Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 11 strategic management function and organizations are looking for HR "to help solve and help direct and lead this transition into this new workspace," says Brick. "Companies are looking to HR for solutions and ideas and, of course, this is new to us as well. But we're in the people business, and organizations are realizing just how critical our staff is. The reality is they're now finding that they need those employees in ways that they had never envisioned before [because] this came out of left field for most organizations; it happened so quickly that they are now turning to HR to say, 'Can you help lead us with this?'" As well, HR professionals need to be aware of "softer or more transient capabilities, things like digital literacy or innovation, action orientation, being purposeful and data-obsessed, being team igniters — these are the net new capabilities that we see [in] HR leaders around the world asking the question 'How do we start to build these up?'" says Baker Calamai. To keep up with the change and take HR has also had to pivot to become truly people focused due to the fact that the pandemic has dramatically affected employees' lives, according to a change management expert. "There's more of a shift now to a more people-centred approach in organizations, and that's where HR plays a very big part to support that type of change," says Yvonne Ruke Akpoveta, change strategist advisor at the Change Leadership management consulting firm in Toronto. And with the anti-racism movement of Black Lives Matter and greater focus on diversity and inclusion, that's a heavier look at values as a whole, she says. "There is more need to be change leaders, to be responsive to the changes that are taking place around us, because there's a huge variety of changes taking place around; it's happening at such a speed that there's so much that they have to be conscious about." Newer skills required of HR In addition to managing people, HR is becoming an essential component of the advantage of it, HR professionals should be looking to adopt a more "non-technical skills-based approach. Things like more empathy, emotional intelligence, all those kinds of skills are becoming more important," says Ruke Akpoveta. "It's even having HR to say, 'How do we recruit for the new types of skillsets that we need in our organization in order to move forward?'" HR can cast a wider net to find those types of skillsets in new hires, she says. "Is that talent based here in Toronto? Or now that we have more remote working, do we have that option to fill in gaps that we couldn't fill before with recruiting people from different places, because remote working is now more accessible?" But HR leaders should also remember to look inward, says Brick. "A lot of HR organizations tend to forget that they need to care for themselves. One of the things we're starting to see is some burnout with HR people. They've got so much going on, and they're constantly being asked to help and to do things, and it's new to them. New is exciting, but new is also exhausting at times and, so, we're finding that one of the lessons that I give when I'm talking to HR executives is: 'Please don't lose sight of the effect this is having on your team. Your team has to be well to help the others be well.'" CHRR "We're starting to see burnout with HR people. They've got so much going on. New is exciting, but new is also exhausting." Rick Brick, University of Alberta

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