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Once paper pushes who worked on transactional activities and only thought of as the hiring and firing department, HR has come a long way in aligning itself with a company’s mission, vision and purpose.

HR seems to be touching every aspect of the business. Now working on your culture, well-being of staff, facing a skill shortage, and talent scarce market; 2024 is set to be one of the toughest year for HR pros everywhere.

The Financial Review sat down with the HR heads of some of the biggest companies in Australia to find out what they think is really going on, and it proved to be a really interesting read.

Here’s some of the things they had to say.

The top of the agenda for BHP’s Jad Vodopija is energy transition, technology, and navigating Australia’s complex IR systems. Revealing how politics can play a huge role in HR and IR industries, affecting our work and challenging our pivoting techniques. After the most controversial IR shake-up with the new ‘same-pay, same-job’ laws for labour hire workers, Jad indicates that Aussie businesses will need to apply ‘hundreds of new pages of legislation…impacting creation of new jobs and skills’.

Jad also states “Nearly half the world’s skilled engineering workforce will reach retirement age in the next decade. At the same time, the number of mining engineering graduates in Australia has dropped by three-quarters since 2015. And, the annual apprentice completion is also the lowest it’s been for 23 years.”

Yikes! Seems to be a tough decade to follow….Possibly a combination of AI engineering and real investment and incentive likely to be pushed into engineering studies.

On the other hand,  Julie Fallon from Woodside Energy is not fazed by the ‘same job, same pay’ laws for labour hire workers. Although sharing the same sentiment of disappointment over the new legislation, Julie is looking forward to taking a pragmatic approach on a case by case basis. Seems Woodside is not as reliant on labour hire workers, rather employing contractors which may not be captured in the new laws.

Instead, Woodside Energy will hit 2024 leveraging technology in hopes to make things more efficient. Like the rest of us I guess! The priority among other things is continuing with flexibility where appropriate, and ensuring there is no unconscious bias in their people decisions.

Elisa Clements from ANZ has nominated six key areas of priority for 2024; productivity and engagement; attracting and retaining talent; Environment, Social, and Governance; wellbeing; hybrid work; and building skills for the future. All very sensible and on trend priorities. A newer trend in 2024 seems to be environment and social responsibilities, including sustainability. Do you think this is a consumer priority or a talent priority?

With Medibank’s trial of the four day work week currently in place, I was excited to look into some of Kylie Bishop’s priorities for 2024. Kylie did not disappoint me, she’s fast becoming one of my favourite CPOs and its mostly due to her creative and experimental strategies.

Medibank‘s Work Reinvented program challenges their thinking to find the best strategies to work efficiently.  They have recently reorganised their teams as part of the effort of working more efficiently. This means at Medibank, employees are not grouped by occupation, they have cross-functional teams made of up of diverse skills. Have a look at what she had to say below.

“You’ll have marketers, digital people, people and culture, and product folk all coming together in an end-to-end team…we’re bringing those people together to try and limit how many handoffs or transfers they have to do to actually deliver the work.” Personally, I am really keen to hear what the data shows with this way of working. Will it show to be more efficient? Or will Kylie go back to her creative drawing board?

Next up, we have Deb Yates from Lendlease. The challenge this year will be changing their culture. I’ve heard this culture strategy a few times, and honestly I am not sold. Deb is asking her employees to, respectfully, disagree with each other more. She feels by not doing more of this, people are holding back, which can deprive the company of their diverse thoughts. She states people who feel more heard are more likely to commit.

It’s an interesting theory, I just think there’s a fine line between disagreeing openly, and it being seen as criticising. BUT, I do understand that plugging this in as part of your culture will take some time, and it can be likely that the outcome is amazing, but what negative impact might it have a long the way? I guess no reward without the risk.

How do you feel about some of these people challenges and priorities for some of Australia’s largest companies?

What are your biggest people challenges or priorities for 2024? We’d love to heard your thoughts in the comments below, or send your queries to contact@hyroblog.com

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