HR leaders are often burdened with the everyday. Fresh organisational demands and global crises mean they’re often forced into reactive mode. Rather than being able to focus on leading people through change, their attention is too often pulled into the here and now. 

This is especially the case following an ongoing four-year marathon that’s included the pandemic, talent shortages, rising cost-of-living challenges and widespread burnout. 

While it will always be part and parcel of HR’s job to be responsive to a business’s needs, it’s also possible for HR practitioners to pull themselves out of the detail and be enabled to focus on the future, when given the right tools and resources, says Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and founder of behaviour change consultancy Inventium.

“It can often feel like a game of whack-a-mole and always being on the defence across schedules, workloads, emails, calendars and team chats,” says Imber, who is speaking at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. 

“But we need to learn to play offence with our workdays, at both the individual and organisational level – and change behaviours and mindsets en masse.”

“It’s a hard process,” says Imber. “You need to be clear on where you’re going, where you hope to be, then figure out how to close that capability gap and what long-term success looks like to your organisation.”

Here, Imber and two HR leaders share their best tips to move HR professionals into forward-planning mode.

1. Set realistic benchmarks to map progress

Imber says introducing metrics enables HR professionals to establish their organisational strengths and weaknesses and track changes. 

“If you want to drive change, you first need a baseline: what’s going on right now in the organisation? A starting point allows you to measure progress.”

Key, though, is using metrics that are actionable.

“Many organisations come up with so many initiatives, yet struggle to put in place reliable metrics that measure impact,” says Imber. “For example, a client of ours established a goal around disability representation in the workforce. That’s great, but also almost impossible to track in that it’s not mandatory for employees to [disclose] a disability.”

Instead, metrics should be “diagnostic”, she says. They should flag areas for improvement, leading to a clear pathway in which people leaders have actionable recommendations based on results.

This is the approach Christina King FCPHR, Chief People Officer at Cornerstone Medical Recruitment, has adopted.

“We’ve created metrics that flow down and connect with teams, so we know what we need to focus on, while connecting back to the ultimate organisational goals,” she says. “Metrics are crucial – the data doesn’t lie. For people leaders, that means being able to demonstrate in a quantitative and qualitative sense, the bottom-line impact on the organisation.” 

“We need to learn to play offence with our workdays, at both the individual and organisational level – and change behaviours and mindsets en masse.” – Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and founder, Inventium

2. Eliminate administrative burdens with AI to create more time for proactive HR

The advent of generative AI, and automation more broadly, may free up schedules so teams have more opportunities to look beyond tomorrow.

“We’re already seeing some organisations delegate some repetitive tasks to generative AI, automating the mundane tasks to free up time for more creative thinking,” says Imber. 

However, organisational pressures mean HR is sometimes left out when it comes to experimenting with new technology.

“HR teams often spend time trying to build capability across their organisation, but forget about themselves. The top people teams are able to invest in their own development, and improve their own productivity, so they can free up time for more strategic problem-solving. That’s where AI comes in: creating huge productivity gains for the repetitive, less valued work often given to HR.”

Some tech-savvy people leaders are using AI today – and already reaping the rewards. For example, Justine Cooper FCPHR, Vice President Human Resources, Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric, uses her company chatbot for content creation.

“Alongside automating processes, AI can be used to draft items such as strategy days and HR policies,” says Cooper. 

“It’s an exciting tool that frees up so much time. I’ve used chatbot suggestions as first drafts, then written prompts that incorporate organisational values and fine-tuned the language.” 

3. Segment your time by importance rather than urgency 

Cooper read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, early in her career and still draws on its insights today.

“I apply the ‘Important vs Urgent’ time matrix in planning my daily list of activities. This tool helps you move from urgency to where the real importance lies, meaning you can become more intentional with your time,” she says.  

“Being proactive, and beginning with the end in mind, helps anchor me in terms of the impact I can make, which I think through on an annual and quarterly basis and sense-check on a weekly basis. Time isn’t just given to you – you have to find a way to free it up.”

Imber’s toolkit includes meeting clean-up templates (in which leaders sift through their calendars and identify which calls don’t meet short and long-term goals) and ‘recurring irritant lists’ for regular, tedious and often self-inflicted tasks.

There can also be ‘zombie hunts’, she says, where half-dead products, services and processes that drain time and resources are eliminated. This can enable leaders to work smarter, rather than harder.

4. Move with a rational, systems-driven approach 

Some of the best people leaders adopt a scientific attitude, says Imber.  They come up with a hypothesis, measure data against it, then iterate insights within frameworks supported by systems and processes. This helps HR teams become more strategic and forward-focused, rather than just tackling issues as they arrive in the in-tray.

“From my organisational psychologist background, I see everything through the lens of scientific method, such as using data to measure progress,” she says. “When HR professionals do that, they can measure behaviour – rather than just intentions – and take actions based on metrics.”

King’s team extract data from their HRIS and payroll, which automatically generates month-end reports. They also use a company calendar integrating upcoming events, such as budget planning and quarterly reviews, and established an innovation committee that focuses on finding marginal gains.

5. Get comfortable saying ‘no’

Imber says many of her clients include people leaders who are natural strategists, innovators and holistic thinkers. Where they often come unstuck, though, is taking on too much work.

“Before the pandemic, there were clearer boundaries around which sort of problems fell inside the organisation’s remit, and therefore HR. Today, many people leaders are unclear of their roles. Some are almost acting like therapists for direct reports when that’s not their job.”

If HR leaders want to focus on the future of work, they sometimes have to politely decline present-day challenges. King says this can be done in a way that protects workloads and time, without harming relationships. 

“It’s a learned skill. Many of us in HR feel guilty: carving out two hours for strategic planning while an employee has an issue can feel hard. I’ve learned to go with ‘yes, if’. That means you can say yes to a piece of work, but it will come at a cost to something else. That way, you won’t feel as conflicted and can still manage to demonstrate flexibility.”

Proactive HR leaders also find time in their schedules for deep thinking. 

Every Monday, Cooper blocks out the first hour of her morning to reflect on her organisation’s big-picture IMPACT values: inclusion, mastery, purpose, action, curiosity and teamwork.

“As people leaders building a directional vision, anchoring plans and goals to help inspire our teams and build momentum, making interventions that create time for us to reflect is critical,” she says. 

“Being proactive, and beginning with the end in mind, helps anchor me in terms of the impact I can make. Time isn’t just given to you – you have to find a way to free it up.” – Justine Cooper FCPHR, Vice President Human Resources, Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric

6. Think outside the box when planning for the future

The hope is that by slowly shifting towards a longer-term strategy, people leaders will be better equipped to deal with the challenges of tomorrow, today. 

“In the best organisations, HR teams are able to push boundaries and challenge norms and lean into innovation,” says Imber. 

“They’re able to look at the bigger picture, question what the future of work looks like and prepare for the trends shaping their industry, then build the workplace culture and skills for the next five years.”

The potential benefits stretch far beyond HR teams, though. They extend to the people they lead.

“The workplaces I’ve seen with forward-looking people leaders are often more exciting, inspirational and motivating places to work,” says Imber. 

“There’s just an energy about the place. People are excited to come to work, they’re engaged. They have a deeper sense of meaning in what they’re doing.” 

Hear more from Amantha Imber and Justine Cooper FCPHR at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in Melbourne from 20-22 August. Secure your ticket today.

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While 2024 is predicted to be less economically challenging than the previous year, some economists are suggesting that inflation rates won’t settle to below three per cent until mid-to-late 2025.

This means many HR leaders will be called upon to streamline and enhance productivity levels in their organisations, drawing on the ‘do more with less’ expertise they’ve been honing over the past few years.

Key to this will be supporting managers and executives to retain and attract talent for the key roles that will move their businesses forward, as well as removing friction points that prevent employees from delivering the full suite of their discretionary efforts.

It’s critical for HR to lay the groundwork to make this happen, says Anya Johnson, Associate Professor and Head of Discipline in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School.

“Changing the workplace to support people more effectively is critical,” she says.

Designing efficient processes that can be fine-tuned as your business evolves is more than possible. Much of it is focused on improving current resources – from  optimising the employee experience and streamlining tech.

Strategically investing time, energy and (where possible) money into creating high-performing, cohesive teams is your key to unlocking productivity in your workforce – even during leaner times.

Enhancing the employee experiences

In order for a people strategy to flourish, it needs to strike the right balance of tending to both organisational and employees’ needs.

However, this isn’t always the case. September 2022 research by Columbia University, analysing earnings call transcripts from S&P 500 firms, showed that executives talked about customers 10 times more often than employees. And when they did mention staff, it was often through the lens of risk, rather than opportunity. 

While such a strategy may encourage short-term revenue growth, it could, unsurprisingly, also have significant impacts on a company’s long-term retention metrics.

“A critical aspect of high-performing teams is navigating the social context, such as managing conflict, power and the various personalities that might exist.”  – Stefan Jooss, Senior Lecturer in Management, university of Queensland Business School

In order to get the most from teams, and encourage discretionary effort at a time when it’s needed most, employee buy-in and a streamlined employee experience are paramount, says Alex Pusenjak, Global VP, People & Culture at Fluent Commerce. 

The Sydney-headquartered e-commerce software firm won Best Employee Experience Strategy at the 2023 AHRI Awards and the judges were impressed by the “energy and thought” that the company had put into its employee experience. And it’s clear to see why.

“If you don’t focus on employee engagement, the key risk is your biggest asset looks for that engagement elsewhere,” says Pusenjak. “Not having them on the hook means when another opportunity is dangled, you face losing talent. 

“It’s still a hot labour market [in that] the best people will want to work for a company where they feel they have a voice, and are recognised and appreciated.”

Among Fluent Commerce’s 180 employees spread across nine countries, 96 per cent say they directly know how their job contributes to the overall success of the business – everyone is on the same page.

The company attributes that high rate to removing friction points for employees, acting on feedback, and creating opportunities for growth, belonging and flexibility through a data-driven approach.

Pusenjak says it’s this collection of data, particularly through biannual employee surveys (participation rates typically top 95 per cent), that’s helped create an award-winning employee experience. 

“Sometimes, [we] can get stuck in a rut of being unsure of the next step. [HR] may have had budgets constrained, previous knockbacks or an unwilling leader. But data can be your friend: you can use insights to support your strategies with key decision-makers, create action plans or inform you when something isn’t working.”

In Fluent Commerce’s case, data has been leveraged in honing a tailored employee experience, easing pain points to better enable workflow. People teams and department heads create ‘people heat maps,’ identifying red, amber and green zones to address flight risk or performance concerns. 

Onboarding assessments, periodic interviews and performance tracking provide a holistic understanding of the individual employee. Continuous learning is endorsed through short courses provided by AHRI, such as CPD opportunities, networking events and topical webinars.

Beyond metrics, Fluent Commerce employees also receive a bespoke experience through a career-model framework, hands-on career workshops and the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world for up to four weeks.

“People are increasingly looking for a more tailored career development plan, yet many organisations still don’t provide a learning path for employees,” says Pusenjak. “Even a wellness program can help foster a sense of value and recognition. How companies tailor the employee experience to individual preferences is gaining momentum.”

Without enriching the employee experience, HR leaders may miss a big opportunity to enable their people to go above and beyond at work. Pusenjak attributes much of Fluent Commerce’s success to its attitude to flexible working. A hybrid workforce in a literal sense, although its team can work in person, there are no mandated in-office days, so many of its employees work remotely.

“Buy-in comes from engagement and continual dialog with employees,” says Pusenjak. “Flexibility means more than two days a week working from home. It’s supporting folks with their parental leave, rotating meeting times across time zones, providing job-sharing arrangements – it comes down to being open minded and listening to your people.”

Using technology strategically

A key aspect of a strong employee experience is ensuring people are equipped with the right tools for the job. Yet four years on from the pandemic, some companies are still struggling to ensure their people have optimal software and collaborative tools, especially when they work from home.

This issue is being heightened as more firms adopt hybrid working, says John Van Reenen Van Reenen, Ronald Coase School Professor at the London School of Economics and Digital Fellow, Initiative for the Digital Economy at MIT.

“Combining remote work with the need to create a community in the workplace, which is good for training, creativity and esprit de corps, is a big challenge. So, having robust digital technology to enable effective remote work and strong managerial practices is needed to ensure that remote workers don’t become disconnected.”

Key to Fluent Commerce’s smooth employee experience is a “stacked” tech stack; HR analytics platform Lattice is integrated with BambooHR and Slack to enable teams to identify strengths and development opportunities; LinkedIn Learning is employees’ port-of-call for on-demand learning; and Google Workspace documentation is used for onboarding.

“Operating at full tilt all the time will lead to burnout…negatively impacting both individuals’ wellbeing and team performance.”  – Stefan Jooss, senior lecturer, Management, University of Queensland Business School

But there is no tech overkill. Pusenjak says Fluent Commerce’s people team effectively does a tech audit before a new platform is introduced to employees. That way, platforms work for them rather than against them.

“Before we add anything, we figure out what’s missing and what platform out there could augment value to the employee experience. That’s the critical step. You can have the best technology, but without the correct workflows, and ensuring it makes sense by asking for feedback from employees and managers across 30, 60 and 90-day check-ins, it might not actually be the best tool. You don’t need all the bells and whistles to have the right tech stack.”

Technology doesn’t just mean the apps and platforms employees use for tasks. It extends to data, and collecting metrics that benefit teams and decision-makers. Such is the case with Fluent Commerce.

Johnson says a data-driven approach can improve work design and support employees more broadly, while also recognising the highest achievers in an objective manner.

“Reward and performance metrics can support, rather than undermine, teams.They can disrupt the social capital within an organisation – and social capital is critical for good wellbeing and performance.”

High-performance teams

The goal of optimising productivity is, ultimately, to develop high-performance teams that execute faster, make better decisions, solve more complex problems, and do more to enhance creativity and build skills.

Stefan Jooss, Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of Queensland Business School, says such employees are often the sparks of innovation and creativity, resulting in improved financial performance and increased customer satisfaction. 

However, getting there can be a challenge. The recruitment stage is a good place to start.  Research strongly suggests that diverse teams outperform their peers. This can be across genders, personalities and talent itself – such as knowledge, skills and experiences. 

But in the current skills climate, external hiring may not be as available to HR leaders. 

Thankfully, it’s possible for people leaders to build more effective teams from within, says Jooss. He recommends introducing initiatives under the ‘ability, motivation and opportunity’ model. 

“Do team members have the ability to complete their task and operate as a team? If they lack some knowledge, skills and abilities required for the team to work, managers can build their capabilities through specific training, or learning and development interventions,” he says. 

Identifying individuals’ motivations, such as through employee feedback and one-on-ones, can mean leaders are then able to launch initiatives targeting intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors, says Jooss. For one employee, this could be adding them to a challenging and interesting project. For another, this may mean a monetary bonus if they reach certain objectives.

Finally, growth opportunities can exist not only in employees’ roles and promotions, but their psychological empowerment and autonomy, weighed against organisational constraints. 

“Being on a high-performing team provides a place for development and growth, allowing employees to take on new challenges and expand their skill sets. This can have a positive impact on their sense of personal growth, job satisfaction and broader wellbeing,” says Jooss.

This doesn’t mean operating at 100 per cent all the time. Jooss cites research suggesting that 85 per cent of effort is the rule of thumb for teams to reach maximum outputs.

“Monitoring workload, assessing work demands and evaluating supporting resources is required to ensure that employees can work effectively as a team. Operating at full tilt all the time will lead to burnout, ultimately negatively impacting both individuals’ wellbeing and team performance.”

Social context

By sticking to the ‘85-per cent’ goal, teams are more likely to thrive, maximising the productivity and potential of employees and the organisation, says Jooss.  

“Teams don’t exist in a vacuum. They operate within the context of the wider organisation. Therefore, the organisational culture shapes how teams work and the qualities that they display – for example, a positive culture where collaboration is valued and fostered.”

This means a culture in which people leaders can facilitate open conversations between employees. The difference between an under-performing and high-performing team is often down to effective communication, says Jooss.

“A critical aspect of high-performing teams is navigating the social context, such as managing conflict, power and the various personalities that might exist.” 

Jooss says it falls on leaders in particular to create the psychological safety necessary for employees to thrive.

“This includes an inclusive and collaborative climate in which individuals feel they can connect and belong to the team; where they can challenge the status quo and have a voice to speak up and address problems. It also requires a learning environment in which they can safely make mistakes, learn and grow.”

A longer version of this article first appeared in the February/March 2024 edition of HRM Magazine. AHRI does not endorse any of the products named in this article.

Need support enhancing your HR capabilities? Take AHRI’s capabilities analysis test to learn where you can enhance your skill set and receive a personalised report outlining what your AHRI learning journey could look like. Learn more here.

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By now, many of us will have experimented with nascent AI technologies. But far fewer have gone beyond using them for rudimentary writing tasks, basic ideation or general amusement.  

While many HR professionals have been using AI in recruitment practices for some time now, and will be aware of AI’s potential beyond email drafts and job ads, AHRI’s September quarter Work Outlook showed that only 20 per cent of respondents were investing in AI technology, with 26 per cent saying it was a near-term priority.

That’s despite research finding that up to 40 per cent of all working hours could be impacted by large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 – which is just a fraction of AI’s potential.

These figures suggest that employers have a significant learning opportunity ahead of them. And it goes beyond ChatGPT. There are impressive, big-picture ways AI can change how we work for the better.  

Here are four ways HR can leverage AI for more complex tasks and bigger-picture business goals, according to experts:

1. Using AI to predict turnover

Employee retention has always been a key concern for HR and leaders alike, but the pressure to retain people has become more intense amid the skills shortage.

According to the Work Institute’s 2022 Retention Report, the average cost to replace an employee is 33 per cent of their base pay, and there’s also a significant time cost to HR leaders – often before they’ve even hired a replacement.

“For decades of turnover research, the key reason why employees stay at organisations is due to their embeddedness: fit, sacrifice and links,” says Andrew Dhaenens, lecturer in the School of Management and Governance, UNSW Business School. 

“Building connections at work, and the perception that these benefits and relationships would be lost by leaving, are the primary drivers behind why employees stay.”

Read HRM’s article on how to develop social capital at work.

While these emotional connections may be hard to quantify, there are contributing factors to an employee’s decision to stay or quit that can be measured. This typically requires HR leaders sifting through complex datasets, containing metrics related to employee demographics, job history, performance and engagement. 

“If you make some healthy comparisons with viable alternatives – locations, industries and competitors – and track some affective factors such as work-life balance, satisfaction and emotional exhaustion, you’ll have a strong idea of the people who will voluntarily leave the organisation,” says Dhaenens.

By implementing AI solutions, it’s possible for algorithms to comb through the data and potentially uncover hidden patterns, helping organisations anticipate employee turnover. This can significantly improve retention rates and free up HR leaders’ schedules, he says.

“What AI can add is the speed to which this information can be processed, particularly among other factors and large datasets.”

There is a crucial caveat though, says Dhaenens. 

“AI will commonly circumvent other organisational and employee goals in pursuit of its outcomes. It’s important, right now, to think of AI just as you would an overly eager junior employee: if you assign a task, it’s going to work with you to provide answers, be hesitant to admit it’s wrong and miss some important nuances.”

Nevertheless, Dhaenens says this information can be very valuable in identifying employees who may need additional HR support. This means human expertise remains vital.

2. Creating inclusive work cultures

There is potential for workplace AI to aid employees living with disabilities. Today, NLP helps people more accurately interpret complex information, such as lengthy company policies, and OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model powers a ChatGPT add-on enabling users to hear AI-generated responses, as well as provide AI-powered visual assistance to blind users.

This technology is currently in its infancy, says Mark Purdy, Managing Director of business and tech advisory firm Purdy & Associates. 

“Right now, the biggest D&I gains through AI are in [more inclusive] recruitment. Principally, the technology can help access global talent databases, deeper pools and a wider hiring net, job matching a vacancy to individual candidates.”

“Think of AI just as you would an overly eager junior employee: if you assign a task, it’s going to work with you to provide answers, be hesitant to admit it’s wrong and miss some important nuances.” – Andrew Dhaenens, lecturer, UNSW Business School.

Rather than rely on traditional hiring processes, which mean organisations often turn to favoured staffing agencies or universities for graduate hires, AI and machine learning can look at a broader set of candidates.  For example, Purdy says some of the technology ignores surnames and ethnicity in terms of a candidate’s suitability to a role.

“Instead of the process depending on a couple of hiring managers, who will by nature always have limited attention spans, and cognitive biases, AI offers a more structured and analytical approach to recruitment,” he says. 

“As a managing director, I often have to review 500 CVs for a vacancy and, by the time you reach CV number 50, it’s very hard to keep your concentration. That’s where machine learning can really help HR.”

However, as is often discussed, the output of such platforms is only as effective as the data that’s input.

“If the AI is simply an algorithm using the organisation’s past recruitment data, then its version of a successful hire will often be similar to the human recruiter’s choices in the past,” says Purdy. 

“If the data suggests people from certain backgrounds tend to be the ones who are best recruited and are successful, there’s a strong chance the AI system will begin to mimic pre-existing biases.”

3. Free up brain space

We often attribute the ‘scatter-brain’ feeling at work to a proliferation of technologies that leads to frequent context switching, seriously damaging overall productivity levels. 

However, if we implement the technology correctly, we actually free the space in our brains that enables productivity to flow, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Professor of Business Psychology at University College London, Chief Innovation Officer at employment agency ManpowerGroup and author. 

“Technology, like productivity itself, is about doing more with less, or achieving the same with less effort,” he says. “Theoretically, every useful app cuts down effort, thinking and decision-making time.”

Read HRM’s article on ‘infobestity‘ – the proliferation of information and its impacts on us.

However, workplaces often use too many tools, requiring teams to spend workdays switching tabs and apps. Therefore, AI has to be implemented strategically.

In order to maximise AI’s benefits, HR leaders need to ensure that efficiency gains are invested back into businesses, says Chamorro-Premuzic. 

He recommends time-tracking tools that help optimise productivity. Otherwise, there’s no guarantee that an employee writing a business proposal 50 per cent faster through generative AI will spend their freed-up time on strategic work.

“The only way to manage processes is by measuring them. So, as much as it may sound creepy and Orwellian, we cannot avoid quantifying inputs and outputs and have AI connect both.”

Productivity and time-tracking tools aren’t the same as employee monitoring software, he says. The goal is to enable teams to work smarter, not to track their every move.

“Even if AI turns us into productivity machines, people aren’t machines. So you have to create the cultural conditions whereby people can enjoy work, thrive and fulfil their core needs. That doesn’t come from AI – that comes from leadership.”

In other words, AI can only succeed with a culture of openness, he says. 

“The best way is to have ethical AI charters in place. Be open and transparent, invite people to opt in, and show them it’s for their own benefit. You’re ultimately trying to be fairer and more equitable in how you measure and reward performance.”

4. Approach innovation differently

AI platforms can expand people’s thinking – debiasing organisations and democratising the brainstorming process, says Chamorro-Premuzic.

“AI can help us detect hidden patterns of behaviour and decision-making in a system or organisation. For example, it can tell us that people with certain qualities are less likely to get promoted, if their emails are more likely to be ignored or if people use more negative words when they communicate.”

“Even if AI turns us into productivity machines, people aren’t machines. So you have to create the cultural conditions whereby people can enjoy work, thrive and fulfil their core needs. That doesn’t come from AI – that comes from leadership.” – Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Professor of Business Psychology, University College London, Chief Innovation Officer, ManpowerGroup

Through a data-driven approach, leaders can use their findings to launch new workplace culture initiatives projects, reward high performers and boost engagement. Chamorro-Premuzic cites how it’s been utilised at ManpowerGroup.

“We’ve used social network analysis to identify the most connected and influential managers in our organisations – those who receive emails from more people and are themselves more diverse and globally distributed – to identify ‘influencers’ in a culture change project.”

AI can also help reduce expertise bias, in which certain sources are treated as incontrovertible; and phenomena such as the Einstellung effect, where people’s previous experience can prevent them from considering new ways to solve problems.

“Just like how individual decisions can be predicted via factors that imply bias, AI can expose the bias by analysing granular invisible features that determine the hidden grammar of social relations and ties,” he says.

AI is changing work forever 

While many leaders are yet to begin their AI journey, the key message is that, when used appropriately, these platforms help people work smarter – and better. 

A second brain means augmenting human talent with machine learning capabilities, enabling teams to produce their best work yet, says Purdy.

“It’s about finding better talent, maximising employee wellbeing and helping them improve productivity and skills development. AI gives organisations the potential to do just that – when used properly. And that’s the challenge that many leaders face right now.” 

A longer version of this article first appeared in the Dec/Jan 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

How is your organisation preparing for the future world of work? Develop a successful HR strategic plan with the help of AHRI’s short course on HR Strategy Planning.

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‘Fair Dinkum.’ This is the core value of Sydney-based Fluent Commerce – and it surges throughout the e-commerce software firm.

“We want folks to bring their whole self to work,” says Alex Pusenjak, Global VP, People & Culture at Fluent Commerce. “Fair dinkum ties amazingly into what we do – we want to be our most authentic selves, and respect and inspire each other to produce our best work.”

The results are strong. Among Fluent Commerce’s 180 employees, spread across nine countries, 96 per cent say they directly know how their job contributes to the overall success of the business. Ninety-four per cent declare they’re proud to work for the company, while 97 per cent say they know their job contributes to the overall success of the business.

These impressive metrics have been gleaned from biannual employee surveys, in which participation rates typically top 95 per cent – an impressive figure in and of itself. It shows the strength of Fluent Commerce’s engagement, says Pusenjak – and it’s backed up by its business results.

“We’re a people-first organisation, and we’re in the order management space in the e-commerce tech sector. So we need to be strong in our products and sales – and we’ve made the top two quadrants in both Forrester and Gartner reports. But without amazing people, and a first-class employee experience, that wouldn’t be possible – we need to look after our greatest asset to achieve our great work.”

It’s this philosophy that led to Fluent Commerce winning Best Employee Experience Strategy at the 2023 AHRI Awards.

Here’s how its people team did it.

Data, data, data

Each Fluent Commerce biannual employee survey comprises 37 consistent questions, delving into multifaceted aspects of the workplace. The people team assess metrics not only against the previous survey, but also also industry benchmarks through HR analytics platform Lattice.

But their evaluation framework extends beyond engagement scores. Onboarding surveys take place after 45 days to ascertain a new starter’s impression – Pusenjak says every employee reports receiving accurate information provision and welcoming experiences. There are also bimonthly focus groups and stay interviews, as well as feedback on company-wide events.

“We need to look after our greatest asset to achieve our great work.” – Alex Pusenjak, Global VP, People & Culture, Fluent Commerce

This exhaustive data collection provides Pusenjak with a deep, rich source of insights that can be turned into actions. Crucially, these are shared internally. 

“Some organisations may receive results and take them into a closed room – employees never hear anything back,” says Pusenjak. “Instead, we push engagement results back to our people: these are areas we’re doing well, others where we have room for improvement. We’ll introduce focus groups where appropriate, and put an action plan in place.”

This goes beyond confirming which parts of the business are opening at full-tilt, says Pusenjak – insights can go into the minutiae. 

“If we see that, say, learning and development is an area of growth, we don’t just admire that. We take a look at the ‘how’: is it because of micro-learning, our recent mentoring initiatives, employees’ professional memberships? We want to be able to explain the data we receive.” 

Designing the employee experience

One challenge for Fluent Commerce is a natural knock-on effect of being an agile, hybrid company in a literal sense: although its team can work in person, there are no mandated in-office days. Instead, many of its employees work remotely, from Melbourne to Paris, London to Los Angeles.

Besides some early-morning and late-night calls, Pusenjak says the biggest challenge for colleagues scattered across time zones is that some occasionally miss face-to-face interactions.

In lieu of in-person working, Fluent Commerce’s people team have designed initiatives that strengthen connections between a global workforce. For example, there are ‘Journey to the Summit’ induction sessions for new starters to access senior management. Monthly people newsletters feature the latest ‘Kudos winner,’ as chosen by colleagues. Popular ‘Crunch ‘N’ Learn’ lessons are provided as part of the company’s approach to continuous learning, which also includes AHRI programs, networking events and webinars.

Many of these employee initiatives have been designed through the employee data and feedback process, says Pusenjak. 

“If these were just rolled out without thought, purpose and validation, I have no doubt they’d fail. But with focus groups and survey feedback, we’re able to provide a more tailored employee experience.”

Fluent Commerce’s catchy phrases are also backed up by real values, says Pusenjak.

“We not only have a career model framework with regards to certain levels, positions and how to grow, but we have our values defined through that framework. Rather than dictate our values to teams, we invite them to bring their values to our working life: that means flexibility is more than two days a week working from home, it’s a mindset that allows our folks the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world for up to four weeks, and be trusted.”

These values include diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Fluent Commerce change champions have launched initiatives that include the DEIB Forum, which meets regularly to discuss how to enhance the employee experience through fostering inclusivity. The company has also been endorsed by WORK180, which promotes companies committed to the careers of women, winning two DEIB awards in the process.

Pusenjak says designing an award-winning employee experience has been enabled by Fluent Commerce’s leadership team, one that’s embraced innovation and progressiveness since he joined the team in 2021. Going forward, he believes more organisations need to have their people more front of mind.

“It’s not about squeezing the lemon harder to get more out of your people. Instead, it’s taking a leap of faith, and attempting something more ambitious in your offering to them. It’s about being a people architect: the designer and brains not only with regards to team structures, but also engagement initiatives – you have to be groundbreaking to make a difference.”

Develop the necessary skills to tap into the full potential of team members with this short course on creating high-performance teams from AHRI.

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Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s career is split across academia, consulting and non-fiction writing. Connecting these various strands is an overarching philosophy: applying science and technology to understand human performance, and improve organisations’ decisions at scale.

“Whether it’s a humanitarian group or a big banking firm, the problems organisations have are always the same: how to manage people and ensure power is allocated to good employees rather than the bad ones,” says Chamorro-Premuzic.

The solution, he says, may be artificial intelligence. An extension of data-driven analytics, translated into insights, AI could debias organisations’ decision-making – benefitting employers and the workforce.

“My assumption is most organisations mean it when they say they want to make workplaces more meritocratic. But to do so, you need to enable everyone to have access to opportunities, matching the right person to the right job and career – and AI is a means of making more rational and objective decisions.”

However, he says there’s a crucial caveat – the same technology, wielded incorrectly, has the potential to exacerbate deep-lying organisational and societal issues.

This is the topic Chamorro-Premuzic will be discussing at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August, which he’ll be attending virtually. It follows the publication of his latest book, I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique. 

“If applied well, AI can help organisations understand their talent better, hire from deeper talent pools and boost diversity and inclusion,” he says. “The danger lies in how the data is trained: if it’s contaminated with individual preferences, then an algorithm may always recommend a certain kind of person for a leadership role – one that’s based on human biases.”

Predicting performance with AI

Chamorro-Premuzic was born and raised in the Buenos Aires district of Villa Freud, affectionately named after the founding father of psychoanalysis. The micro-neighbourhood is home to a high concentration of Argentina’s therapists – the South American nation has the most psychologists per capita in the world.

He attributes some of the country’s rich psychotherapy history to its various crises over the decades.

“It’s a country with many human and natural resources, yet one that’s perpetually declining and unable to seemingly organise itself collectively,” he says.

Chamorro-Premuzic began his career in clinical psychology, focusing on humans’ more dysfunctional traits, such as people with severe antisocial behaviours. He then made the switch to organisational psychology, taking roles in London and, more recently, New York.

Alongside being a Professor of Business Psychology at both University College London and Columbia University, he’s lectured at Harvard Business School and Stanford Business School. His commercial work includes collaborating with non-profits such as the United Nations and the World Bank; clients also include major corporations, such as JP Morgan and Google. Among his current roles is Chief Innovation Officer at global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

“After being so focused on a clinical job in which you can rarely help people who are truly medicated, I decided to focus on something more productive,” he says. “I then discovered narcissists and psychopaths exist in organisations, too.

“But as an organisational psychologist, I knew that I could create much more impact and benefit in systems and structures than dealing with psychopathology in individuals.”

“It falls on HR to understand how these tools can augment and elevate talent. We need to ask ourselves how we can make our jobs more creative and less predictable so we stay relevant.” – Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Psychologist, author and entrepreneur

Training technology

Human DNA is encoded with unconscious biases: cognitive shortcuts and instincts that enabled our ancestors to survive. Society may have evolved, but our minds haven’t – the same snap decision-making processes that were once vital for the wilderness are now executed in boardrooms. Chamorro-Premuzic says this explains why so many organisations end up with incompetent managers.

“We tend to trust our intuitions. We assume someone who sounds assertive has substance behind them; we reward people who seem likeable and charismatic but are actually narcissistic. But it’s actually individuals who may be more introverted that often make for better leaders.”

AI is already being leveraged in recruitment and skills-based hiring, typically determining a candidate’s ‘soft’ skills, such as communication and teamwork, through data-driven personality assessments that match job seekers against vacancies. The technology is also helping hiring managers combat their bias towards hard skills.

“When people think of talent, there’s still a very traditional mindset that overestimates a candidate’s credentials over their softer skills. Someone may have an amazing leadership profile, but organisations prefer appointing someone based on their qualifications.

“But, fundamentally, it’s easier to hire the right person for the right role than to try to change the person in a role. That’s despite HR typically focusing much of its budget on learning and development.

“Recruitment is more of a science, development is more of an art. When you make a bad hire, you have to spend more money on training. But get the right hire, and training boosts them exponentially.

Adding AI to HR

Chamorro-Premuzic says AI is still in its infancy – it’s the equivalent to the dial-up phase of the internet. He advises that people leaders needn’t be dazzled nor baffled by the emerging technology. Rather, it’s a tool: a device that, when properly applied, can enable organisations and employees to overcome their inherent weaknesses.

“The key is approaching it in the right way – organisations often start with solutions rather than the problems. Rather than think, ‘How can we use OpenAI and Microsoft 365 Copilot?’, they should be diagnosing their greatest issues in hiring, managing and innovating – and then see how AI could help.”

The irony of AI is that it may enable HR to humanise organisations more than ever before, he says. Natural language processing could be used in coaching sessions to detect when an employee is motivated, disengaged or depressed. Productivity tools could notify a meeting host when they should let an attendee speak. Hiring algorithms, inoculated from human biases, could create more diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Many employees are, of course, already using AI. ChatGPT has become the fastest growing online platform ever, reaching 100 million users before even Instagram and TikTok. Even from basic prompts, the program can complete complex written tasks in moments – an efficiency tool that can generate email drafts, lines of code or presentation ideas.

For Chamorro-Premuzic, this generative AI has the potential to create huge productivity gains, freeing employees from mundane tasks so they can focus on their creative, specialist work. But it also highlights an unspoken truth about knowledge work: many jobs are composed of routine, standardised tasks. 

“Many tasks carried out by well-skilled people in well-paid, prestigious jobs are boring. If the corporate version of ChatGPT can write emails and send them before you even can, the next question is: ‘Why are you even there?’”

This is where people leaders step in. “It falls on HR to understand how these tools can augment and elevate talent. We need to ask ourselves how we can make our jobs more creative and less predictable so we stay relevant,” he says.

Getting it right

AI can feel simultaneously mysterious and vague, exciting and daunting. Chamorro-Premuzic says organisations’ journeys should start with small first steps.

“I’m no AI evangelist, but it’s the defining technology of the day that will impact every business, industry and function within it – so organisations can’t dismiss it. It’s a case of putting it on the agenda, creating structural platforms, opportunities and processes to be the crux of an organisation’s plan.

“You won’t have to be an expert and have all the answers. But do it right and AI can find better ways of improving you incrementally. And it may mean organisation have better leaders of the future.”

Learn more about the possibilities and risks of AI by accessing AHRI’s on-demand webinar, Generative AI For HR, via the member portal. Visit the webinars homepage for more information.

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HR is stuck in the 1980s. That’s the view of Lucy Adams, founder and CEO of London-based consulting firm Disruptive HR.

“I speak as a recovering HR director myself,” she says. “Everything I criticise about HR are things I’ve done in the past.”

Adams thinks HR is too bureaucratic: the annual performance reviews, lengthy management processes and prescriptive policies that see employees graded from one to five and teams burdened with mountains of paperwork. She also refers to language which she thinks can pit people leaders in an adversarial role within an organisation.

“We use ‘probation’ to describe the first few months of a new starter at an organisation, as if we’re referring to a criminal,” she says. “‘Performance reviews’ and ‘exit interviews’ imply the employee is going to be assessed and judged. It creates an environment where people automatically feel defensive.”

However, HR doesn’t have to be this way, she says. As a keynote speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August, Adams plans to unpack what alternative, agile HR can look like, and how it can serve employers in a disrupted world.

“There are different ways that HR can be done – and it doesn’t have to be so process-heavy,” she says. “Ultimately, HR’s primary function should be to create environments that enable people to do their best work: where they can be agile, productive, collaborative and innovative.”

She notes that many of HR’s familiar practices and processes came to be at least 30 years ago.

“Performance and talent management, annual employee objectives and engagement surveys from then are still used to this day,” says Adams, who has more than a decade’s experience in board-level HR roles, most recently at the BBC. “They probably didn’t work well decades ago – and they certainly don’t work well now.”

HR’s evolving relationship with the workforce

As organisations hired more HR personnel, red tape and formal company policies became more embedded in organisations, she says. The aim, says Adams, was to prop up poor managers and ultimately safeguard the employer. 

“We began believing that if we treated everyone the same, then consistency meant fairness. It would help reduce complaints against bad managers and minimise the risk of employee tribunals. So, HR began implementing workplace rules, policies and processes to protect the organisation from rogue employees and avoid any legal trouble.”

As HR grew in stature at the turn of the century, it moved from employee support to more of an executive function. Qualifications in the field emerged and people leaders increasingly became board members.

“We use ‘probation’ to describe the first few months of a new starter at an organisation, as if we’re referring to a criminal.” Lucy Adams, Founder and CEO of Disruptive HR

However, it’s Adams’s view that the role of HR to shelter the organisation continued and that people leaders became akin to parental figures. Rather than treat employees as adults, says Adams, the onus was on HR to nurture workers – or constrain them. 

“This behaviour manifests in terms of not trusting employees enough to use their own judgment. Instead, we use critical parenting techniques, like making them adhere to prescriptive workplace policies. Or we choose to nurture. We try to do everything for them and help out over the smallest issues.”

Of course, caring for employees comes from a good place. But Adams says that rather than enabling people to perform their best work, HR sometimes ends up treating them as children, depriving them of their right to make adult choices in the workplace.

“It manifests in things like patronising notices in the bathrooms [reminding] employees to wash their hands; health and wellbeing becomes arranging yoga classes over Zoom, or providing free cereal bars.”

The biggest issue, says Adams, is that HR sometimes fails to accept the reality of a post-pandemic knowledge worker. 

“Our relationship with employees shouldn’t be treating them as our family – they’re adult individuals. We focus so much on retention that we feel betrayed if someone chooses to leave the organisation. But people moving to a new opportunity is inevitable in life.”

Adams believes that by being a parental figure, HR prevents employees from producing their best work – ultimately harming the organisation in the long run.

“Rather than have honest conversations, we try to protect everyone,” says Adams. 

“In doing so, we end up with passive, compliant workforces. It prevents people from being willing to speak up, take calculated risks and embrace change. We try to create lovely work environments, but fail to acknowledge that what drives employee engagement is [giving employees] autonomy and flexibility to work in ways that are most productive for them.”

Equipping staff with agility and autonomy

Borne from her frustrations, Adams founded Disruptive HR in 2014. Her firm offers training, advice and consulting services to CEOs and people leaders, built upon a different framework. It’s been coined ‘EACH’: employees as adults, consumers and humans.

Instead of perceiving employees as co-operative or rebellious, and choosing to nurture or criticise in response, people leaders should treat them as adults, says Adams. Ultimately, that means affording workers trust and relinquishing control.

“It comes down to adopting light-touch principles and allowing employees to use their own judgment, own their own career development and pursue independent performance management. It should be done without detailed policies in place.”

“Ultimately, HR’s primary function should be to create environments that enable people to do their best work: where they can be agile, productive, collaborative and innovative.” – Lucy Adams, Founder and CEO of Disruptive HR

This doesn’t mean offering workers superficial perks like free food or meditation apps. Instead, says Adams, it’s a shift in mindset: recognising that each person is different, with their own individual needs, wants and purposes. 

“It’s about realising there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to the employee experience. We expect choice everywhere in life in terms of our individual needs, so we should in the workplace, too. Rather than focus on a process, it’s about starting with the end user and their needs, wants and preferences.”

This could be asking a new starter when they felt most recognised at work in terms of their contribution to an organisation, she says. 

“By doing so, you can provide insights to their line manager into what that person values and what they would best respond to – a big shout-out in a meeting or a handwritten note thanking them.”

It’s about putting the human back into HR, she adds.

“While great HR doesn’t mean having to be a psychologist, it does mean that we should recognise ourselves as human experts. Rather than processes, it’s placing the person first.”

Out with the old, in with the new

Traditional HR practices were already outdated by the time the pandemic hit, says Adams. In the new world of work, she argues that they’re dysfunctional to a business. 

Adams cites the example of current learning and development programs.

“We often place employees on one-day courses, which doesn’t reflect that people are more adept at learning in bite-sized formats. We’re better off watching a three-minute video than trying to absorb hours-long training courses.”

Organisational rewards also fail to factor in the human element, says Adams.

“We focus too much on annual bonuses when there’s no real joy in receiving a small sum of money, minus tax, three months after year’s end. 

“Instead, people are more likely to respond to smaller rewards that occur more often. And moving from individual rewards to ones that recognise shared contribution can massively help.” 

An added benefit in treating employees as adults is a heavy reduction in paperwork.

“We should move performance management away from an inhumane system rating employees out of five, to frequent check-ins in which you have adult-to-adult, honest conversations. 

“In doing so, you’re reducing the load for time-poor managers. Instead of making them go through lengthy processes to get things done, you allow them to take more innovative approaches,” she says.

The end result, says Adams, is that HR shifts to a genuine understanding of how humans work and flourish, bringing huge benefits to working lives and the organisations they serve.

“By embracing a new, agile way of HR, you have a deeper appreciation of how people learn and stay motivated. You improve performance and working habits so employees feel more included and appreciated. And you eliminate all these policies and processes that were initially designed to compensate for poor managers. 

“You’re left with really effective, high-impact approaches that tap into the human experience.” 

This article was first featured in the May 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

Don’t miss out on hearing from Lucy Adams on the power of disruptive HR at this year’s AHRI National Convention and Exhibition in August. Book your spot today.

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In November 2022, a Melbourne restaurant became the first Australian employer to face criminal prosecution for wage theft. The Wage Inspectorate Victoria filed 94 charges against the business and its officer, who are alleged to have withheld more than $7000 in employee entitlements – including wages, penalty rates and superannuation – from four young workers.  

“Victorians can be confident the Wage Inspectorate is doggedly investigating wage theft reports and intends to bring further appropriate matters before the court,” said Robert Hortle, Commissioner of Wage Inspectorate Victoria.

The landmark case is ongoing and preludes conversations about a nationwide criminalisation of wage theft. Queensland became the first state to introduce criminal sanctions for wage theft, in September 2020; and Victoria criminalised deliberate employee underpayments or the withholding of entitlements in July 2021. Employers in both states now face up to 10 years in jail – as well as million-dollar fines.  

While wage theft can only be prosecuted if there’s evidence of deliberate, criminal activity, there is a growing scrutiny on employee underpayments and overly long working hours nationally.  

Many speculated that federal wage theft criminalisation was to be part of the Albanese government’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill. However, as this will include criminal sanctions, unlike any elements in the Secure Jobs Bill, this is an issue that requires its own bill, resources and time.

A Unions NSW survey of 7000 foreign language job advertisements found that most offered illegal pay rates, prompting calls for more to be done at the federal level. And in a high-profile court case, independent MP Monique Ryan was sued by staffer Sally Rugg in January over alleged breaches of workplace law, including long hours. 

Amid this growing awareness of underpayments, it falls on HR leaders and payroll officers to get their house in order. Although the intentional withholding of entitlements may be rare, everyday payroll issues can mean employees are left short-changed – leaving employers to, eventually, foot the bill. 

Overtime contributes to underpayment

David Catanese, Partner at employment law firm Hall & Wilcox, says the concept of wage theft has flourished since 2020. 

“It’s something the Victorian government, and Labor more broadly, has taken on as an issue and been proactive about,” he says.  “New legislation has been created, giving pathways for employees and regulatory bodies to take legal action against employers who fail to meet their obligations in serious cases.” 

Catanese says it’s unclear whether wage theft is on the rise, or merely its scrutiny. However, workers in industries such as hospitality, agriculture and manufacturing can be particularly vulnerable.  

“Traditionally, these sectors can be less subject to regulation and scrutiny, with employees from non-English-speaking backgrounds and immigrant populations more common. In instances where a power disparity between employer and employee exists, the latter may be reluctant to take action or seek assistance from regulatory bodies because of cultural reasons.” 

Underpayment issues also occur in knowledge work settings. Much of this arises from flexible working and ambiguity on contracted hours. 

“The general position is that employees can work a 38-hour workweek plus reasonable additional hours,” says Catanese.  “It’s the ‘additional hours’ that’s the grey area. The lines between what constitutes work and what doesn’t have been blurred.

“Remote and hybrid working have delineated people’s workdays even further, so that employees are contactable at all times thanks to their devices.”

Not only has this created a knock-on effect for employee wellbeing and health and safety, but it has also intensified the debate over what can be fairly classified as unpaid overtime – and when an employee should be remunerated for working past their finishing time. 

“An example may be an employee working an ordinary business day with a flexible working arrangement and they answer emails between 8am and 8pm,” says Catanese.

“If it’s deemed that the person has worked a 12-hour day, then overtime entitlement and significant penalties for the employer can accrue – sometimes without their knowledge.”  

This can also lead to hefty fines for employers. In October 2022, a meat wholesaler in Sydney was fined more than $93,000 after the Federal Court found it had unreasonably required an employee to work 50 hours per week, plus ‘reasonable’ additional hours.

Exacerbating matters is that it’s not just unpaid wages that can introduce risk for businesses. Employers may also be liable for employee entitlements like superannuation. 

“These types of liabilities can accumulate very quickly,” says Catanese.  “Take that example, multiply it by dozens of employees over several months and a significant underpayment can rapidly accrue into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”  

In fact, the directors of your business are personally liable for unpaid super dating back to 1993. This type of underpayment may be an oversight, meaning it wouldn’t fall in the definition of criminal wage theft, but it leaves employees out of pocket – and businesses non-compliant with employment laws. 

“There’s now a greater awareness of employee entitlements and wage theft,” he says. “And an increasing dislocation in respect to working hours and underpayments arising from flexible working.”   

“Everyone who does payroll based on awards should know how they work. But no organisation teaches their staff how to do it.” – Tracy Angwin, CEO, Australian Payroll Association

Navigating a complex payroll system

The Albanese government estimates that Australian workers lose out on more than $1 billion annually as a result of wage theft. But a national roll-out criminalising the practice was left out of December’s Secure Jobs Bill.

A reason why could be the complexities and nuances of the Kafkaesque Australian payroll system and a lack of clear, equitable policies around the country. For example, while annual and personal leave are federally governed, each state and territory has its own legislation relating to calculating and paying long-service leave, including whether this amount should be paid in full upon employee termination.

 “It leaves you with eight different sets of long service leave rules,” says Tracy Angwin, CEO of the Australian Payroll Association. 

There are 122 modern awards that set and regulate minimum terms and conditions of employment for certain employees in Australia. 

“The problem is all awards are so different,” says Angwin. “The normal hours for private dentists are different to public ones, meaning overtime is paid differently. A hospitality or healthcare award may mean working a certain number of Sundays or public holidays results in the employee being entitled to an extra week of leave. 

“Then, that leave entitlement will depend on whether they’re a shift worker, but that definition could be different depending on the individual award.” 

And the complexities don’t stop there. 

“An employee with an award stating they’re paid 150 per cent for working on a Saturday may be paid the payroll code for time-and-a-half,” says Angwin.  “The same amount will appear on the payslip, but the problem will emerge later: they are entitled to superannuation, but the payroll code for overtime doesn’t pay superannuation. This means the employee is being underpaid.” 

There has also been a chronic lack of investment in payroll training by employers, says Angwin. Knowledge gaps have been compounded by faltering processes and a lack of hard data that mean errors germinate.  

“Everyone who does payroll based on awards should know how they work. But organisations rarely teach their staff how to do it. And few employers invest in training payroll staff. An organisation I spoke to had 65 supervisors calculating awards, with no training. Meaning they had potentially 65 different ways of calculating someone’s correct wages.” 

This means mistakes are made and employees are underpaid. Over time, this debt can add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. 

“The first major underpayment [case] involved Lush for around $4 million over eight years, which felt like a huge sum,” says Angwin. “Now, it’s Woolworths for nearly $600 million.” 

Added to this pre-existing payroll malaise has been the advent of hybrid and remote working patterns, further muddying the waters of employee hours. 

“If an organisation’s payroll operation wasn’t robust before the pandemic, then it will have an even harder time coping now.” Angwin says a payroll compliance audit is critical for a business if they want to make sure employees are paid correctly – and that they won’t face the wrath of regulators. 

“Businesses are good at doing their tax audits. Less so at doing a payroll compliance audit. Until one is done, it’s unlikely they’ll receive much sympathy from the likes of the Fair Work Ombudsman – or anyone else, for that matter.” 

Identifying errors that could lead to underpayment

It’s unclear whether a national wage theft bill will re-emerge this year. Giuseppe Carabetta, Associate Professor of Employment Law at University of Technology Sydney, says the focus should instead be on uncovering clerical errors that result in employees not receiving money owed for the time and value they bring to an organisation. 

“Oversights can occur, and employer groups argue it’s due to the complexity of our laws,” says Carabetta. “But that’s an overgeneralisation. There’s no real excuse for large, well-resourced organisations with HR departments, outside advisers and such. If you can afford a tax lawyer, you can afford an employment lawyer.” 

In the changed world of work, leaders also need to do more to protect employees from routinely going beyond their contracted hours and ending up underpaid.

“Employers should be actively managing and restricting the hours of work undertaken by employees,” says Catanese. “This can be done by directing them only to work between certain hours or, in some circumstances, restricting employee access to systems outside of business hours. And there should be an active and ongoing dialogue regarding their working hours.” 

Angwin says more leaders are beginning to realise the importance of thorough payroll practices. 

“More employers are taking the opportunity to train their people and support them in getting payroll compliance audits done,” she says.

“Unless organisations begin to be proactive about this, good luck if a regulator decides to audit you. It’ll be unpleasant.” 

Need help brushing up on HR laws and compliance? AHRI’s short course will give you an understanding of the key elements of legislation, regulation and practices HR needs to be across. You can also download a printable version of the checklist here.

This article first appeared in the April 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

The post How can HR help to rectify and prevent employee underpayments? appeared first on HRM online.

When Melbourne IT consulting firm Cogent was founded in 2007, it did things differently from day one. “It was a fully transparent organisation with 200 employees where everyone knew each other’s pay – including the CEO’s,” says Peter Bamberger, Head of the Organisational Behaviour Department at Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. “It became part of Cogent’s workplace culture – and it ended up being a very successful firm.” 

This remained the case until Cogent was acquired in April 2022. Its pay transparency model was arguably a decade-and-a-half ahead of the curve. 

Following Australia’s ban on pay secrecy clauses in December 2022, many businesses aren’t just dealing with legislative changes and the review of employment contracts. Some are also weighing up whether to publish salaries in full. In the firing line is Australia’s 22.8 per cent gender pay gap. 

Women, on average, earn $26,596 less than men each year. By following in the footsteps of many US states, the UK and the European Union, the hope is that by removing barriers to discussing salaries among colleagues, employees will be better placed to negotiate raises with their bosses, gradually closing the discrepancy between how much male and female workers are paid. 

Some corporations, notably major banks, scrapped pay secrecy clauses ahead of the Albanese government’s reform. Other big financial institutions have gone a step further, publishing firm-wide pay bands to enhance transparency. And there are calls for companies to go even further, and at least internally disclose employee wages in the interests of fairness and equity. And, as of 2024, as part of the new Closing the Gender Pay Gap Bill, employers will be required to publicly disclose their company’s gender pay gap to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

At the centre of the pay transparency issue sit HR leaders. Not only is it on them to ensure that organisations are fully compliant with the law change, but it also falls on them to fine-tune existing pay performance models so these systems can withstand scrutiny. And if a company is willing to fully embrace salary transparency, it falls upon HR teams to overhaul current models and create a new, objective way of ensuring an employee’s pay accurately reflects their contribution. 

However, adopting pay transparency can come with challenges. Without ensuring the correct foundations are in place, the risk is that openly declaring employees’ salaries places the spotlight on existing problems. 

What can organisations gain from pay transparency?

Research has shown that open knowledge of pay bands and colleagues’ wages has helped narrow the gender pay gap. 

“When we’ve seen other countries opt for pay transparency, a persuasive body of evidence shows that it makes a difference in reducing the gap between the salaries of men and women,” says Michelle Brown, Professor in HR Management at the University of Melbourne. “So it becomes one of a suite of measures to close the gender pay gap.” 

However, pay transparency goes further than merely retrofitting female employees’ salaries so they’re in line with male colleagues. It also helps to unlock clearer career paths for women. 

“When the gender pay gap is reduced, it helps women in reaching more senior positions at an organisation,” says Brown. “It creates implications around promotion and career structures. [It’s about] more than just ensuring men and women are paid the same for the same job.” 

“In this competitive job market, we know transparency is key to attracting top talent and improving trust, morale and engagement.” – Catherine Walsh, Head of People and Culture at PwC Australia

Transparency also promotes accountability. Brown cites Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream in Seattle, Washington, as a company that successfully transitioned to full pay transparency in 2019. 

“It was a long-established chain with a female CEO who decided to get rid of pay secrecy,” she says. “It took them one year to go through the company’s existing salary structure and identify any anomalies. But that transparency made sure their pay performance management systems were reviewed and up-to-date. It meant that if they were challenged, they could explain why one colleague was earning more than another via rational, logical decision-making.” 

A thorough audit of an organisation’s salary structure is a mammoth undertaking for HR leaders, especially among decades-old corporations, but it can pay dividends.

“Many organisations will have legacy issues – a common example is the personal assistant of the general manager may be paid more than [what’s fair for] the job,” says Brown. 

“You can’t take pay away from people, but a well-designed pay performance system means you can more accurately evaluate an employee against targets. Then, by publishing salary bands, you’re effectively motivating people to stay: an individual will know that if they stay for a certain number of years, or if they attain a certain qualification, they’ll receive a raise.” 

A way to attract and retain star players

There’s a clear case that pay transparency can boost a firm’s retention policy. And it can strengthen its recruitment, too.

“Publicly available information offers employees greater access to more information so they can make better decisions,” says Brown. 

“People are less likely to apply for vacancies if no pay bands are advertised – they won’t know if the role will pay more than their current job. And you’re enabling them to plan their career trajectory earlier on in terms of the qualifications and training they need to make the best moves.” 

For the likes of PwC, which made its salary ranges publicly available in April 2022, pay transparency has become enshrined in the firm’s workplace culture. 

“We’re proud to be leading the market on this,” says Catherine Walsh, Head of People and Culture at PwC Australia. 

“It aligns with our strong commitment around diversity and inclusion, and is another element that makes our people feel they belong and are treated fairly.” 

Pay transparency has not only been implemented with the gender pay gap in mind, adds Walsh, but also acts as a powerful recruitment tool. 

“In this competitive job market, we know transparency is key to attracting top talent and improving trust, morale and engagement.” 

Could pay transparency harm employee engagement?

An argument against salary transparency is that it makes pay the be-all and end-all for employees – that it becomes more important than their everyday work. 

However, Bamberger says there’s no real evidence that a stronger emphasis on wages extinguishes an employee’s intrinsic motivation, such as a sense of purpose or belonging. 

“In fact, there’s stronger evidence that well-designed pay systems actually boost intrinsic motivation. They can give the individual a greater sense of self-determination, progress and control in that they have a better understanding of their future income.” 

Likewise, the long-standing case for pay secrecy has been that it reduces resentment among colleagues – that an otherwise motivated worker will suddenly down tools upon discovering their workmate is paid more than them. 

Brown says this is a misconception. 

“The thinking goes that employees fundamentally don’t understand how complex pay is – that conflict would arise and take up managers’ time. It’s an easy argument for management to make, and it’s patronising: ‘We know best, just trust us that we’re paying you fairly.’ People deal with financially complex situations all the time, so they have the capacity to understand how pay is determined,” she says. 

And even if pay transparency stokes the flames of envy in some circles, Brown says there’s no evidence to show productivity is impacted. 

“People are often accepting of different pay so long as there are legitimate reasons, such as greater experience or more varied skillsets. You can have differences within pay bands without sparking antagonism so long as they’re justified – which is something that pay transparency can offer.” 

Avoiding pay discrepancies

Despite this, disclosing company salaries may lead to a short-term spike in employee turnover, particularly among workers who consider themselves underpaid. Bamberger’s research has shown that lower-performing employees, typically on lower wages, typically seek out workplaces that offer better pay. 

While this implies that pay-transparent organisations don’t have to immediately worry about their best performers leaving, a rise in employees quitting is still something HR leaders will want to avoid. 

Longer term, however, companies may risk losing their top talent due to a phenomenon known as pay compression. 

“The risk is that, through pay transparency, the best employees lack incentive to perform better because the reward is the same as the poorer performers,” says Bamberger, who has researched the topic. 

“Secondly, the organisation may unintentionally motivate employees to look elsewhere, to companies that better value their performance with better pay.” 

“By publishing salary bands, you’re effectively motivating people to stay: an individual will know that if they stay for a certain number of years, or if they attain a certain qualification, they’ll receive a raise.” – Michelle Brown, Professor in HR Management at the University of Melbourne

Bamberger says it’s unclear why salary transparency can lead to pay compression, but it may have to do with the new-found pressures placed on managers. 

“Pay transparency means all eyes are on the manager – they now have to be more accountable for salary discrepancies. They can no longer simply give a big pay rise to the best-performing employees to keep them happy.” 

An unintended consequence of pay transparency is that stretched managers opt for workarounds to reward perceived higher performers, such as bonuses, which can further entrench the gender pay gap.

“Managers can differentially reward employees’ output with other benefits,” says Bamberger. 

“Perks like more time to work at home, improved training access and financial rewards could be awarded. But studies have shown that there’s a gender inequity in the allocation of benefits. Men tend to get better packages than women because you often get what you ask for – and men tend to ask for more in negotiations.” 

Making transparency work for your business

Sixteen years on from Cogent launching as a pay-transparent business, companies up and down the country are now figuring out what transparency means to them. 

Pay transparency can only flourish with the correct structures in place. This means HR has to take control in implementing performance management systems that provide organisations with rational explanations for why one employee is paid more than another. 

But with fewer tangible outputs in knowledge work, devising an objective model that accurately accounts for employee performance is difficult. “We’ve looked at inadequacies in performance management systems for 50 years,” says Bamberger. “We’ve still not come up with the perfect model.” 

Transparency shines a light on where problems lie: sharing pay information risks employee dissatisfaction and higher quit rates. 

Therefore, the onus is on businesses and HR leaders to design better pay performance systems that, ultimately, not only help close the gender pay gap, but benefit the organisation and employees too. 

“The hope is that much more information becomes available,” says Brown. “Which helps employees and organisations make better decisions over time.”

This article is from the March 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

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Macroeconomic factors mean organisations may not be focusing on growth in the year ahead.

Instead, leaders may look to home in on existing resources, boosting efficiency and maximising teams’ productivity. And according to Asana’s 2022 Anatomy of Work report, there is plenty of fat for HR leaders to trim in 2023.

The survey of more than 10,600 global workers indicated that employees spend 58 per cent of their time on ‘work about work’ – meaning meetings, communicating about tasks and searching for information. This ‘busywork’ dominates the schedules of Australian employees, accounting for 59 per cent of their work day.

This has broad ramifications. Asana figures show that only 33 per cent of knowledge workers’ hours are spent on the skilled tasks they are employed to do, with just eight per cent left for the strategic work that’s critical to an organisation’s long-term future. 

“We’re seeing a lack of clarity for workers, and that’s been exacerbated among digital and hybrid teams,” says Adam Chicktong, General Manager, APJ at Asana. “‘Work about work’ comes from ambiguity.”

This ambiguity comes at a big cost to organisations. According to the survey, an average of 2.6 work hours is lost per employee per week to unnecessary meetings, increasing to 3.5 hours among managers. Over a year, Australian workers spend 111 hours on duplicated work – tasks they or a colleague have already completed.

However, this wasted time creates opportunities for HR teams. Asana found that if processes were improved, organisations could save an average of 263 hours annually. That equates to more than six weeks given back to companies each year. Imagine what you could do with all that spare time!

No organisation can ever be perfect in this respect, but going forward, it’s likely HR will take a leading role in facilitating efficiency among teams, cutting out the admin and forming new processes that mean organisations work better, not harder.

We’re inefficient and too busy

In many cases, ‘work about work’ is a by-product of a lack of clarity. In the new world of work, businesses have been figuring out how best to implement hybrid and remote working patterns. Many are still undecided on their long-term strategy or are fine-tuning their processes as they go.

In the rush to remote work, organisations panicked about finding the right tools to help employees get their jobs done from home. That scramble often left teams with a gamut of apps to select from and, rather than having the right tool for the right job, employees were bombarded with technology. 

Over time, as remote working has become more entrenched, organisations have increased the number of programs they use and employees’ burden of choice. The result is  that workers are left sending messages and chasing updates throughout their day – often across multiple software. 

“Given economic conditions, organisations are looking to greater efficiencies and better ways of working – but we’re still in an experimentation phase.”  – Adam Chicktong, General Manager, APJ, Asana

In a 2021 study by digital work hub Qatalog and Cornell University’s Ellis Idea Lab, 1000 US and UK workers reported that they spent nearly an hour every day looking for information trapped within tools, and 36 minutes switching back and forth between applications.

In remote-work settings, an employee’s next meeting is only ever a calendar invite away. Anyone can join – and the default is a half-hour length, minimum. 

“Everyone is in meetings now,” says Jane Gunn, Partner in Charge, People and Change at KPMG Australia. “They often run without agendas and purpose, with no recorded outcomes. The art of facilitating a good discussion has drifted; there’s a lack of clarity.”

Compounding this everyday ambiguity is longer-term uncertainty – many organisations are still figuring out their hybrid model. This means the systems and processes that can help reduce busywork and enable employees to be their most productive are yet to be formalised. 

“Given economic conditions, organisations are looking to greater efficiencies and better ways of working – but we’re still in an experimentation phase,” says Chicktong. “Workspaces are evolving, face-to-face settings are still being reconfigured and folks are deciding where their best work is done.”

Context switching is hurting us

Another challenge of this new style of working is the many, many opportunities for distraction and the context switching that happens as a result.

“Context switching can equate to multitasking. We’re not good at it because we’re not parallel processors. We’re sequential processors,” says Dr Sophie Leroy, Associate Professor of Management at the University of Washington Bothell, US. “You can only focus on one thing at a time, meaning writing an email during a call often means missing words out because your brain was elsewhere.”

Multitasking can also lead to the phenomenon of ‘attention residue’: ruminating on incomplete tasks while trying to focus on something else. Without being fully devoted to the job at hand, information processing, decision-making and creativity – vital cognitive processes for a knowledge worker – all suffer.

Leroy says attention residue has long been a fixture of the workplace. Pre-pandemic, research showed employees were interrupted and forced to switch contexts every few minutes. And yet, studies show it takes more than 23 minutes to return to a task and be fully immersed following an interruption. 

The implication, therefore, is that employees are struggling more than ever to enter the deep focus mode required to get their best work done in the modern workplace. Instead, distraction and procrastination take root.

“If I communicate through multiple channels, I have to monitor all of them,” says Leroy. “People feel anxious about missing important information, so this triggers interruptions to thought processes to check what’s happening. The longer and more frequent the interruptions, the more opportunities it creates for context switching and multitasking.”

At its worst, context switching and attention residue saps employees’ productivity, creating issues around wellbeing, says Leroy. 

“If there’s a previous task that hasn’t been cognitively closed, it prevents you from focusing, meaning stress can rise – you’re not able to do your next task to the best of your ability. That can cause a lack of progress amid looming deadlines, creating a sense of anxiety, and panic to creep in.”

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Streamline ways of working

With all this in mind, some companies are already embracing new ways of boosting productivity. For example, Asana has ‘No Meeting Wednesdays’, meaning employees have one work day per week guaranteed for heads-down, focused work. 

Chicktong says with burnout high among the workforce, HR teams are becoming more heavily involved in businesses’ decision-making. 

Nina Spiccia, Partner, Workplace Relations Advisory, People and Change at KPMG Australia, says the focus for HR leaders should be working with their firm’s IT department to cut out unnecessary processes and friction points that create stumbling blocks.

“We’ve all suffered from tech overkill. Now it should be about streamlining while keeping in mind an employee’s productivity – which app is used for what function; when should a meeting be scheduled; how people should collaborate face-to-face.”

“People feel anxious about missing important information, so this triggers interruptions to thought processes to check what’s happening.” – Dr Sophie Leroy, Associate Professor of Management, University of Washington Bothell

HR can also enable conversations on how to better manage employees’ schedules. 

“The challenge for organisations and managers is that everyone is different and has their own unique preference for where and how they work,” says Matt Cowdroy, founder of Think Productive Australia. “It’s about getting to know employees on an individual basis and coming up with flexible guidelines that enable their productivity.”

With people not always in the office, hybrid work has increased the pressure to constantly react to whatever message is received, negatively impacting productivity, says Cowdroy. To maintain productivity, employers should establish behavioural guidelines to support teams.

“Guidelines should cover whether it’s OK to not be on emails for a couple of hours, or not be online on a workplace app.

“Without these guidelines, an employee may worry that if they temporarily turn off their communications to manage distractions, their boss will be chasing them.”

Cowdroy says that at the individual level, employees can improve their productivity by writing short to-do lists with five clear priorities for the workday, “as opposed to lengthy ones that are never finished and become demoralising”. 

While employees do need to take some responsibility for their own workload, most changes will be needed at the organisational level. 

Going forward, HR leaders will need to take control and communicate the productivity agenda. Without their input, the risk is that workers engage in toxic productivity and panic-working behaviours that result in lower-quality work and wellbeing concerns.

“The priority is getting rid of the busywork,” says Gunn. “It’s about making meetings and other processes more effective and efficient. People were tired and worn out before the pandemic, so working harder – and being more unproductive as a result of this – isn’t the answer.

“It’s about finding a way for teams to be productive, while sustaining the organisational need to interact, socialise and innovate,” says Leroy. “If we manage attention, we implicitly manage our time and our productivity.” 

A longer version of this article was first published in the February 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

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When Publicis Groupe considers its retention strategies, it looks beyond the employee experience. Following the pandemic, the global advertising agency has broadened its lens.

“We’ve shifted the focus to the person’s ‘life experience,’” says Pauly Grant, Chief Talent Officer ANZ at Publicis Groupe. “People have emerged from COVID-19 with a clearer perspective on their own personal priorities and purpose. The way people want to work, their personal choices and beliefs now differ.”

Publicis has long implemented progressive paid-leave policies with retention in mind.

 “Data highlighted that we had a spike in employee turnover around 18-24 months into their tenure,” says Grant. “We also have a significant proportion of employees in their 20s and 30s who love holidays and travel.”

So Publicis launched ‘lion leave’ in 2016: five days’ extra holiday annually for employees once they hit their two-year anniversary. The aim of the scheme was to incentivise loyalty – and it worked. 

“We saw a 20-24 per cent increase in retention for employees past the two-year mark,” says Grant. “We were able to provide a meaningful tenure benefit, encouraging people to take leave to improve their wellbeing and energy levels, while also helping us manage our annual leave balance.”

More recently, Publicis introduced paid leave for major life issues such as gender affirmation, IVF treatment, miscarriages and domestic violence.

“It’s gone from the employee experience and making work-life better, to the life experience and recognising how work impacts people’s lives,” says Grant. “This thinking helps to inform our people strategy, including our inclusive leave policies.”

Building robust retention strategies

Gartner estimated that the pace of employee turnover in 2022 would be 50-75 per cent higher than companies had previously experienced. Compounding the issue is the fact that it’s forecast to take 18 per cent longer to fill roles in the current hiring crisis.  

HR professionals will be thinking about how they can set themselves up to retain star employees. They’ll need to support leaders to create more robust retention strategies to ensure that, while they’re worrying about filling gaps due to the skills shortage, they’re not also feeling stressed about losing existing talent. 

“The aim should be that the employee feels they’d be giving something up if they quit.” – Mark Bolino, Professor of Management, University of Oklahoma.

In some cases, this might look like reinforcing fundamental retention practices. For others, it may mean rewriting policies entirely in the new world of work – one in which flexibility is often no longer seen as a perk, but as a right.

Creating deeper connections

A strong retention strategy typically features four core pillars, says Neal Woolrich, Director, HR Advisory at Gartner.

“Flexibility, work-life balance, wellbeing and connectedness are crucial. While many organisations aspired to these elements before the pandemic, they’ve now come to the fore. People have normalised the integration of their personal life into the working day.”

Increasingly, this means HR teams need to rethink tried-and-tested retention strategies, and have a wider perspective on how to keep talent happy and engaged. 

“The new aspect is the human deal,” says Woolrich. “Think of the employee as a person rather than a worker.” 

That means organisations need to forge deeper connections with employees and understand their personal situation better.

But this can be harder to achieve in hybrid and remote settings. With teams often not working in-person, an employee’s sense of belonging and connection can be lost. 

When AHRI surveyed over 1100 HR professionals in July 2022, 65 per cent cited a sense of disconnection to colleagues as a key challenge of hybrid work.

Not only do employees need to feel connected to the people they work with and for, they also need to feel a strong sense of connection to the work they’re doing in order to deliver high discretionary effort and feel a strong sense of engagement. 

A May 2022 survey of 5600 US employees showed that only about half of employees aged 25-45 felt they could connect their day-to-day tasks to larger, strategic business imperatives. 

Yet, 92.4 per cent said they perform better when they see how the quality of their work matters to the bigger picture. 

Woolrich says with organisations no longer able to rely upon physical proximity, emotional proximity becomes paramount in creating this sense of belonging. Often this can be achieved by reframing an organisation’s purpose as part of a broader narrative in how they benefit society more generally.

“A client in the insurance industry wanted to know how to create that sense of emotional proximity for people working in functional roles, like payroll,” says Woolrich. 

“We talked it through and they realised their line of work means they’re with people in their most difficult moments in life.

For example, their home was damaged in a fire, or someone had a severe illness. It’s payroll that facilitates people being able to do their jobs and support others when they’re in need.

“Driving that emotional proximity among employees enables them to understand the value they create, helping to build connectedness to the work they do.”

New retention strategies

The new world of work requires new retention strategies. Mark Bolino, Professor of Management at the University of Oklahoma, believes the hiring crisis shows that firms should be more proactive. 

“Any time the labour market is tight, people will be more inclined to look elsewhere, so organisations need to step up their game,” he says.

Key to preventing an employee from resigning is getting ahead before it becomes an option, says Bolino.

“Some companies only have a plan of action once a worker receives an offer from another firm – that’s not good enough. Instead, the aim should be that the employee feels they’d be giving something up if they quit.” 

This could be achieved by helping employees in their personal lives. Bolino cites the example of Google’s death benefit in the US. If an employee dies, their spouse receives half of their salary for the next ten years.

“It makes an employee think, ‘How can I give that up for my family? That’s a unique benefit I can’t get elsewhere.’”

However, there are also retention strategies that work for the here and now.

“A company could introduce a policy that makes it easier for people to secure a mortgage, either through a loyalty bonus or down payment,” says Bolino. “Not only is that creating the feeling that an employee has to sacrifice something if they leave, but it also ties them to the local community. 

“The logic is that you want to embed people at an organisation through the culture and relationships they form so they don’t think about leaving.”

Crucially, any strategy should be bespoke and tailored to each individual’s or team’s tastes, needs and preferences.

For example, while internal mobility and a compelling career pathway may appeal to one employee, another may prefer more leave options to spend time with their family, or support in pursuing their side hustle. 

“HR and managers need to know their star talent and their idiosyncrasies,” says Bolino. “It’s about having regular conversations with employees and knowing what’s important to them. You need to know what they want, be that greater flexibility, recognition or new assignments. Then, if you know what drives them, you know which levers to pull in terms of offering targeted benefits and building a comprehensive retention strategy.”  

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Also, if you want your best employees to stay, you need to know what would entice them to leave. Woolrich says manager quality is often the number one factor for employee turnover, followed by issues such as heavy workload, stress and burnout.

“Retention strategies are often about fixing issues around the work itself,” he says. “Removing barriers, friction and frustrations that prevent people from being effective helps them to be more engaged.”

Much of it should be done with the person in mind. Grant says Publicis’s progressive leave policies go to the heart of this because they place the employee front and centre.

“They speak to an individual’s needs. Knowing your organisation is connected to your personal priorities is so important. When we announced our in vitro fertilisation leave, we were overwhelmed with feedback. Some of these employees hadn’t had access to this in previous organisations. They were overcome with emotion knowing they’d be supported through a difficult journey.” 

The grass may always appear greener on the other side, and organisations can’t control what else is available in the jobseeking market, but they can get their own house in order so employees want to stay for the long term.

In the next version of retention, HR teams are the lead architects; they design the blueprint. It’s left to management to then create it in the day-to-day running of an organisation. 

“A good retention strategy means laying the groundwork and having strong fundamentals in place like fairness, transparency and work life balance,” says Bolino. “Then it’s a matter of building retention programs unique to your company, and having managers able to respond on a case-by-case basis.” 

A longer version of this article first appeared in the Dec/Jan 2023 edition of HRM Magazine.

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