Why 2020 Is The ‘Year Of HR’: A Conversation With Josh Bersin
Perhaps now more than ever, demands on People Operations roles are incredibly high. Handling just the administrative side of HR while establishing a remote workforce can be a full-time job, let alone the all-important human element that requires your attention and resources.
Because the true power of People Ops lies in unlocking the potential of every employee, many HR leaders are discovering or refining new skills in 2020, what today’s guest is calling, “The Year of HR.”
Josh Bersin is one of the top HR industry analysts, who recently launched the already successful Josh Bersin Academy, an online professional development resource that has become the “Home for HR” in recent months. Josh joined us to discuss his thoughts on the rapidly evolving role of People Ops professionals:
The Year of HR is only getting started
Right now, in addition to staying in business during an economic downturn, companies are struggling to meet the demands of a workforce coping with a rapidly evolving world. In 2020, when companies are working proactively to create a sense of stability and safety for people, Josh sees the role of HR expanding more and more to fill this need.
Dealing with a global pandemic and escalating conversations about race and inclusion, every company must ask itself what type of citizenship they want to practice. This begins with how they treat their people, and then echoes out into the marketplace and beyond.
HR has an ongoing role to play in aligning the mission of the company with the mission of its people—this not only determines how employees perform but how their work contributes to a better world.
In this episode we also discuss:
• How current trends in HR are leading to more workplace creativity
• Creating values alignment between companies and their employees
• The economic factors that actually matter right now
• How companies can provide stability for their people in unstable times
• What companies can do to promote equity in the workplace and society
Being a good citizen
The following is a transcribed and edited portion of the Best-Self Management Podcast Episode 25, “Why 2020 Is The ‘Year Of HR’: A Conversation With Josh Bersin”:
Shane: We live in a very psychotic world, where there’s a disconnection from the things that we’re seeing on TV and what the stock market is saying, and the actual lived experience.
So I’m curious, because as company leaders, we know we are a drop in the bucket, and as you said, even if we were Walmart, we would still have very little influence on the societal level. What can we do? What are you seeing the best companies do in order to create at least some security, some sense of sanity within their own companies?
Josh: Well, I think it’s a really interesting question. I think it’s very similar to what we can do as individuals. You can go home at night and watch TV and get mad, but you can also make your life better. You can turn the TV off and you can take care of your kids and your family, your friends. And I think that’s what we have to do in companies. Each company has the opportunity because most companies have a reasonable amount of resources and a reasonable amount of flexibility on where to put them.
Each company has to decide—I like the word citizenship—What is our level of citizenship? Who are we going to take care of?
Obviously we’re going to take care of our customers. We’re going to take care of our employees. Are we also going to take care of our employees’ families and communities, or are we going to take care of the environment? Are we going to do things in the political sphere or the environment.
Some companies are very, very focused on being good citizens. You know the stories of Patagonia as everybody knows, and Unilever, and these are companies that were founded many years ago as mission-driven organizations in some ways. I mean, Patagonia is a mission in disguise as a company. And Unilever has the same history. So every company has the opportunity to move around that scale, the CEO, the CFO, the senior leaders, etc.
And then during bad times, when the company is losing money, it’s hard, then you have to decide, well, can we continue to be this way? And the answer is you can, you just have to do it in a little more modest way. So that’s the role I think we play.
That’s the reason I, like what I do. I hopefully can influence companies and give them a little bit of freedom and a little bit of authority to do that. Because it always pays off. It always pays off to think more about your role in society. It seems to always make the company more successful.
Image Credit: Stephen Hateley on Unsplash
