While some big employer brands fell down at the end of the ‘noughties’ in terms of their people strategies, insight from the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) 13th Annual CEO Survey, launched at Davos, suggests that CEOs are prioritising the people agenda as a means to recover and grow.

The research, based on in-depth interviews with around 70 CEOs of UK organisations, found some areas of weakness have been highlighted by the recession and the majority (85%) of CEOs expect to overhaul the way their organisations manage people during change as a consequence of the economic crisis. Attending to staff morale was highlighted by four in five (81%) CEOs as an area also in need of reform and increased investment. Some 59% said they will make changes to flexible working while 55% will revise global mobility arrangements – looking at factors such as staff travel or international secondments.(...)

Post-recession role of HR

Some big questions are being raised that could impact whether the human resource function (HR) will actually be trusted as an appropriate adviser during and beyond recovery. The unanticipated scale of the cost-cutting, headcount and redeployment changes required by organisations during the downturn meant some of the processes in place could not support rapidly changing needs and brought some human capital failures to the surface.

Michael Rendell, partner and leader, human resource services, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, commented:

“There is some debate about whether HR did its job during the downturn and whether the function is broken - particularly in terms of the reward models it champions and its ability to cultivate an agile, flexible workforce. If not satisfactorily answered, some speculate that these questions could jeopardise HR’s opportunity to prove itself and see it reduced to an administrative function.

“There are some big issues that will, in part, influence how successfully these new challenges are met - for example, how supportive the Government is in helping to create a skilled future workforce and how politicised debates around education and remuneration become.

“Preparing for the upturn is a clear platform of opportunity for HR and, in the near future, this will mean refocusing on managing through change and engagement programmes as talent gaps need to be closed and roles redefined. Given the strong focus CEOs appear to be placing on people management strategy and processes, we expect to see significant changes to HR models over this decade.”

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