Key takeaways | Unveiling the HR priorities of high-performing organisations
The Top Employers 2021 Certificate Celebration, which took place on 28 January 2021, brought together HR industry experts from around the world to celebrate excellence in HR, to connect HR leaders from Top Employers across the globe, as well as to inspire and share the best people practices for the year ahead.
During one of the breakout sessions, Unveiling the HR priorities of high-performing organisations, key strategic areas that certified organisations focus on as it relates to their people practices were revealed.
The session was facilitated by Top Employer Institute's Ammara Naeem (Senior HR Auditor) and Adrian Seligman (Chief Commercial Officer). Before Ammara unpacked the top five HR priorities of high-performing organisations, Adrian shared data trends that indicate a strong positive correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction, profitability, and productivity. Employers that consistently outperform their competition prioritise investing in their employees for long-term rewards. Furthermore, high-performing organisations are able to translate their business strategy into people strategy and vice versa.
Watch the full session by filling in the form, or read the key takeaways here:
5 priorities of high-performing organisations
Priority #1: Supporting organisational and cultural change
Organisational and cultural change remains the number one HR priority for high-performing organisations. In recent times, change, due to technological and business development, has been the only constant. The pandemic accelerated the need to reinforce or revamp organisational culture and change, especially as it relates to employee empowerment, trust, and accountability.
Priority #2: Leadership development
Leadership development has shifted from developing only executives to being a strategic initiative for all employees to develop. The increase in remote work has highlighted the need for employees to lead themselves, eventually lead others, and subsequently, the business.
Priority #3: People strategy
A key focus area is translating the HR or people strategy into tangible business outcomes. People initiatives such as employee engagement and learning and development need to be aligned with the business strategy to improve the organisation’s bottom line directly.
Priority #4: Employee engagement
Employee engagement remains one of the key focus areas for high-performing organisations. Employers continue to focus on providing the right conditions to enable employees to be enthusiastic about their work and the goals of the organisation.
Priority #5: Learning and development
The continuous growth of employees through learning and development is still a significant driver of employee engagement. Employees are in search of multiple career paths, and the provision of personalised learning and development opportunities is an enabler of this.
Continuous improvement
Over and above the priorities that high-performing organisations focus on, the standout quality is their year-on-year improvement of overall people practices. In the last year, organisations focused on areas such as wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and career development.
Watch Unveiling the HR priorities of high-performing organisations session to learn more about the top five priorities and the three key focus areas of continuous improvement for Top Employers.
