Evie Szymanska, HR business partner at financial services firm Equiniti, shares her vision for the future of the profession.
I learned very quickly that networking is key. I became a CIPD committee member and met many talented HR professionals, gaining essential HR experience. I was later successful in gaining a role within Equiniti (EQ) as an HR administrator. This was on a temporary basis, but after four weeks, I was offered a permanent role. EQ has given me an incredible career development path. I will celebrate nine years with them this year.
What the leaders of tomorrow think:
Ish Anghotra, assistant director of talent and culture, Rosewood London
Sarah Cousins, organisational change manager, British Heart Foundation
Toby Lott, regional people manager, PKF-Francis Clark
HR professionals play a key role in connecting with people and building healthy work relationships. We should ensure communication is tailored accordingly to business culture and strategy.
HR can facilitate engagement by implementing workplace wellbeing programmes and developing transparent policies and procedures. These should be accessible to everyone to reflect how we take on information, including through an intranet, videos, mobile apps, newsletters and emails.
We should think about flexibility more broadly than the more traditional aspects such as part-time work. Introducing mobility and flexible setup of working can eliminate barriers to attracting top talent. Undoubtedly, income matters, but so do small incentives such as vouchers, memberships, cash back deals, cycle to work schemes and referral bonuses.
Although there is no doubt that in the next 30 years AI will be a significant factor for HR, I hope human capital remains the biggest asset to any business. Digitalisation will allow HR to source talent more successfully by connecting with people anywhere in the world.
I hope we will shift from a work/life balance to a work/life blend.
I plan to change the perception of HR. Rather than being seen as a support or cost centre, HR drives revenue generation and acts to create an environment where people can succeed.
I plan to have a strategy that has positive financial benefit for the organisation – one that attracts revenue-generating talent, develops and rewards people, and provides robust data to analyse improvement and development areas. This will allow individuals and organisations to succeed.
The full piece of the above appears in the May/June 2022 print issue. Subscribe today to have all our latest articles delivered right to your desk.
