’ back into human resources.
It is important to understand the key levers of engagement – why are people showing up? People want to work for a company with purpose, no matter what level they are at. At today’s conference, we again saw the importance of ESG. It can’t be lip service; it has to be integrated into your business and people need to see it and feel it in what they do.
SM: How is your organisation getting the balance right in the new hybrid environment?
NG: Like most businesses, we haven’t cracked it yet, but we are trying to experiment with lots of collaborative and fun ways of getting together. We introduced team charters, which has gone down well but that, in effect, means people are spending much more time at home. With the technology, this way of operating can work, but we are concerned about how to keep our culture alive when our workforce is so distributed. We need to find moments that matter to get together: Christmas parties, drinks events, and other ways you can engage with people which are social. The office is used for connecting with people and we do the day-to-day work from home. We want to make the most of the time people have together.
UK-C: I don’t think anyone has fully cracked it. There is a generational gap. We have a lot of senior leaders in organisations who are baby boomers and Gen X, while Millennials are coming into leadership roles; the first two generations built their careers in offices. At that time, a lot of importance was placed on being seen and networking and paying your dues. There is a gap in understanding about what this means for younger generations. Leaning in and figuring out how to close that gap is important. That comes from empathy.
Right now, the ability to be agile is paramount. I don’t think any HR leader can say, ‘We’ll restructure and then look again in ten years.’
SM: The pandemic has been a huge accelerator of change in the workplace. Do you see a similar revolution on the horizon in terms of culture?
NG: The insurance sector has an ageing workforce and bringing in new talent is really difficult in our industry. People tend not to find insurance an exciting place to start their career. However, the reality is that our workforce is changing. The shape of the workforce now compared to ten years ago is totally different. We have digitally savvy workers who expect flexibility – COVID has accelerated these trends. How do we deal with de-globalisation of the world, with tensions rising in different areas? The conversation is returning to outsourcing and offshoring.
UK-C: I think we still don’t know the full impact of COVID, and we are going to be surprised by more outcomes that are not apparent at this juncture. Culture is the combination of all the different levers in our organisation. As HR, we don’t want to slip into saying, ‘We need a positive culture’. That’s kind of obvious. What we need to do is break that down into the key levers that drive that culture and address them individually.
One thing I think we will see a lot more of is mental health issues. For example in the US, one in five adults has some form of mental health issue and that is going to continue to play out over the next couple of years. We are going to have to figure out how we address that. It is not, ‘You come to work and only bring your work self.’ There is a lot of discussion about this, but we don’t know the outcome or have the answers yet.
Thank you so much to our panellists for speaking to us, and to you for reading this article. If you would like to explore any of the themes from this article in more detail, please contact your WTW consultant.
1. Hiscox Group
2. ofi
