Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom

Self-managed (or self-organising or autonomous) teams are a hot business topic at the moment. But what does the term self-managed team really mean and are self-managed teams really achievable or just a pipedream? Natal Dank and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) explain that self-managed teams are indeed possible but it’s not easy and they don’t come about by accident. This ‘Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom’ episode also looks at the perhaps unexpected and truly exciting new roles HR has in helping teams become autonomous.

Power of retrospectives by Natal Dank & Tom Haak

From Netflix and Spotify to buying physical products online, our consumer and digital experiences are increasingly personalised and tailored to our needs. But what about the employee experience? Is it time for the workplace to be personalised, just as much as at home? Natal Dank and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) explore the difference between personalisation and customisation and whether personalisation only works in startups or is feasible in large organisations. Some of their conclusions will surprise you.

Wouldn't it be useful to have a user guide that helped you get along with your teammates? Perhaps some top tips on how to get your best work done together. Maybe it's time for you to do a personal user manual and help others know how to work best with you. Natal Dank and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) in the latest instalment of ‘Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom’, ask if this is the end of the team-building day. Spoiler Alert: You can still climb poles and jump rivers if you want to but you can also get to know your colleagues without building a bridge out of pallet wood.

Many people complain of feeling overloaded and stressed in work and life. In the modern business world, it seems impossible to get everything done. So let's look at personal productivity and find out if there are any useful life hacks that let you can get more work done in less time. Now let’s be clear neither Natal Dank nor Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) considers themselves to be personal productivity gurus. However, they do get a lot of stuff done like filming over 30 episodes of ‘Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom’! So, what are their secrets to success?

Are you ready for the great resignation? Workers across the globe are rethinking their careers and looking at moving on to something new. As a result of the pandemic, companies are facing a huge increase in turnover and the threat of losing their best talent. Natal Dank is seeing this ‘Great Resignation’ in action with some of the companies she’s working with and many are even having to hire more people in the recruitment team in order to then go and hire more people for their organisation. According to the results of a recent survey by Microsoft across the global workforce, 41% of people are thinking about leaving their job at the moment. The Wall Street Journal has reported that in America, the quit rate is the highest it's been in the last two decades. A Chilean friend of Tom Haak’s (of the HR Trend Institute) refers to this as ‘La Grande Renuncia’, which both agree sounds much better. So, this Great Resignation aka Turnover Tsunami is happening in Chile as well and is a serious global threat.

What are the crucial skills for a modern HR professional? In the workplace, it now seems you need everything from commercial awareness, influencing skills, to data analytics. So let's discover what are the key competencies you need to develop to be a full stack HR professional. Natal Dank and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) explore what makes the modern HR professional, and look at the key competencies someone that's trying to get into this job would need to develop. Taking this further, they also look at how someone can progress their career in HR through to being an HR leader.

Natal and Tom pick their favourite episodes from the series so far and highlight the ongoing major trends that HR professionals must be mindful of. About 8 months ago Natal Dank and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) decided to do a series of looking at the trends impacting the world of HR, culture, people and organisational change and development. They now have over 30 episodes (nearly 40 in fact) of ‘Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom’ under their belt looking at topics ranging from Ethical Leadership and DEI to Performance Management and the return-to-work conversation. All of this has been against the backdrop of a pandemic, of course, so it's been a really interesting time just for workplace change in general. At first, Tom wondered how many episodes he and Natal would be able to fill but it turns out there’s been no lack of subjects. In fact, it seems that every time they talk they think of five more things to talk about and there are requests from followers on LinkedIn and YouTube. Of course, there are some episodes that stand out more than others and Natal and Tom picked their top 5 episodes each.

2020 was a year of adaptation. Many organisations showed resilience and were able to adapt work practices to the Covid 19 crisis. Workers at the front showed their creativity and entrepreneurship and in many cases working from home had big advantages. What will happen now? Will we (both organisations and people) slip back in our old habits, or will we show that 2021 and beyond will be a period of real transformation? Listen to Natal Dank of PXO Culture (https://pxoculture.com) and Tom Haak of the HR Trend Institute when they discuss this in this episode of "Talking HR Trends with Natal & Tom".

The message is clear, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the world of work forever. As Spain joins a list of countries testing a four-day working week, it's time to reassess all workplace solutions and changes made as a result of the pandemic.

Studies show that organisations which invest in employee experience are likely to be rated the best places to work, lead on innovation, and achieve great customer satisfaction. But what is this employee experience? Is it just a new fancy way of describing employee engagement, or are we talking about something much deeper?

Most large companies have a people analytics team. And most senior executives crave good people data. But when did data become so sexy in HR and is people analytics something we should celebrate, or perhaps fear? Using the complex and incredibly valuable area of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for context, Talking HR Trends with Natal and Tom highlight that it’s no good just looking at the numbers in amazement, hoping the situation will change. Organisations need to take people analytics seriously if they are going to make meaningful improvements. Natal Dank of PXO Culture and Tom Haak (of the HR Trend Institute) agree that there are a few important features of your people analytics approach that will determine whether it succeeds or gets added to the list of items labelled ‘wishful thinking’.

There's nothing quite like a pandemic to demonstrate the benefits of working Agile. As a result, it seems across the world, HR leaders and teams are now getting serious about embracing Agile HR. But is this just another fad or a true transformation of how the HR profession works?

Starting a new job represents one of the most significant moments in the employee life cycle. So why do so many people still hate the first day in a role? To win the war on talent, we need to get serious about onboarding.

The workplace has changed forever partly thanks to social movements like Black Lives Matter, Me Too and Stop Asian Hate. We are now more aware of differences and inequality in the workplace than ever before and, most importantly, many organisations are doing something about it.

In a rapidly changing marketplace, how does a business successfully identify the right skills and the right people for future roles? Up until now, talent management has been mainly about high potential programs, but most organisations have seen little return on this type of investment. Do we need to start focusing on the now rather than just the future to get talent management right?

How do you keep your skills relevant and continually grow your career, in today's complex and competitive marketplace? There’s a lot of talk about the traditional career ladder being dead but what do you do instead to develop your career and feel like you’re progressing?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the workplace is a hot topic and every HR conference seems to have at least one speaker exploring this subject. But what is AI and is it different to adaptive and robots? Furthermore, is it something we should fear or can it enhance the employee experience?