What are your main concerns in HR today?
Employees’ expectations from their companies are changing and they’re increasingly vocal about wanting compelling careers, wellbeing at work, options on how to get work done, and flexible employment terms. It is a new era for all companies and the speed and output of our response to these changes is critical.
Line managers have a significant role in helping individuals to surface their potential and reach their career aspirations. However, not every manager naturally has these skills and some feel overloaded by the combination of roles they are asked to perform.
If we don’t provide managers with the best support, training and tools, individuals’ career progression can be at risk of slowing down or being blocked.
What will become more important for HR over the next five years?
HR will continue to play a critical role in the integration of technology and human capital.
Enhanced HRIS and other digital platforms are providing valuable talent analytics in many areas. However, the lack of management experience in reading these analytics and using the insight effectively is still a challenge.
HR’s role will be to help fill these gaps, to embrace a new digital culture, and to grow skills that will bring home the promised benefits of digitalisation.
What subjects will HR still be tackling when you retire?
I believe we have come a long way in eliminating conscious and unconscious bias across processes such as hiring, promotion, retention and evaluation. However, there is still room for improvement and I imagine HR professionals will continue to seek new ways to embrace diversity, inclusion and engagement.
What do you plan to do to change HR for the better?
My personal interest is in improving the employee experience by designing and building a lean and engaging journey from the day new starters join. This can only be achieved by seamlessly integrating all employee-facing processes and systems.
We’ve embarked on a transformation journey at pladis to create a digital employee experience with enhanced transparency in performance, career development processes, instant feedback and much more. While adopting a new HRIS that will help us to simplify our way of working, we’re also giving our managers the support they need to develop their teams and make better-informed decisions.
For the wider HR practice I believe there is still so much to do and huge scope to grow both strategically and practically. I’m very excited about the future and possibilities within my profession.
Nazan Ozgur is global talent manager at pladis Global
