Bertie Tonks, chief people officer at Collinson who is recognised as one of HR’s Most Influential practitioners by HR magazine, brought infectious energy (and an impressive range of hats) to the SPDS conference. “The world has become much more complex and our managers and leaders don’t have what it takes: they have to rely on HR,” he told delegates in his keynote session, adding that the current “huge demands” on the HR profession should be seen as “fuel for us to make a difference to the world of work”.

Tonks urged attendees to remember that HR should be “humanistic, not mechanistic”. “With the conversation on AI and tech, we can’t forget that at the end of our value chain are human beings,” he said.

There are plenty of ways to innovate and make a real difference to the world of work and individuals’ work experience, while keeping the human at the heart of HR practice. Here are five ideas that Tonks shared…

1. Reframe what you are solving for

“One thing that is problematic for us is that we continue to look at our problems in a very linear way,” said Tonks. “But life is dynamic and changing all the time.” With that in mind, Tonks suggested that the traditional talent lifecycle has become outdated and is holding organisations and HR practice back.

“I propose that we start looking from a different place,” he said. “What if, instead of things like the talent life cycle, our HR focus was around purpose, experience and performance.” In practice, that means a focus on how purpose plays out for individuals, offering a “hyper personalisation” of employee experience (similar to what we get in our personal lives as consumers) and radically rethinking performance management. For example, in his business Tonks replaced the annual appraisal with a “triannual” process, which reviews and looks ahead in four month chunks, the most anyone can really remember. “Changing the form isn’t enough,” he said. “We need a more radical approach.”

2. Experiment to create “wildfires of innovation”

Organisations can become too reliant on “big bets”, said Tonks, creating programmes of work to roll out across the business and assuming they will succeed. Instead, he advised HR leaders to get experimental, trialling ideas and innovations in small parts of the business to see the impact and allow them to iterate as required. “Create wildfires of innovation,” he said. “If you ask your managers who wants to be part of an experiment, you will get a lot of people who want to be first adopters.”

Collinson is currently experimenting with CV-less hiring in one part of the business. “It might not work,” said Tonks, “but that’s OK, as we’ve set it up as an experiment.” Another experiment has been creating panels including an HR person, a business manager and experts in AI and automation to review every upcoming vacancy. “That panel sits down with the person leaving and reviews the role, asking: what 20% could be automated?” explained Tonks. “It’s not about creating fear, as that 20% will be filled back with more enriching, rewarding work.”

3. Embrace design thinking and agile

Using design thinking and agile methodologies can help uncover and harness fresh ideas to improve work for everyone, according to Tonks. Applied lessons from design thinking to consider include working in cross-functional, self-managed teams (or squads), where traditional organisational hierarchies are put to one side (which can be a challenge for leaders’ egos), spending more time upfront focusing on what the problem actually is, and delivering small amounts quickly, taking feedback and reapplying. Tonks recommended trying “planning poker”, an agile consensus-based planning and estimation technique, as a “powerful way to strip out bias and come to the best decision”.

4. Focus on the whole person

“We have to figure out what it means to be more human as an organisation,” said Tonks. This means understanding that all your people come into work with personal “baggage” and helping to lighten the load. “There are so many things people bring into work that I think it is our place to be involved,” said Tonks. “Because those are the things that are getting in the way of their performance, their happiness and their true engagement.”

Collinson experimented with offering colleagues’ partners who had lost their jobs free training in areas like using LinkedIn to find a job, positive psychology and interview skills. “It blew up,” Tonks shared. “People loved it and now we run something every month. That one small example will buy any organisation more loyalty than any bonus ever would.”

He added that policies should be inclusive and “speak to the whole person”. “We review our policies through a DEI lens every year and ask: how could we push this further,” he said. “The aim is to keep evolving.”

5. Be brave in tackling toxicity

“Doing business is painful,” Tonks said, explaining that according to neuroscience the brain can’t differentiate between physical and social pain, such as seeing someone else receive preferential treatment or being made to feel too junior to contribute to a discussion. “This has big implications for leadership and for us as HR professionals,” he added.

It makes tackling toxicity and addressing “invisible de-railers”, informal power structures within teams that can act as a blocker for progress, a critical task for HR. “You are better off having a vacancy as a result of getting rid of someone toxic,” Tonks added. “If you know someone who exemplifies bad behaviour in your organisation, as painful as it is, removing the problem will free you up to achieve more.”

Bertie Tonks with Douglas Shirlaw from myjobscotland, who sponsored the session, and Jane Fowler from Argyll and Bute Council and a member of the SPDS Executive Committee, who chaired the session.

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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.