Innovating in People & Culture: How organisations must utilise HR innovations to stay ahead of the competition

Let’s face it, as my recent attendance at numerous awards nights has shown, the competition to stay ahead of other employers with the best and most innovative practices is tougher than ever.

We have a wealth of big thinkers in the human resource and people field. I’m certainly proud to see the profession pushing itself further and further forward with bright and different thinking and to see us collectively driving hard to deliver more positive outcomes for people experience and engagement across all industries.

I’m sure anyone would be delighted to scoop up the latest award, but the real winners are the colleagues benefitting from and enjoying the impact of the latest innovations being driven and implemented in their workplace. People professionals are challenging themselves and their leadership teams to raise workplace standards and are committed to efficiency, agility, better workplace experience and growth through learning and innovation – something we must all continue and benefit from.

As a people and culture team at Pick Everard, we have to adapt rapidly to the market’s changing needs if we are to attract and retain the right talent and we have to test the success of our strategies regularly against a series of clear measures in order to achieve key outcomes. Throughout the delivery of our latest people strategy, we’ve looked to drive transformation through the many forms that HR innovation can take. This has included implementation of our multiple new systems that have streamlined our processes, our new policies that better meet the needs of our people, changes to how we work for better work-life blend and our award-winning strategies in employee engagement and learning & development that enable our growth - to name but a few highlights.

Innovative thinking is a way of life for us now as a team, and as a business, and we achieve this through the following approach:

• Staying close to our values, identity, ethics and purpose as a business. We always ask ourselves, ‘will this help us deliver better together.’
• Creating a culture where our people have multiple routes to provide their feedback. We then encourage a shared solutions-focused approach to overcoming any issues highlighted by taking action and offering rewards.
• Upskilling and building knowledge constantly as a team and as a business so we’re informed on and ready to respond to emerging trends.
• Building in regular time for team collaborative discussions, reflection, idea generation and problem solving. Using strategic tools such as SWOT analyses to create strategic agility.
• Using dashboards, data and digital evolution to measure progress and communicating this through an effective communication approach. Being agile to re-think, if we’re not getting the results we need.
• Leveraging knowledge, skills and experience from those who don’t directly work for us by working more in a networked way – talking to peer organisations and professionals, using external experience, expertise and knowledge as and when it’s needed.

I’m challenging Pick Everard’s People & Culture team to do more and to think about our responsibilities to research & development as well how we can support start-up organisations within the people field. I’m keen that we support the fresh ideas coming to market. We’ve already engaged with new products to support workplace wellbeing, financial health, and we contribute regularly to research. Yet I have a huge appetite for us to do more. We’re ready to spot new opportunities in 2024.

The advantages for organisations who embrace HR innovations are multiple. They benefit from the creation and delivery of a unique employee value proposition boosting talent attraction, retention, productivity and culture. They can be unburdened from inefficient process and administration, freeing up more time in turn for more strategic and creative tasks. Cost savings and higher profitability may result and important agendas for more ethical employment practices support much needed change for inclusion & diversity, social value and wellbeing.

Our experiences show that it is the relational capabilities between us and our networks that contribute to the highest level of success in innovation. Whether new ideas come from other colleagues within Pick Everard, from our clients or suppliers, or other professionals we’re networking or collaborating with – it is clear that we’re able to increase the diversity of our ideas and learning through this broad approach. Different perspectives influence idea generation and idea evaluation. An innovation network is created, containing rich inspiration from all these perspectives. Crucially, I hope we continue to commit as a profession to distil all relevant insights collected, creating a menu of actions, that will allow us to continue to upgrade and respond to the latest shared challenges within a competitive employment market.