Ivo Kukavica, vice president and head of HR common services and solutions at TeliaSonera, spoke at a session on supporting a global workforce with simpler HR processes. "We made a clear description of where we wanted to be by 2018," he said. "That was well-defined, working end-to-end but simple, and supported by great tools and great technology. We have now set a true foundation with clear objectives. Where the future goes now is limited only by our imaginations."
Live Leer, vice president of global human resources for web browser Opera, spoke on her business's HR strategy.
"We [Opera] may be small, but we are very global," she said. "We have a lot of people working from home. We have some people in places where there might not even be an office. We have about three or four acquisitions a year, so we looked into our HR system. At an exit interview a former employee said some of our processes demotivated them. If one person says it there could be many others thinking it."
Leer discussed Opera's implementation of cloud-based software Workday and the need for a system that can evolve with the organisation. "What people expect from their HR team, or their organisation in general, changes. You may need a pretty complex system," she said
CEO of training start-up Social Talent Johnny Campbell closed the event on the main stage. "It's really about listening to your individual employees," he said. "You can lose sight of the people. We took the decision to meet every one of our employees for an hour, and we learned a huge amount.
"Having one-on-one conversations with your staff is what we should be doing. When an office is quiet you're not doing your job. If your people are talking, exchanging, meeting, chatting, even if it's not about work, then that's a healthy culture."
