HR Insights: The Podcast, Series 6 - The Latest in HR News - February

Welcome back to February’s installment of ‘The Latest HR News’. This month, our host, Stuart Elliott is joined by Justine Thompson and Taylor Bradley to discuss some of the most topical themes from trending articles in business and HR. 

In this episode Stuart and our guests discuss a host of themes on how success can be fostered within an organisation. They start the conversation by discussing hybrid working and its continued prominence within the workforce; reflecting on the potentially damaging monitoring of remote work and the significance of trust in order to see productivity and retention of top talent. Our guests also touch on flexibility within the workplace and how this has become, a ‘non-negotiable’ to yield a successful culture in a post-covid world. They then move onto DEI and its necessity to build a winning business strategy and remain progressive. 

They also examine workplace culture, exploring how so-called ‘negative traits’ such as competitiveness and rivalry are being reframed to promote a healthy mindset where competition is seen as a motivation to excellence. The final topic explored is job ghosting, based on an article claiming that a large percentage of Gen-Z have avoided an interview or their first day on a job. Despite Justine's scepticism of these statistics, it provides an interesting perspective on how, in a virtual world, some individuals would rather severe communication to avoid difficult conversations.

Justine is an ED&I expert with over 20 years’ experience in HR and people focused roles. She has a particular interest in culture, psychological safety and belonging, and has worked with organisations across many sectors to bring these topics to life through training and facilitated discussion. She has extensive experience of working with diversity to identify barriers and design data driven strategies and is the Head of Market Intelligence at Inclusive Group. Taylor is a seasoned HR executive deeply committed to shaping organisational talent strategy and fostering a culture of growth and technical innovation. He is the Head of HRBPs and Compensation at Turing, an Al-empowered Talent Cloud and has worked with founder-led startups like DocuSign and Datto to craft IPO-ready talent strategies. 

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Key Timestamps:

• 00:52 – Intro into Justine Thompson
• 01:24 – Intro into Taylor Bradley
• 02:50 – Hybrid Working
• 11:33 – Operational effectiveness 
• 19:30 – Flexibility in the workplace 
• 34:32 – DEI: The success of diversification 
• 44:48 – AI: Fear vs Reality 
• 51:58 – Rivalry in the workplace 
• 59:05 – Job ghosting

Articles referenced, please note that some require subscriptions to access:

• Law firm blames and shames employees who always work from home
• Four-day week ditched by Morrisons
• CEOs Are Using Return To Office Mandates To Mask Poor Management
• The work-from-home boom is becoming a redundancies-from-home bust
• JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon talks DEI: ‘I’m a full-throated, red-blooded, patriotic, unwoke,
• capitalist CEO’
• The bosses of OpenAI and Microsoft talk to The Economist
• When your colleagues are also your rivals  
• Job Ghosting – 86% of jobseekers admit not showing up to interviews, research reveals

Additional Articles:

• Age & Gender row – TikTok chief says female staff ‘should remain quiet and humble’, sacked
• exec alleges
• Rolling your eyes is a microaggression, civil servants told  
• Fairness: the hidden currency of the workplace  
• Lifelong Learning Isn’t Optional – It’s Essential to Be a Successful CEO. Here’s How to Make
• it a Priority
• Year of the Dragon 2024: predictions, personalities and the wood element’s meaning for the
• next Lunar New Year
• Chinese horoscopes of the Year of the Wood Dragon 2024: Zodiac sign predictions for health,
• wealth, work and love, as well as the dragon’s effect on the environment, AI, space travels
• and technology
• Why you should never retire 
• Beards present a hairy problem for razor makers