How HR can drive sustainability
"One of the first things that HR can do to drive sustainability is simply to do its job well," said Tara Shine, co-CEO of sustainability training platform Change by Degrees.
She explained that the social aspect of sustainability is vitally important, as stressed or burned-out employees do not have the bandwidth to consider their environmental impact.
"It's about really promoting the behavioural changes that are needed. To be sustainable is not tinkering around the edges of your business model, it's a transformation. And that transformation is not possible without your people," she said.
Shine added that HR professionals should consider how they can most impactfully embed sustainability in their role.
"If you're in learning and development, are you providing green skills training to your staff?" she asked, adding: "If you're doing staff inductions, how are you using onboarding to show that what employees read on your website about being sustainable comes to life?"
She added that HR should have the confidence to claim their seat at executive conversations around ESG.
"ESG is one third social, so you need to be there!"
Career progression requires ‘stubborn optimism’
Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock encouraged HR leaders to be ambitious: “Think big, and think crazy,” she advised, before outlining a concept popularised by climate activist Christiana Figueres: stubborn optimism, which is defined as “the mindset necessary to transform the reality we’re given into the reality we want”.
Aderin-Pocock stated: “Stubborn optimism is something we all need in our lives. There’s a stubborn optimist in each and every one of us. Let’s release it, and change the world.”
She also described dyslexia as her superpower, reminding HR practitioners that as AI advances, soft skills will be in increasing demand. Dyslexic thinkers can meet that demand, she argued: “Dyslexia gives you a wonderful skills package: empathy, curiosity… all sorts of things that make me a better scientist and a better science communicator. We have the soft skills that are needed in the workplace today.”
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For a holistic reward programme, listen and communicate
“It’s not rocket science,” said Lucy Carter, employee experience manager for the retail business Seasalt, as part of a talk that detailed how the business created and deployed its holistic reward programme. Carter advised business leaders to truly listen to their people, and to communicate regularly and efficiently.
The Seasalt team introduced a range of changes, including becoming a national living wage employer; boosting pension contributions from 4% to 7%; partnering with Reward Gateway to offer wellbeing perks, discounts and an employee recognition platform; launching an improved success framework, and policy reviews, which led to bringing in a gender-blind family leave policy earlier this year.
View career development through a DEI lens
When making efforts to bolster career development, employers must consider the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), one panel concluded.
"This is where DEI moves away from being a fluffy subject; there is so much opportunity to bring different parts of your workforce along," said Woosh Raza, founder of HR consultancy Woosh.
Pointing to the dynamics of the intergenerational workforce, he added: "Many employers that talk about reskilling immediately go to the younger part of their workforce as they have an assumption that older generations can't or don't want to reskill, especially with digital skills."
He added that women can also be excluded from career development: "We know that sometimes women are less likely to put themselves forward for skills development and promotion. If they don't fit every requirement, they often won't put themselves forward where men would."
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Employee experience and wellbeing are interconnected
Wellbeing should be at the heart of an organisation’s culture, and therefore central to employees' experience, according to Ellie Tomlins, chief people officer at soft drinks manufacturer Britvic.
She said: “For us, health and wellbeing is wired into our strategy.”
Jane Hinchcliffe, head of people practices at Tesco Bank, said that she used a strategy that embraced “listening, reflecting, improving and iterating a little better every day” to understand how to improve employees' wellbeing.
Laura Fink, transformation officer at HR software provider HiBob, explained that she demonstrated listening by implementing Bob Balance Days. This shuts down the entire company for a day at the end of each quarter, to allow employees to “reset and recharge for the next quarter”.
Moving away from policy dictating the company culture was key to creating flexibility at OVO Energy, explained Emma Illingworth, OVO's head of people transformation.
“We had policies up to 40 pages long,” she said. “We ripped them up and started again.” To replace them, the team rewrote policies to span one or two pages, and created short YouTube videos that broke them down, to give line managers the message that “if you need to support your people, ask what they need at that moment”.
Tomlin has seen a 7% increase in employees’ perception that Britvic cares about their wellbeing year on year. This was due to three things, she explained, including bottom-up local initiatives such as targeting the sleep deprivation of their night shift workers.
“We discovered they were sleeping four to six hours per night, and the implications of that are profound,” she said. They also targeted employees’ work environment, creating spaces where they could “feel good about the place they work in”, and gave people as much agency over their work as possible.
Why words matter
Susie Dent, lexicographer, etymologist and presenter of 'Word of the Day' on Chanel 4's Countdown, spoke at the final keynote about why words matter in the workplace.
Dent spoke to her love of language and how language can change perception. “The moment you set out your store linguistically you can change perception,” she said.
While shared language can be useful within a tribe, Dent warned HR that they should be careful jargon does not become exclusive.
“It’s all about having the right nuance vocabulary for the right occasion,” she noted. “Tribal language can be positive as long as it’s used well and doesn’t become empty or [a form of] patting yourself on the back.”
The same goes for banter, she suggested. “But remember when you are outside your tribe; try not to use it because it will baffle people and it may alienate people in a way you don’t want to,” she advised.
This could be useful to consider when trying to enhance inclusion in the workplace, she implied.
Language can also be used as an excuse to avoid inclusion, Dent suggested. “Saying ‘I’m not sure it’s PC to say that anymore’ implies you’re afraid to be perceived as saying something, rather than authenticity,” she said.
But, “if you don’t know whether you should be using one word over another, ask”, she urged.
“If you feel able to ask and expose your vulnerability, that will then open a dialogue, and an open dialogue is so important when it comes to inclusive language. Don’t feel paralysed by the imperative to be inclusive and show diversity. Choose wisely, and don’t panic.”
