The year in HR as told by the CPOs of British business

Caren Thomas, People Director, RNLI – ‘hybrid work is a positive – it’s here to stay’

The pace of change at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has increased this year as we realise some of the opportunities presented by development of A1 technologies for example and at the same time strengthen the capability, resilience, and agility of our teams. Similarly, we have looked to increase the flexibility of our staffing model challenging the replacement of perm roles by perm candidates and seeking the opportunity to offer fixed term roles or contingent staffing recognising that in six months or so the core nature of the role may have shifted, and a different skill set required.

We continue to view hybrid working as a positive – it’s here to stay and enables an improved work life balance for our staff as well as our ability to recruit from the larger geographical area. That said recognising that our staff also have a wider job-hunting reach as they are unrestricted by location which has made us review the reward proposition and challenge if it is truly providing the best value for money for the various demographics of our team. As we sprint towards the end of the year, we look forward to lower inflation rates being sustained in 2025 as we continue the work from this year into next into ensuring a sustainable cost model.

Kadisha Lewis-Roberts, CPO, Pure Data Centres Group – ‘connection strategies are the priority’

Creating meaningful moments of connection has been the highlight for me in 2024. This has been the first full year post pandemic where we had a strategy around connecting people, whether it be through beer and pizza get togethers, end of year celebrations, recognition events, team offsites or coffee mornings. The brain science on connection is clear, for example the brains reward system responds to social rewards as strongly as it does to money and creating a sense of belonging strengthens brain connectivity and feel-good hormones.