Back to human: Why HR leaders want to focus on people again

Over the many years I have been a Chief HR Officer, HR Head….and I have always shared my views on what an HR-team in a company should look like and how the HR-function adds value to the company.?

But how about the employee?

Chief human-resource officers across the globe??say a shift to employee-centric policies is long overdue. The pandemic is a big factor in their thinking, but process fatigue has been building for some time.

The vast majority of CHROs said they were eager to shift to a model we have come to call “back to human.” The COVID-19 pandemic—which accelerated employee demands on HR to meet physical and mental health needs, as well as intensified moral concerns about a company’s overall impact on society—lent urgency to their view that some core human element has been lost in all these technological advancements.

Let me tell you about my own assumptions around human beings who join a company. I assume they are responsible and capable individuals able to take many decisions in their lives, like marrying, having??children, buying houses, making a career and so forth. So when they enter the realm of business life they do not suddenly stop to be responsible and capable individuals.??The psychological and economical contract between the company and the employee, I assume, is such that the employee will like to stay, otherwise the company would lose a lot of them. So even beyond legal obligations and decent moral principles there is a great interest for the company to create a work environment that is to the liking of the employee, in challenges, complexity, development opportunities and company culture.?

I am personally strongly driven by the desire to enabling people live up to their full greatness, to live their lives to the fullest from a perspective of responsibility and development. And I think this very often combines very well with the interest of a company to create value. At the end of the day we rather be clear who has to carry what responsibility: to live our lives to the fullest is for ourselves, not for companies.?

Finally

There is much more to be said about the above. I am keen to enrich my views with your comments.?