Harvey Francis, Executive Vice President HR, at construction firm Skanska doesn’t pull any punches about what HR used to be like at the Sweden-headquartered construction giant.
As he described, HR was an order taker; it was disparate and processes were often duplicated, with multiple payroll systems.
This had to change. When the firm, which has 5,700 UK employees, relaunched its values alongside a new business strategy and a more societally-centric purpose five years ago, the people function also changed tack. “We got commercial,” Francis, who joined from Pfizer in 2007, added.
Trends | What is HR's top priority for 2019?
For the multi-billion-pound construction giant, much had to be overhauled for a proper commercial transformation of the HR function – which included looking at the capabilities in the HR department and making some difficult decisions.
Continue reading for FREE!
Sign up for a myGrapevine account to get:
- Unlimited access to News content
- The latest Features, Columns & Opinions
- A full range of specialist HR newsletters to choose from
UK
United States


