Market View

Adaptive HR in a Dynamic World: Navigating Diversity, Jurisdiction, and the Modern Workforce

Interview with

Jenny Hillyer

Human Resources Director

About Jenny Hillyer

Jenny Hillyer has built an accomplished 25-year career as a human resources leader, serving in critical roles like Chief People Officer and HR Director at major companies including Domestic & General, HSBC and Shell. In these positions, she sharpened her focus on enhancing culture, engagement, development and diversity to drive optimal people performance. After such an intensely dedicated timeframe contributing in HR, Jenny decided to step back upon leaving her CPO post at Domestic & General in April 2023 to recharge and reflect on what the next chapter in her professional journey might become.

How has the evolving nature of work impacted your HR strategies, technology, and processes?

In the context of Domestic & General's shift towards globalisation and becoming a technology-led business approach, it was required to substantially evolve the HR strategies. I was responsible for leading the people agenda and steered these changes, evolving the people strategy with the new business direction. This entailed fostering a global mindset across the organisation and embracing our evolution from traditionally operations-led to a technology and product-centric model.

The HR processes underwent modernisation to support this transformation, focusing on creating a more progressive, modern, employee-focused work environment. This modernisation was also vital for enhancing the appeal as a prospective employer and improving staff retention.

Adapting to the CEO's rapid pace of change was crucial. My role involved staying ahead, anticipating future requirements, and proactively adapting HR strategies. The HR team aimed to align with market trends and the CEO's vision, ensuring HR played a pivotal role in the company's ongoing transformation.

In what ways does your organisation address the challenges posed by a diverse and decentralised workforce?

In 2021/22, a global functional organisational structure was implemented, balancing global oversight and local autonomy to manage the decentralised workforce across multiple jurisdictions.. This involved empowered country leadership teams, reporting into a centralised global framework, strategically ensuring consistency in global processes while respecting local nuances.

This structure aligned with the shift towards becoming a truly global business. It entailed creating global functions under which country operations were nested, with country leadership teams maintaining autonomy. This approach aligned global initiatives and processes while enabling local adaptation.

While still evolving, this model has laid groundwork supporting both global standardisation and regional empowerment. It represents the ongoing effort to balance global integration with the diversity across our operating countries.

What role does technology play in ensuring your HR strategies remain current and effective?

The major trend I've observed in the last 6-12 months centres around data and analytics within HR, utilising insights to drive evidence-based decisions for people initiatives. Historically, HR hasn't heavily invested in this area.

I believe HR can make data-driven decisions and should collaborate more closely with data science experts. A case in point is when I had the Talent Acquisition team work with data scientists on customer service agent recruitment, using analytics to model the 'ideal' agent in the context of high staff turnover. It was a gamble, deciding not to recruit certain types of people and instead rely on this data model. However, it proved successful – we observed reduced turnover and fewer absences. For me, that's the future: HR professionals who think like data scientists, utilising insights to make credible, informed decisions and take calculated risks. With the advancement of AI, this approach will only become more effective.

How important and how do you ensure your HR platform remains flexible and adaptive to the changing needs of the business?

A disjointed HR platform across different countries made it challenging to develop global people metrics, like overall attrition or time off rates, from different systems with varying calculation methods. The CEO requested easy access to such global figures, but the fragmented nature of our systems made this incredibly challenging. To address this, we had to start from the ground up, rethinking our approach to unify data and reporting across all countries. This fundamental shift was key to ensuring our HR platform could adapt to the evolving needs of our business, providing coherent and accessible global data.

How would you describe the organisation's approach to data and system integration?

In the transition at Domestic & General to a single HR platform, the shift from country-specific reporting to a global system was key. This change, aligning with the CEO's vision, meant consolidating diverse metrics into one global report, crucial for an overall view despite initial system limitations.

The journey to secure funding for an integrated global HRIS required us to highlight the drawbacks of our fragmented systems. We put together detailed proposals, underscoring issues like scattered metrics, inconsistent compliance reporting, and the absence of unified data. Convincing the finance team and CFO about the necessity of a unified system involved showcasing the business impacts and potential ROI.

Can you share a recent challenge where having an adaptive HR approach would have been or was crucial to deliver a successful outcome?

In implementing globalisation at Domestic & General, this experience taught me the value of keen observation and understanding team dynamics. In HR, recognising subtle signs or pushback is essential in achieving a successful transformation. Many people are uncomfortable with change, and in retrospect, I should have taken time to listen and understand concerns, rather than solely focusing on outcomes.

In summary, my key advice for HR professionals is to remain observant and empathetic, acknowledging that not everyone progresses at the same pace. It's important to support each team member and work collectively towards common goals. Such an adaptive HR approach is crucial for navigating significant organisational transformations effectively.