In an interview, Carolynn Ryan, senior VP people and chief human resources officer at BC Hydro discusses the new HR practices the company has adapted to and implemented in the changing workplace environment.
What are some of the major challenges and trends that have been affecting the HR Industry lately?
It is understood that the global coronavirus pandemic has had a lasting impact for HR. I’ve heard many say it was HRs time to shine during the pandemic and I certainly felt that my company was relying on our HR team. There was really no playbook to refer to and people were being impacted on a daily basis. Much has been written about all the challenges we faced and how we managed to navigate policies, processes and new ways of working. The key trend is a renewed focus on people as a valuable asset and a reliance on strategic advice of HR to ensure the business is able to meet its objectives.
The residual challenges left by the pandemic are complex and underpin the social wellbeing of the companies.
The move to hybrid and flexible work has been one of the most fundamental shifts in the workplace since the industrial revolution. It quickly became apparent that after two years of working remotely, workers were demanding more flexibility than they had before the pandemic. The long-awaited desire for telework was a reality for the majority of companies. Organizations that wanted to attract and retain employees had to consider more flexibility. My company struggled a bit in the early days to find a model that would not undermine our ability to collaborate and innovate, which has been the key ingredient in our success. We wanted to maintain our culture of teamwork that was inclusive of new and young workers to grow and learn in our complex industry. We’ve been working in our new model for over a year now and with our four different role types we feel like we hit the sweet spot balancing flexibility and working together.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend however is social wellbeing within our communities. Canadians are reporting that diagnosis of depression or anxiety has increased since the pandemic. Many more people are saying they rarely or never have someone to count on, and lacking social connection is a major health risk factor for both mental and physical health conditions. Especially where people are working at home alone for most of their days and weeks, they report feeling isolated and lonely. We are hearing that workers feel there is a blurring of work and home life and they have difficulty disconnecting from work at the end of the day. In HR, we need to focus on making social connections a priority and support people in nurturing relationships both at work and outside of work. It is important that every leader is intentional about reaching out to remote workers and making in-person days meaningful.
The move to hybrid and flexible work has been one of the most fundamental shifts in the workplace since the industrial revolution
What keeps you up at night when it comes to some of the major predicaments in the HR Industry?
The thing that I worry about the most is the labor market. We have known that demographics were working against us for years and that the baby boomers were going to retire. However, the shift was so quick, as we came out of the pandemic that it was unsettling. I heard many leaders saying where did all the workers go? I work for a company that historically had hundreds of applicants for most posted roles but that changed quickly with the recent labor shortage. Recruiting new employees and maintaining the ones we have has become a top priority for most HR professionals. That means our top priority is to focus on the employee experience. What is our secret sauce? Why do our employees want to work here and why do they stay? We need to bottle that up and then project it back out to potential candidates, to applicants, and to our existing employees. That is our employee value proposition, what is the unique value or set of benefits that an employee gets in return for the knowledge, skills, and abilities they bring to a company. It is important to define the essence of each company how it is unique and what it stands for in order to compete in this labor market.
The other thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about the leaders in my company. The world has really changed around them. Leaders need support with cultivating a psychologically safe and inclusive environment for all workers even those they can’t see if they are working remotely. Many global companies have had this challenge for years but today almost all companies are facing this. Most leaders rose through the ranks due to their technical abilities, so the new world of work really tests their people and leadership skills. We have heard this theme through the many pulse check surveys we did during and since the pandemic and have responded with several training and resource guides. But we’ve heard that it is important for leaders to come together to learn and share, to have the opportunity to hear from each other what is working and what isn’t.
Can you tell us about the latest project that you have been working on, and what are some of the technological and process elements that you leveraged to make the project successful?
We have many projects on the go. To name a few, we are in the process of replacing our enterprise resource planning system. This is a critical system that supports all of our processes. We have a governance structure with support from our information technology group to guide us with this time-consuming and expensive project. The parts that I’m most involved in is the human capital management system and the learning management system.
I mentioned our employee value proposition project above. We partnered with an external consulting firm for the stakeholder engagement and are surveying to ensure we accurately reflected the current sentiment of our company essence and experience.
Internally, we use a surveying tool to support our employee listening strategy. It is so important to hear from employees as they start with the company, throughout their employment journey at the various stages of their career, and then again when they resign or retire from the company to hear how we can do better. We are gearing up for the bi-annual employee engagement survey and diversity data refresh in the fall.
What are some of the technological trends, which excite you for the future of the HR Industry?
Initially I wasn’t excited about the trend of increased artificial intelligence. I was worried about things like Chat GPT and other tools that might make it hard to determine if something is original work. Like, if an applicant uses Chat GPT to write a resume, would we be able to determine if they will be a good fit for the company? I was reassured and learned from our chief information officer. We shouldn’t focus on whether or not we should use it, rather focus on how we could use it and what for. It doesn’t replace professional judgment, but we should be open to advancements that allow us to increase productivity and produce a better product.
Another new and interesting project is a substance use management pilot we are doing with Alavida which is an example technology to promote wellbeing. This service provides on-demand support right from an employee’s smart phone. The tool gives access to evidence-based care all in one place and a personalized care team is available 24/7 and can be accessed anywhere, anytime.
More and more HR professionals are called on to leverage the ample data we have. Doing so allows us to be more strategic by offering data-driven insights. Different HR departments are at different stages of digital transformation and we are often dealing with legacy processes and systems, insufficient budget and/or lacking digital literacy skills. It is important to ensure a strong HR Strategy foundation to drive technical maturity keeping employees and their experience at the center of this journey.
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that the trend is for organizations to rely on HR professionals for our expertise. I’m excited by the possibilities in front of us to continue to bring a people lens to strategic decisions to enable business success.
