Insights: All eyes on us

What are the top HR challenges facing large, complex organisations in New Zealand? Kathy Catton spoke with the Heads of HR from Chorus, SkyCity and Vodafone to understand what’s top of mind for big companies seeking to make a difference.

Vodafone

Top three challenges facing HR:

1. empowering a flexible workforce, including talent acquisition and retention

2. using big data to inform decisions

3. supporting a sense of belonging in our people.

Emma Kelly, Head of the HR Centre of Expertise for Vodafone, recognises that, in a post-COVID world, being flexible will be part and parcel of the landscape. But walking the talk and empowering a flexible workforce is where the most significant advantage can come. Although Vodafone has been operating on a ‘free-range working’ approach for many years, it’s really important that this approach has been led and reinforced from the top. “Recently, our CEO Jason Paris prioritised his daughter’s kapa haka performance over any work commitments and shared this decision with everyone,” says Emma. “This was a way to give our people permission to make time for family and reinforcing the flexible working we already had in place.”

Finding top talent and retaining it is also a priority for Vodafone. The response from the digital services business to the talent shortage has been to build talent internally through secondments, internships and partnerships with Ngāi Tahu and TupuToa.

Getting data in and using it wisely continues to be an evolving journey for Vodafone, particularly in a digital services business where a plethora of data sources exist. “We have just implemented ‘Joyous’ in our business,” says Emma. “This is an engagement tool that seeks to access day-to-day feedback from staff. We ask questions like, ‘Do you feel like you have clear objectives?’ or ‘Do you have clarity on your priorities?’.” The responses are fed back to managers, and, over time, Vodafone is building a dashboard of where the issues and patterns are. Data can be interrogated by function, by tenure of employment and across a range of question sets, including engagement and belonging. “We also run an anonymous survey once a year. This OHI McKinsey employee survey also informs many of our initiatives.”

Vodafone teams value a 'free-range working' approach.

Supporting a sense of belonging is all about diversity of thought for Vodafone, becoming representative of its customers, and helping employees to bring their whole selves to work. “We recognise it’s so important to build confidence in our leaders and people of influence. More recently we’ve started to formally acknowledge the history of Aotearoa, Te Tiriti [the Treaty] as a founding document, te reo and tikanga Māori,” says Emma. “In doing so, we can provide support and really start to embrace our biculturalism, that enables multicultural application.” Vodafone has just completed two cohorts of its Te Kaa programme, aimed at educating leaders in te ao Māori. In addition, the company runs Kāwai, a programme for Māori and Pasifika emerging leaders, helping them to unlock their cultural background as a strength and one that is highly valued.

These are significant initiatives, but, as Emma Kelly says, everything can be done to scale. “For those in smaller organisations, it’s important to embrace the learning of others, so we’re all better together. Do some research, invite someone to have a coffee and find out what they are doing. We have strong networks in New Zealand – let’s use them!”

Chorus

Top three challenges facing HR:

1. maximising the opportunity of HR currently being in the spotlight

2. wellbeing3. enabling remote working.

It’s fair to say that, since the pandemic, HR has been thrust into the spotlight. As a profession, most would agree HR professionals have done an excellent job ensuring our people are well cared for through a time of great adversity. Shaun Philp, Chief People Officer at Chorus, sees this as a massive opportunity.

“We have a unique role,” he says. “We’ve been centre stage and earned our place at the top table. We’ve got credit in the bank. The challenge for us as a profession is to progress our work at pace and leverage our mana, so to speak.”

With the support of customers, the Board and staff, Chorus is looking to progress its HR initiatives. “With all eyes on us, we have a great opportunity here,” says Shaun.

Most employers have prioritised wellbeing, but according to Shaun, there is still more work to do. “We’ve learnt that mental and physical health affect work performance. Clever organisations are already quantifying this,” he says. Shaun quotes Unilever as one example, which has established that $1 invested in employee wellbeing delivers a $2.50 return. Hence, Shaun believes a major challenge for HR will be to keep the momentum going with employee wellbeing.

Having recently won the 2021 HRNZ Best Wellness Programme award, Chorus is looking to accelerate its health and wellbeing programme. “It’s about more than just personal and mental wellbeing now. Since COVID, we’ve got a greater insight into people’s personal lives. It’s about supporting the entire employee life experience now,” says Shaun.

The organisation has recently introduced the Take a Breath app and Take a Breath seminars to all staff, bringing benefits of better sleep and reduced stress levels. Shaun reports to the Board on the results of this, a conversation that would never have happened even just a couple of years ago.

Digital solutions are now available to all staff, such as the Mentemia app by Sir John Kirwin (and the Take a Breath app amongst other initiatives), and are crucial to a workforce that no longer has the boundaries of the traditional ‘9 to 5’ schedule.

With 60 per cent occupancy at the office at any one time, Chorus recognises that the next wave of enabling flexible working will be less about the hours people work and more about the output they produce. Based on Gartner research, organisations with standard 40-hour working weeks have 36 per cent of the workforce operating at a highperformance level. By contrast, in organisations where employees can negotiate when, how and where they work, high performers make up 55 per cent of the workforce.

Chorus has talked with employees to identify what is now important in the way they work and has come up with Flex 2.0, which seeks to address some of the following:

• tackling the sense of guilt that many employees experience when working from home

• tackling the challenges of technology

• looking at the purpose of the office in the future world

• improving home office environments

• coming up with team charters and understanding more about how teams work together.

Shaun recommends that HR managers get a really good understanding of their people analytics and data. “If we were in the marketing department, we would be mining the HRIS to inform better decision-making. We need to listen, talk and understand our people based on the good data we have,” says Shaun.

SkyCity

Top three challenges facing HR:

1. addressing the challenges in the labour market

2. wellbeing

3. enabling remote and hybrid working.

Now more than ever before, SkyCity is acutely aware of the challenges of the labour market. With borders closed, low unemployment and a rising minimum wage, many of SkyCity’s labour market pools have simply dried up. On top of that, everyone, it seems, in the tourism or hospitality sectors is fighting for this limited resource.

“We are certainly seeing a bidding war for chefs right now,” says Sarah Caunter, General Manager, People Ops, at SkyCity. “One way to entice them may be to pay more money, but it’s not always the best way.” Sarah and her team have looked more strategically at the issue and have ramped up their apprentice programme, and training in general, to ensure there is a developing pool of resources from within the organisation. “Obviously, there’s a much longer pay-off to these approaches, but it’s a better way to start to address some of the issues we have,” says Sarah.

In addition, SkyCity is looking at technology and how that can deal with the lack of employees. “Technology is definitely our friend for the next few years,” says Sarah. “We’ve just invested in a huge cake-cutting machine, and we are reviewing some of our backoffice roles and looking at how these can be automated.” Sarah adds, “We are also reviewing our remuneration strategy and our employee experience, to ensure we are remaining competitive and doing enough for our people.”

With regard to wellbeing, SkyCity is one of the only companies in New Zealand to employ a Connect team within its People and Culture department. The team’s objective is to be an employee support advisory service, providing all manner of support from housing, relationship guidance, financial aid (including a hardship fund) and disciplinary matters. This team exists alongside Employee Assistance Programme and fits within the company’s mental health strategy, which focuses on encouraging people to get appropriate and timely support. Again, it’s about supporting the whole person, not just the person who turns up to work.

SkyCity is helping its leaders get to grips with flexible working and the specific challenges that arise due to being a predominately customerfacing service business, meaning many frontline workers cannot work from home. HR’s role is now about working with people leaders and coaching them to understand the cultural shifts required to achieve a balance that works for all. “We are doing some work to look at what a flexible contract would really look like, so that we can meet the needs of our staff and also respond to the needs of our business.”

Sarah encourages others to be open to different options on how we In conclusion, HR is at the forefront of many initiatives that respond to a wide range of internal and external transformative trends. Employee wellbeing, new ways of working, and employee life experience will continue to become crucial to our roles as HR professionals. How we track or monitor employees is coming front and centre, and, as such, how we find the balance between technology and employee privacy still remains an issue. The implications of a disruptive 2020 are still likely to be playing out for several years to come.