Top HR Trends with Natal Dank

Our guest in this episode of the HRchat pod is Natal Dank, Agile HR Author, Co-founder at PXO Culture, and Chief HR Trendwatcher at the HR Trend Institute

Recognized as a pioneer in Agile HR and business agility, Natal heads up Learning, Consultancy & Coaching at PXO Culture and is the Chief Trendwatcher at the HR Trend Institute.

Following decades in senior Human Resources, Talent and Organisational Development roles, Natal coaches clients across all industries, from innovative tech companies to not-for-profit and global banks, in how to develop amazing employee experiences, like a customer journey, full of moments that matter for your people and organization.

Questions For Natal Include: 

• Your work at PXO Culture and the HR Trend Institute focuses on defining modern HR for the 21st Century. Tell me more
• In 2016 you hosted the first Agile HR Meetup in London to build a community of like-minded disrupters, which has since grown into a movement reshaping the global HR profession. Tell me more
• In 2020 you published the book, Agile HR: Delivering Value in a Changing World of Work. Can you share some of the learning outcomes?
• Let's now run through a new list created for the HR Trend Institute. Released at the end of Nov 2022, the report focused on Breaking Boundaries. Can you run through some of those trends? 

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to the HR Chat show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts, and business leaders for hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com.

Speaker 2 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Ham , and joining me on this episode is Nael Dank agile HR author, co-founder at PX o culture and chief HR Trend watcher at the HR Trend Institute, recognized as a pioneer in agile HR and business agility. NATO heads up learning consultancy and coaching over at P X O culture following decades, working in senior HR talent and organizational development roles, nael coaches, clients across all industries, from tech companies to non-for-profit and global banks, and a whole bunch more. Hey Natal , welcome to the show today.

Speaker 3 1:11

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 1:14

So beyond my reintroduction there, why don't you start by taking a minute or so and introducing yourself a bit more to our listeners.

Speaker 3 1:23

Okay . Well, it's fabulous to be here and um, we're both dialing in from freezing cold uk. Um, I represent sort of how do we start to disrupt HR for the better of humans? And , uh, it is interesting you've, one of your questions coming up is about , um, you know, how do we define the future of modern hr ? And I used to say to people, well, the reason I embraced agile ways of working and wanted to sort of look at how do we build workplaces in a different way was ultimately so people would like me at barbecues , um, because I dunno about you, but when you introduce yourself at a barbecue and you say you work in hr, everyone goes a bit silent. Uh, so I'm here to make sure HR people are liked at barbecues.

Speaker 2 2:12

I love that. That's great. That's brilliant. <laugh>. Well , that's one of my favorite I've done . I I've recorded over 500 of these. That's one of my favorite intros. That's, that's, that's great. Good work. Um, okay, so your work over at P X O Culture and the HR Trend Institute. And , and by the way, listeners , um, there's another episode depending on , uh, depending on this one goes live , uh, with Tom from , uh, the HR Trend Institute and he's also awesome. So check that one out. Anyway, sorry . You'll work over at P X O Culture and the HR Trend Institute focuses on defining modern HR for the 21st century. Why don't you tell our listeners a bit more,

Speaker 3 2:50

Okay , so as we know, that's to make sure that we're liked at barbecues, but actually what does that mean? And it's, well, I think right now is a really interesting time because we're sort of co-creating the future of work in the moment. It's such a kind of exciting but quite scary time, I think to work in HR and to just to be an employee in an organization. And we saw all these trends happening leading into the pandemic. So we were starting to need to, you know, kind of let go of these quite post-industrial kind of taylorist heavy process, top-down bureaucratic ways of working and start to really move towards these collaborative, generally digital networks so you can respond at speed, you know, to your market and disruption. And the pandemic just served to rapidly accelerate all of that. And we , uh, you know, I've been working with organizations across the last couple of months and you go from talking about people, having people in teams that haven't even been back in the office after three years and they don't really know how to get people back in the office through to , uh, organizations where a choice like that just doesn't exist. And so I, I find it so exciting, it's an amazing time to be in hr, but what it represents is so much of what HR was , uh, were these big processing systems that did really represent how we worked in a traditional way. So I think as we recreate the workplace, we have to recreate how we operate in hr and the two go really hand in hand . So for me it's looking at how , what are the tools and techniques that help us build people solutions for the modern day workplace? And that ultimately is feeding into business agility, you know, collaborative networks, engaging employee experience and solving big complex problems like saving the planet through to, you know , um, designing , uh, new digital experiences. So it , it's quite an exciting time , um, but it really calls for new ways of working and that's what we represent at P XO culture and the HR Trend Institute.

Speaker 1 5:04

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now back to the conversation.

Speaker 2 5:21

Back in 2016, you hosted the first Agile HR meeting we'll meet up in, in London to build a community of like-minded disruptors, which has since go gone on to become a bit of a movement and it's reshaping the global HR profession. Congratulations, I , uh, this year, 2022, as we record this , uh, i, I , uh, took over the , uh, disrupt HR London license and a couple of other Disrupt HR licenses. Um, and so when I saw this about you, I , uh, I just had to, had to ask you about the , what , what that looked like when you got it going and, and what it's been like to grow that community. Can, can you tell us a bit more?

Speaker 3 6:00

Sure. And first of all , uh, congratulations on taking over , uh, the London Disrupting , uh, disruptor group. Uh, I've, I've actually, I think I was one of the first presenters at one of the very first ones in London. Um , okay . And there are lots and lots of fun . So , uh, well done. Um, so I, yeah, like , um, disrupt London, I started with literally 20 people in a basement room in London, and pretty well much, no one knew what I meant by Agile hr, particularly in this country, in the uk. Um, at that stage , uh, organizations like the C I P D actually equated agile with hot desking as opposed to the strong, you know, tradition of agile ways of working that ultimately started in tech. What was so fascinating is you got this real mixture. You got people, you got HR people that were working in technical, digital organizations, you know, being asked to operate in new ways and design people solutions in new ways. Then you just had people that were quite forward thinking and they knew there was a new way to sort of build organizations, but just weren't quite sure of the tools to do that. Uh, and then you just got lots of people that were excited about kind of experimentation and minimal viable product and those kind of buzz terms. So it was a real kind of , um, uh, mix actually. And , uh, but what was really interesting is that anyone that came were kind of the first people doing it. And what we quickly realized is that you won't, you had to learn through case studies and examples because very contextual, so agile ways of working started in the world of tech, but it is , you know, the way you do it with your team is gonna be so representative of the size of your organization, you know, what kind of culture you have, your people, what kind of products you produce , um, and where you're at in that kinda evolution of the way you work. So it was a really exciting, and it was so, it was amazing how it grew and we , we did them in London and Le and Sydney and Paris , Paris , and more and more people got involved and wanted to host it . Um, and then the pandemic came along, we went online, and really it's just continued from that point. Um, so it's been really amazing. One thing, what's interesting however, is we've really transitioned from it being this sort of new hot topic that people wanted to know more about to now, since the pandemic business agility is almost the standard way of working. So most HR people you speak to , uh, understand a bit about what it is, maybe are trying a few things out themselves, and definitely most people are keen to learn. So it's , um, it's been, yeah, it was just an amazing thing to watch it grow over the last few years.

Speaker 2 8:46

Let's fast forward from that 2016 start with the event to 2020 , uh, which was another big year for you because you published the book Agile HR Delivering Value in a Changing World of Work. Can you take a minute, I'm gonna challenge you in 60 seconds or less <laugh> , uh, to tell our , listen , tell our listen a bit about the book and some of the hope for learning outcomes.

Speaker 3 9:07

Sure. So it's the practical guidebook that I wish I had when I started using Agile in hr. And what's awesome is people tell me that that's how they use it. So they have sticky notes and they've got highlighters and it, so it really is this practical toolkit to guide your day to day . And it really, it's about translating what Agile is in terms of business into our contacts in people, culture change, learning and development. And it shows you how to apply the tools and techniques to your everyday work , um, from co-creating solutions through to prioritizing your business strategy through to how do you start to build people solutions that enable business agility. So for example, things like performance and reward. How do you redesign those to enable collaborative, you know , networked organizations to deliver value at speed ? So that's my pitch in 60 seconds.

Speaker 2 10:08

Uh , Dave , well under 60 seconds good work, <laugh> , you've done that before.

Speaker 4 10:13

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Speaker 2 10:46

Now I'd like to switch focus a little bit and , um, I'd , I'd like to run through a new list created for the HR Trend Institute , uh, released at the end of November, 2022. Right at the end of the last day, I think it was , uh, the report focused on breaking boundaries. Uh , there are , there are nine key areas within the report . I wonder if you could take three-ish minutes and, and run through some of those trends with us.

Speaker 3 11:13

Yeah, sure. I think what is important to talk about is the overriding theme to begin with , uh, which is Breaking Boundaries. And this is because we're, we ca you know, we came out of the pandemic and it's almost like we're facing bigger com more complex problems than we did , uh, during that time. And we've got the cost of living crisis, there's a war in Ukraine, there's huge business complexity, skills shortages. And what I'm seeing is probably the, the biggest, most important problem to solve for the whole of humanity now, which is solving , saving our planet. And HR can play a critical role in all of this , uh, and, and we are, we're being asked to, but to do that we really need to go beyond the boundaries in which we've operated before. And I think that's both in how we operate on an individual personal level, definitely how we start to operate across functions, particularly silos within hr, but then functions across the organization. And then also how do we actually work beyond the organization into the sort of wider ecosystem of the economy and society. And if you think about some of the trends that are in that list of nine , we've got , um, the first one being how do you support people in response to the cost of living ? And this is a great example of, you know, across so many different , uh, workplaces across all the, the , the globe. Actually, I've had someone contact me to today to say that the trend list really resonated , um, globally in lots of different countries. Um, and this is where organizations are having to consider, okay , do I, do I change the way I pay people? Do I need to give a different kind of payment instead of say a bonus to help them pay the bills? Um, do I need to give care packages? Do I need to think about paying them fortnightly rather than monthly? And so , um, and there's a real kind of desperation in how do we help people get through these tough times? But at the same sort of moment, there's an sort of recognition that if you go above and beyond, you cut through so much of the problems that we have around keeping great people about in ensuring you can, you know, fill the gaps with the skills that you've got and kind of developing your skills further. So one of the other trends in the list is solving the productivity puzzle. And this came about sort of talking about the debate around hybrid work , working, you know, is it productive, is it not? And then we started to realize actually this productivity puzzle is a bit bigger. And a lot of organizations have been talking about the need to really shift gear and really accelerate their productivity. But so much of that is actually some of the basics, like paying your people well, you know, helping them feel like they're doing meaningful , um, important work, contributing to something that's above and beyond just the products that you design. How do you build this sort of in value employee value proposition, this kind of purpose, purpose and meaning. And so we realized that there was a combination of responding to the cost of living and actually engaging your people in such a way to solve some of these other problems that we have in , uh, in the workplace at the moment. Leading on from that, some of the other themes is the return of the unions, which I find fascinating because on one hand it relates to a whole part of the economy where we were clapping them in the pandemic to be essential workers. And now, particularly in hard times, they're, you know, they're really struggling to put food on the table. Um , but it's still essential work. But what's also interesting about the rise of the unions is it's not just sort of classic kind of traditional areas asking for a pay rise. We're actually seeing unions for the first time in organizations like Amazon and Google. And what's really interesting here is in these tech industries, this is about employee voice and how do you actually influence, you know, the organizational decisions around what you invest in, what products you make, you know, how do you treat your people? Um, and I think there's something in this for hr, because this is about what we do. This is employee voice. And traditionally a lot of people I speak to in HR find it hard to work with unions. And I think now is a new time where how do we move beyond that and how do we really co-create solutions together? Um, and in Agile we talk a lot about that. How do you really bring in all the key stakeholders and the users and quickly prototype and test solutions? So you are validating as you go and you know, everyone's on site and part of what you're producing. And then some of the other things would probably be more around what's going on in hr. So one of them we call watch out for the t i a , which is the in Talent in Intelligence Agency. Um, and I'm sure you've come across this yourself where essentially, you know, for years we, we kinda of had recruitment and talent separate. I worked in talent for years. I had to kind of reach beyond the functional silo to connect with recruitment. And it's, it's , um, but to respond to, you know, the great resignation skills shortages and this sort of rapid , um, hiring and developing and movement of people that we now need to, to do at our organizations, you really need to have this combined service. And what we're seeing in talent is there's kind of new skills, the ability to analyze data, the ability to constantly collect trends and information as you talk across the organization, talk with candidates, talk with agencies, talk with different parts of the market and the business, and then how do you build this out into storytelling so you can inform the business and the people strategy in, you know, what your people need or what profiles , uh, are either , um, required to fill skill gaps and how do you just become much more skills-based in your talent solutions as opposed to those traditional kind of functional job , uh, approaches that we've had for so long. Um, and then the probably two more to kind of mention, which are kind of close to my heart, one of course is tackling the M taboos. So talking about menstruation and menopause in the workplace , uh, and as , uh, someone that's , uh, gone through one for a long time and uh , heading into the other zone , um, it really impacts work and it's so amazing that we're finally talking about it, but also we're seeing this as your whole self that comes to work and what does this mean , um, for people that experience this in the workplace on a day-to-day? And then finally, and I've mentioned it already, how do we help our business go net zero? And we've seen another cop 27 this year. We've had the head of un say, this is the biggest, you know, crisis that , um, humanity has ever faced. And every organization plays a part in how do we transform our operations , uh, to reduce emissions going into the atmosphere. And like everything else, this is a people initiative, not just a business target. And HR plays a huge role in helping that organi organizations transform , um, to embrace net zero future. So , um, really exciting , uh, sort of trends that I hope kind of inspire people to act as well as helps them start to think about the business challenges they're facing and how do they use some of these trends , uh, to solve , uh, everyday issues.

Speaker 2 18:45

Perfect. Well, that just leaves me to save for today. Natal , thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 3 18:52

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 18:53

And listeners, as always, until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1 19:00

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat show . If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hr gazette.com.