2020 changed everything for HR. The ongoing pandemic forced an overnight pivot to digital, created an even deeper interest in the wellbeing of staff, and, perhaps for the first time, fostered a true understanding of how personal circumstances and professional efforts impact each other for every individual in the organisation.
As the UK enters another complete lockdown, the learnings and lived experiences of last year will come into their own once again. For HR, it’s about ideating, implementing and iterating schemes and patterns of working that are right for their business in 2021, as well as fighting to get executive attention so they create working environments that are innovative, agile, safe, inclusive and wellbeing-oriented. Even though teams are tired. Even though there are still challenges and uncertainty ahead of us.
On this landscape, though there is much that still cannot be predicted, what the last 12 months have revealed is that communication – clear, regular, transparent – is key. This is why HR Grapevine spoke to BT about what it has learned about communication over the last few months, and what HR needs to do going forward. There’s also a feature on whether the four-day week could be one fix for coronavirus working issues and how activism might shape work in 2021.
We hope that 2021 brings hope to you and your teams.
As ever, stay safe and enjoy.
