What are the biggest pressures currently facing the people profession?

Some of the biggest pressures post-COVID have been around wellbeing. Where that wellbeing support isn't in place, we’ve started to see it materialise in things like higher absence rates, and long-term absences. And we know from the data that when people are off for long periods, it becomes increasingly unlikely that they will return to work, or at least to the job they did before.

Alongside that is the growing pressure of modernisation or transformation, including the impact of AI. For example, in healthcare, when we think about HR services we talk about AI in a very abstract way. Part of the pressure will come when people get left behind because they're not using AI in a transformative way, and they're just waiting for it to happen without realising that it's already here.

When people are looking to work in a tech business, they want it to be leading the way, making a change, and at the forefront of development within that space.

How have these pressures impacted the support KMPG has given to staff in 2024?

We’ve always been very supportive of our staff, across the UK but also globally. We’re seeing a big impact from things like staff networks, which have three core purposes: [Encouraging] a clear employee voice, engagement, and turning active listening into action.

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So, as we acknowledge how the wellbeing of the people who work within our firm is shifting, we consider how we can support those people, especially underrepresented communities. It’s about giving people a voice, and those networks are really important for doing that.

And what are you focused on for 2025?

Leading organisations will develop an ability to understand what their future workforce looks like. How do they want to work? Where do they want to work and why do they want to work for your organisation?

I think employee value propositions (EVPs) are still really underrated at the moment and over the next few years will only become a bigger thing. Unless your EVP is strong, you're going to really struggle to attract and then retain those people.

While I never like putting people into boxes, we’ve talked a lot within our firm about what we mean by millennials and Gen Z, and what those groups expect.

Gen Z, for example, will be the first generation that has grown up completely in a digital age, and what that means is that the expectation of work will be working in a very modern, transformative way.

AI and digital [technology] are part and parcel of their life, so therefore it would be reasonable to think that it would be part and parcel of their work as well. When organisations don’t modernize, they run the risk of not hiring very talented people from those generations.