When organisations are faced with crippling, complex and seemingly unsolvable culture challenges, they often put sole responsibility on the HR team to ‘fix’ the problem. But this rarely works because you can’t outsource culture to a single function in the business – it needs to be deeply embedded into all of your business practices.HR practitioners aren’t the keepers of culture – they are the culture leaders and enablers. They set the scene and provide leaders and managers with the tools they’ll need to help their teams live out the organisational values in an authentic and impactful way.

In this episode of Let’s Take This Offline, Siobhan McHale, Executive General Manager of People, Culture and Change at Dulux and speaker at this year’s AHRI National Convention and Exhibition, offers a range of practical frameworks to help HR practitioners reframe their role from ‘business partner’ to ‘business leader’ and offers advice to help HR have a greater impact at an executive level when it comes to driving culture transformation projects.

Skip to the section that interests you most:

• 5:37 minutes: How to get buy-in for culture change without having to take ownership of it
• 8:00 minutes: McHale explains the difference between a culture disruptor and a culture leader.
• 15:15 minutes: Tips to help identify patterns in your culture.
• 20:17 minutes: Advice on how to look at culture from a commercial perspective.
• 30:00 minutes: The difference between emotional intelligence and group intelligence.
• 35:33 minutes: How to get change resistant people over the line.
• 40:55 minutes: McHale responds to a made-up scenario about a CEO whose too focussed on short-term results to focus on long-term culture impacts.

Check out the episode transcript here.

Extra resources:

For more conversations to inspire HR, listen to season one of Let’s Take This Offline here.

If you’d like further information and resources to help put McHale’s insights into action, check out the links below:

Learning opportunities

• Sign up to AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition⁠ in Melbourne on 20-22 August to hear more from Siobhan McHale.

Further reading

• Learn more about Siobhan’s books here.
• Read this article where Siobhan shares more details about how to become a culture transformer.

Member-exclusive content

• AHRI members can Join the ⁠AHRI LinkedIn Lounge⁠ to connect with your peers and for access to a member-exclusive bonus episode.

Connect with us

• ⁠Connect with AHRI on LinkedIn⁠.
• ⁠Connect with Beth Hall CPHR on LinkedIn⁠
• Connect with Siobhan McHale on LinkedIn.
• Visit Siobhan’s website.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can follow the podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the LinkedIn AHRI Lounge.

The post Podcast: How HR practitioners can become cultural leaders appeared first on HRM online.

In an era of rapid technological advancement, with the demand for certain skills rising and others becoming obsolete, preparing for the future of work requires foresight and adaptability. 

In this episode, Ravin Jesuthasan, global thought leader and Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer, talks about how HR practitioners can navigate the evolving skills landscape and prepare their organisations and employees for these changes. 

You’ll learn how to take advantage of the shift towards skills-based hiring, how artificial intelligence might reinvent the graduate-level position, and discover models and frameworks to think about skills and job design as a small, medium or large-sized business.

Skip to the section that interests you most:

• 3:40 minutes: Three things HR can do to prepare for the evolving skills landscape
• 6:09 minutes: How to effectively map skills
• 12:51 minutes: The most crucial skills for businesses to focus on
• 16:03 minutes: How AI might change (or remove) graduate level positions
• 22:24 minutes: How to get started as a skills-based organisation
• 29:24 minutes: How to apply these skills as a small to medium-sized business
• 40:44 minutes: Jesuthasan responds to a scenario about a company that is moving towards a skills-based approach and has created agile teams working on project-based assignments.

View the podcast transcript here.

Extra resources:

For more conversations to inspire HR, listen to season one of Let’s Take This Offline here.

If you’d like further information and resources to help put Jesuthasan’s insights into action, check out the links below:

Learning opportunities

• Sign up to AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition⁠ in Melbourne on 20-22 August to hear more from Ravin Jesuthasan.

• Sign up for AHRI’s new short course, GenAI Integration Essentials.

Further reading

• Learn more about Jesuthasan’s books.

• Read HRM’s article where Jesuthasan talks about the future of leadership skills.

Member-exclusive content

• Join the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge to connect with your peers and for access to a bonus episode later this week.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can follow the podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the LinkedIn AHRI Lounge.

The post Podcast: practical tips to prepare your organisation for the evolution of skills appeared first on HRM online.

Explore short courses now.

The post Elevate your career with AHRI’s short courses. appeared first on HRM online.

HR is an incredibly rewarding profession, tackling some of the most pressing workplace challenges, from navigating and addressing mental health concerns to meeting the high expectations of leaders and employees.

These responsibilities place HR at the core of our organisations, navigating the increasing complexities of today’s ever-evolving business landscape. However, they can also take a toll on HR practitioners’ mental health.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Adam Fraser, peak performance researcher and workplace wellbeing expert, to explore how HR practitioners can care for their own mental health and wellbeing as they tackle complex workplace challenges head on (which can sometimes lead to emotional stress and vicarious trauma). 

In this episode, you’ll learn how Dr Fraser’s research on vicarious trauma in the education sector can be applied to HR practice, along with some valuable, research-backed tips to help manage your mental health. 

Jump to the section that interests you most:

• 6:48 minutes: Dr Fraser shares his research into vicarious trauma among educators.
• 15:20 minutes: The importance of creating debrief spaces for HR.
• 18:35 minutes: How can HR clock that they have vicarious trauma?
• 24:17 minutes: What are the impacts of having resilience levels that are too high?
• 26:55 minutes: The importance of creating a third space.
• 38:06 minutes: Dr Fraser responds to a complex scenario about an HR leader who has been faced with mass layoffs and restructuring and explains how they can manage the vicarious trauma that might arise from this.

Extra resources

For more conversations to inspire HR, listen to season one of Let’s Take This Offline here.

If you’d like further resources to help put Dr Fraser’s insights into action, check out the links below:

• Article: 4 tips to identify and mitigate burnout in HR practitioners
• Article: What is trauma-informed HR and why is it important?
• Short course: Renewing Resilience: Addressing burnout in HR practitioners
• Short course: Trauma-informed HR
• Short course: Implementing Wellbeing Initiatives
• Event: Sign up to AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in Melbourne on 20-22 August to hear more from Dr Adam Fraser.

View the podcast transcript here.

If you need immediate and urgent mental health support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website to start an online chat or text thread.

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post Podcast: Supporting HR to manage their own mental health at work appeared first on HRM online.

The EOFY is the ideal time to review policies, procedures and employee record-keeping to ensure everything is up-to-date and accurate. In addition, there are likely to have been compliance, regulatory and employment law changes over the past 12 months, or which will roll out in the new financial year. These also need to be accounted for.

Now is the time to take stock about the year that has passed, review what’s been done well, and identify areas for improvement in the year ahead.

Our handy checklist touches on all areas within HR’s mandate, including:

• Payroll and superannuation obligations
• Employee contracts, entitlements and awards
• Employee files and records
• Recruitment and staffing
• Performance management and professional development
• General HR hygiene (workplace health & safety, employee discipline and termination, leave policy, expenses policy reviews)

With links to relevant government websites and handy tips, our EOFY checklist will ensure your business is in the best possible position to excel in FY25.

The post 2024 end of financial year HR checklist appeared first on HRM online.

Subscribe to AHRI’s new podcast, Let’s Take This Offline, to stay in the loop with each episode release. Listeners get access to resources that will help them put each episode’s learnings into action and AHRI members gain exclusive bonus content that’s distributed via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

Season 2

Episode 1

How can HR care for their own mental health?

HR is an incredibly rewarding profession, tackling some of the most pressing workplace challenges, from navigating layoffs to meeting the high expectations of leaders and employees. But this kind of work can take a toll.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Adam Fraser, peak performance researcher and workplace wellbeing expert, to explore how HR can care for their own mental health and wellbeing as they navigate the ever-evolving business landscape.

Season 1

Episode 4

Building stronger relationships at work with Michael Bungay Stanier

A key part of being an effective HR practitioner is about building strong, strategic and trusting relationships with key stakeholders in order to build your influence and help move your organisation towards its goals.

In this episode, coaching expert and author Michael Bungay Stanier shares insights from his latest book ‘How To Work With (Almost) Anyone’ and provides listeners with insights to make their relationships at work more effective and resilient.

Episode 3

Doing HR differently with Lucy Adams

In a world where the HR profession has been elevated to new heights, how can HR professionals maintain the momentum they’ve gained over the past few years to continue adding strategic value to a business’s long-term goals?

In this episode, we speak with Lucy Adams, CEO of Disruptive HR and former HR Director at the BBC, who shares her thoughts on fresh ways to think about HR, including her EACH framework, (which stands for Employees as Adults, Consumers and Humans), and shares practical examples of different ways organisations are trialling new ways of working.

Episode 2

Rethinking learning and development with Rod Farmer

In episode two of AHRI’s new podcast, we speak with McKinsey and Company’s Expert Associate Partner Rod Farmer about how HR professionals can get cut through with their learning and development programs.

We’re moving from a jobs-based economy to a skills-based economy, says Farmer, which is why we need to rethink how we embed the right skills in our organisations. He shares useful frameworks and an interesting case study from some work he’s done with the Department of Regional NSW to create more digital literacy within its workforce.

Episode 1

Designing a culture journey with Shane Hatton

In the inaugural episode of AHRI’s brand-new podcast, we dive into all things culture with Shane Hatton, a renowned culture and leadership expert and author.

Shane shares a range of helpful frameworks, a case study demonstrating how an organisation got collective buy-in for its new culture, and practical advice that any HR professional listening can take away and apply to their organisation, no matter what industry they work in.

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post AHRI podcast: Let’s Take This Offline appeared first on HRM online.

In today’s fast-paced environment, HR and learning professionals face the challenge of staying abreast of technological advancements and translating them into effective learning and development strategies. This complexity is compounded by the need to rapidly acquire new skills while maintaining compliance and cost-effectiveness.

AHRI’s latest research report, Shaping the Future: How Learning Helps Us Embrace Unprecedented Change, created in partnership with Melbourne Business School (MBS), aims to demystify these challenges and shed light on the evolving landscape of learning. 

Below, two members of AHRI’s Future of Work Advisory Panel and Dr Nora Koslowski of MBS offer their thoughts on elements of this report and share advice on how to put these learnings into action.

Learning needs to be co-designed with employees

By Dr Nora Koslowski, Chief Learning Innovation Officer at Melbourne Business School

Given the possibilities offered by technology and by the data available, learning pathways can now be much more personalised to an individual employee’s context, experience, knowledge and preferences. 

I recommend that L&D practitioners build pre-assessments of employees into their learning programs. This could be a self-assessment of knowledge or confidence in a topic area, or a task they have to complete which measures their level of competence in a skill area. 

Based on the outcomes of this pre-assessment, L&D practitioners can then offer learning pathways that are appropriate to the level a learner is at. 

Similarly, the context of an individual’s role and likely career path can be taken into consideration. For example, if an organisation is rolling out a learning program about a topic, such as data analytics, the actual learning pathway for someone who will only require surface understanding should vary from someone who requires deeper expertise. 

And lastly, the personalisation of learning methods should be considered. With the abundance of content available, and in different modalities, consider giving employees a choice about whether they go on a learning pathway with an emphasis on video content, reading, audio or practical tasks.

Learning isn’t a calendar of events; it’s an organisation’s sensing mechanism

By Dr Ben Hamer, futurist and AHRI Future of Work Advisory Panel member and board director.

Some organisations see learning as an overhead rather than an investment, which is why it’s seen as an easy cut. But by working with and influencing our friends in finance, we can do something as simple as shift where learning sits on the balance sheet to protect it, and, in doing so, send a massive signal to the organisation about the value and importance of investing in our people.

Part of demonstrating the value of learning is in who we hire and the skills we look for. In my experience, there are too many people in L&D teams who do administrative work such as coordinating vendors and managing a calendar of events. We need more instructional designers to help create and curate impactful training. 

We need our learning professionals to be consulting with other functions to help not only respond to current skill gaps, but anticipate and plan for emerging skill gaps. 

This means sitting down with people who work in strategy and workforce planning teams to make sure that a learning and skills lens is brought to the table.

Part of creating a learning ecosystem is recognising the role that individuals play in taking ownership of their own upskilling and reskilling as part of the equation. We think about it a lot as formal learning, but there’s so much more available. In fact, it’s the microlearning opportunities that are best for us. 

We need to spend 15 per cent of our working week upskilling and reskilling just for our skills to remain current. So think about how you can listen to a podcast on your way to work, watch a quick YouTube video on how to perform a particular function in Excel, for example, or ask a colleague to explain a particular concept or topic to you, such as how to write good prompts for generative AI.

AI should augment our learning practices

By Peter Burow, Founding Partner at Neuro Group

AI has enormous potential in the field of learning. It can deliver learning content in a contextualised way, personalise the learning experience according to the individual, and allow for dynamic interaction with vast amounts of content. 

By ingesting large amounts of content, paired with automated support that employees can access at their convenience, AI eliminates the inflexible ‘carwash’ approach of traditional learning. This presents a rare opportunity for learning professionals to reimagine their roles and embrace the transformative potential of this technology. As AI takes on the task of content delivery, learning professionals can focus more on the human aspects of learning. 

While AI can make learning content accessible, flexible and dynamic, it’s the role of human learning teams to link learning with people’s aspirations, engage people in understanding the deeper meaning behind the content and translate content into insight and wisdom that drives lasting capability uplift and behaviour change.

By leveraging technology and neuroscience, learning professionals are freed up to explore and design genuinely transformative experiences that tap into the innate human capacity for growth and change.

The full Future of Learning report includes five insights in total and goes into more depth, including practical applications. Download now and find out how you can contribute to enhancing your organisation’s learning functions.

The post What could the future of learning and development look like? appeared first on HRM online.

What if you could make your trickiest relationships at work just 30 per cent better? Perhaps you figured out a professional way to manage an annoying colleague or address the energy drainer or micromanager in your team.

Small improvements to a working relationship make for significant boosts to your experience at work, says author and coaching expert Michael Bungay Stanier. In the latest episode of AHRI’s podcast, Let’s Take This Offline, Bungay Stanier shares insights from his latest book, How To Work With (Almost) Anyone, which are designed to help you create more robust and resilient relationships with your key stakeholders at work.

We hope you enjoy the discussion, and don’t forget to like and subscribe so you never miss a future episode.

Jump to the section that interests you most:

• 5:26 minutes – How HR can contribute to forming adult-to-adult relationships at work
  
• 6:48 minutes – Michael unpacks the concept of ‘keystone conversations’
  
• 9:20 minutes – The three core qualities of healthy workplace relationships
  
• 12:26 minutes – How to address underlying issues that can damage workplace relationships
  
• 18:08 minutes – Getting buy-in for relationship-building initiatives
• 22:44 minutes – Overcoming tension between employees and management
• 27:09 minutes – How to facilitate ‘coaching conversations’ among your people

Download the podcast transcript here.

More resources

If you’d like to put some of Bungay Stainer’s insights into action, you can download his ‘questions that lead to stronger relationships‘ guide or his ‘7 questions for an effective coaching session’ guide.

Want more insights from a range of experts? Listen to the rest of season one of AHRI’s new podcast:

• Episode one: Designing a culture journey with Shane Hatton
• Episode two: Rethinking learning and development with Rod Farmer
• Episode three: Doing HR differently with Lucy Adams

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post Podcast: Building strong relationships at work with Michael Bungay Stanier appeared first on HRM online.

Could outdated policies and processes be holding HR back from embracing more agile ways of working?

In a heavily disrupted world of work, the elevation of the HR profession from employee support to more strategic, executive roles is accelerating. However, to maintain this momentum, some HR leaders may need to consider a fresh approach to traditional HR practices, says Lucy Adams, CEO of Disruptive HR. 

In the third episode of AHRI’s podcast, Let’s Take This Offline, Adams speaks with host Shelley Johnson, an experienced HR professional, about ways to do HR differently. 

She explains the role of her EACH framework (which stands for Employees as Adults, Consumers and Humans) in recalibrating talent management strategies, and shares real-life examples of new ways of working in action. 

We hope you enjoy the discussion, and don’t forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Jump to the section that interests you most:

• 4:37 minutes – Lucy discusses the EACH framework and its role in helping employees thrive at work
• 9:37 minutes – How HR can move away from prescriptive policies and towards principle-based decisions
• 13:46 minutes – Learn how to use personas to create a personalised employee experience
• 16:41 minutes – Empowering managers to get the best from their people
• 21:12 minutes – HR’s role in preparing businesses for the future of work
• 27:48 minutes – Lucy’s example of a fresh approach to performance management
• 32:15 minutes – Getting buy-in from leadership to try new ways of working. 

Download your template to create an employee persona.

View the podcast transcript here.

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post Podcast: Doing HR differently with Lucy Adams appeared first on HRM online.

The need to upskill and reskill employees has never been more important. In a world of work that’s rapidly evolving due to the introduction of new technologies, and as generative AI reshapes the type of work that humans will do, HR and L&D leaders need to cultivate dynamic, agile workforces that understand how to utilise their uniquely human skills to complement the work that technology will do.

Organisations understand the importance of investing in these future-proofing programs. New research from LinkedIn into workplace learning has found that, within the next six months, nine out of 10 global executives plan to either increase or maintain their L&D investments. But how can HR demonstrate a return on that investment? And how can they get employees to see upskilling as more than just a tick-box exercise?

In this podcast episode, our host Shelley Johnson speaks with Rod Farmer, Expert Associate Partner at McKinsey and Company, about how to address common barriers to learning and he talks about how McKinsey worked with the Department of Regional NSW to embed more digital literacy skills into its workforce.

We hope you learn something valuable from this episode. Don’t forget to like and subscribe so you never miss a future episode.

Jump to the section that interests you most

• 2:16 minutes: Rod shares some interesting insights into the percentage of employees who complete self-directed digital learning programs and encourages a shift towards a more contextualised approach.
• 6:18 minutes: Rod discusses the difference between a jobs-based economy to a skills-based economy.
• 7:40 minutes: Shelley notes that learning and development programs are often hard to gain investment for as they can be perceived as not driving value. Rod shares his advice for overcoming this mindset.
• 14:32 minutes: Advice on how to create a learning culture in your organisation.
• 18:05 minutes: Rod walks listeners through a case study: how the Department of Regional NSW embedded more digital literacy into its workforce.
• 33:31 minutes: How to avoid your L&D budget being put on the chopping block.
• 44:53 minutes: Rod responds to a made-up scenario about a CEO who has invested into an expensive learning and development platform and isn’t seeing any uptake from employees.

View the episode transcript here.

Subscribe to AHRI’s podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. AHRI members receive exclusive bonus content via the AHRI LinkedIn Lounge.

The post Podcast: Rethinking learning and development programs appeared first on HRM online.