With the world of work changing fast, it’s incumbent on HR and OD professionals to lead and adapt at pace, helping to embed change and getting their organisations fit for the future. It’s a task that’s anything but easy, with many people resistant to change and HR professionals in local authorities dealing with the ongoing requirement to do more with less. But while challenging, it’s an opportunity too.

At the SDPS conference, an inspiring panel of leaders – Pippa Milne, Chief Executive of Argyll and Bute Council, Leatham Green, Transformation Director at Oracle and Andy Collings, Chief Executive of Dale Carnegie Central England – shared their insights on designing organisations for the future with SPDS President, Sharon Faulkner. Here are eight things we learned…

1. Prioritise communication

The memory of the pandemic may be receding, but HR leaders shouldn’t underestimate the long-term impact on how people communicate. “One of the big trends we are seeing is people not wanting to communicate in the way they did before: some people are happy to hide away at home, some are desperate to be with other people,” said Collings. He predicted that communication issues, particularly among younger people who don’t have the experience of regularly working in an office, will become even more challenging. “It’s not just about where we work or how we work, it’s how we communicate with each other,” he added, advising HR professionals to nip issues in the bud now to avoid future problems.

2. Create the right environment

Hybrid working may be here to stay (for knowledge workers), but it can’t be a “free for all”, said Milne. Rather, it needs to be structured to ensure the water cooler conversations actually happen instead of people coming into the office to sit on Teams calls all day. “We need to think about how we create the environment,” Milne said, adding that her organisation was undergoing a property rationalisation and rethinking office design in the process. “We need to find ways to create the environment for people to exhibit the behaviours we want,” she said. “Create the environment that drives positive behaviours.”

3. Rethink productivity

A not-so-positive behaviour? The increasingly relentless pace of work. “We are pushing faster and faster for increased productivity, which sounds brilliant – until we are burned out,” said Collings, referring particularly to back-to-back virtual meetings. “We’re trying to be as productive as possible, going 100 miles an hour, but we are not getting the space in between,” he added. “We are burning each other out by trying to be productive.” Leaders should role model the importance of creating space, said Green. “Why permit your diary to get clogged?” he asked. “You have the ability to say no. Senior leaders set the tone.”

4. Automate processes – fast

The future of work is going to be driven by the effective application of technology, according to Green. “HR needs to be at the top table driving that conversation,” he added. And the function needs to look carefully at itself first. “There’s no transactional activity in HR services that can’t be automated,” he said “You’ve got to standardise, simplify and automate those activities as quickly as possible because they’re a time drain.” To overcome resistance to technological change, Green advised “telling a story, supporting people in a human way to start making those transitions”. And he added that HR teams shouldn’t “get caught up in feeling you have to understand it all”. Many systems will already have automation built in.

5. Remember leaders set the tone

In any change programme, leaders must act as role models, exhibiting behaviours and new ways of working to reinforce the change. Not doing so can lead to a vicious cycle, according to Milne. “We’ve got to have leaders and managers exemplifying the change”, she said. “If you want to deliver changes, then leaders have got to prioritise enough time to learn the skills and then exhibit them.” Colleagues throughout the organisation must also feel psychologically safe and empowered enough to speak truth to power when necessary, ensuring leaders aren’t pushing change that will ultimately fail at the frontline. “You want people to tell you how it is on the ground,” said Milne. And in all this, leaders must remember that “what they talk about, reward, promote and have on their agenda on a daily basis sets the tone and the culture,” added Green.

6. Get serious about collaboration

Milne suggested that few councils have “pushed the boundaries of collaboration and innovation at a service level”, thanks in part to austerity. “We can get caught up in the rhetoric that this is all about money, but there’s a prize in better outcomes for communities too,” she said, adding that councils needed to “up our game” around collaboration and joint working. Success in this space comes down to empowerment and accountability, along with breaking out of silos, she said, sharing an example of senior managers being empowered to do a budget simulator without the executive team in the room: “Within an hour, they’d come up with £3m worth of savings.”

7. Build a data-driven HR function

“This is the time for us to step up, making sure we are creating a data-driven culture within HR,” urged Green. “We’ve got to train people in how to use data effectively, take it out into the business and create the right stories and narrative.” Simply having the data is not enough – many HR teams are swamped with it after all. Rather, it’s about how “clean, meaningful, timely and relevant” data is used to move the organisation forward. Green added that HR should own data and not be overly reliant on analysts telling them how to use it, and that organisational data shouldn’t be seen in terms of functional silos.

8. Attract the next generation of talent

The panel agreed there’s work to do to make a career in local government more attractive to young people, bringing the next generation of talent into the sector. “Think about all the different jobs in a local authority,” said Collings. “There’s a great opportunity to move around. Sell that story in the recruitment process.” Green added that local authorities should conduct more outreach with schools and colleges. “There’s a role for us in pushing that positive view of the sector, getting out there to promote it,” agreed Milne. “It is challenging: but we are all here because we enjoy the challenge, and succeeding despite the challenge.”

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Session sponsored by Dale Carnegie.

Blog by Katie Jacobs, an award-winning freelance journalist, writer and editor, who specialises in writing about the world of work. She was previously Editor of HR Magazine and Senior Stakeholder Lead at the CIPD.