What does it take to build a resilient workforce in a time of constant change? How can organisations balance transparency with trust, or use AI while staying human-centred? And what does career growth look like in a flatter, more agile world?

These questions reflect the real tensions that HR leaders are grappling with globally. In fact, trust in HR has declined by 11 percentage points since 2022, according to the World of Work Trends 2025 report by Top Employers Institute. This signals a growing need for people practices that are transparent, inclusive, and grounded in purpose.

During her recent visit to Singapore, Nicole Pieterse, Global Head of HR and Property & Casualty at Top Employer Swiss Re, shared how the organisation is responding to these shifts—investing in trust, adaptability, and long-term sustainability to better serve both employees and business goals.

Swiss Re’s approach offers valuable, real-world learnings for HR teams seeking to future-proof their people strategies amid continued disruption.

Let’s get inspired by how Swiss Re is approaching some of the most urgent priorities facing HR today:

Making Pay Transparency a Global Standard

Swiss Re is ahead of the curve in responding to upcoming EU pay transparency regulations. Going beyond taking a regional compliance approach, the company is implementing full pay transparency across all major global locations. The aim is twofold: ensure fairness, and foster trust. Employees are now able to see how their pay compares to market benchmarks. This has opened the door for more honest, informed conversations about remuneration, recognition, and career progression.

To support this shift, Swiss Re developed dedicated dashboards for line managers and delivered tailored training to help them navigate complex discussions. This was essential, particularly when addressing sensitive topics such as employees reaching the top of a pay band or those starting at the lower end.

Transparency in pay, when done thoughtfully, becomes a catalyst for deeper conversations about value, growth and retention. As Nicole shared, “It’s not just about the numbers—it’s about what those numbers mean to people.”

Building Line Manager Confidence

Swiss Re recognised early on that transparency would only be meaningful if line managers were confident and skilled in discussing it. To ensure readiness, the organisation took a pragmatic approach by investing in capability-building.

Managers received not only tools, but training sessions grounded in Swiss Re’s overall pay philosophy. Designed as a holistic learning journey. managers gained deeper understanding about the link between reward and development, and how transparency can strengthen employee trust. By treating transparency as a relational practice, the company ensured it was embedded across the employee experience.

This directly addresses a broader challenge identified in the World of Work Trends 2025 report: rebuilding trust in HR and leadership through open dialogue and systems that employees feel are fair and human-centred.

Redesigning Careers for a Flatter World

With fewer layers in the organisation, traditional hierarchical career paths no longer apply. At Swiss Re, this challenge became an opportunity to reframe how growth and development are understood. Employees are now encouraged to build a “skills portfolio” through lateral moves, project-based work, and cross-functional exposure. This is supported by learning opportunities and performance conversations that focus on future potential—not just role-based performance.

Nicole pointed out that employees are still looking for the same fundamental things: growth, good leadership, and purpose. But delivering those experiences now requires more agility and personalisation.

This approach resonates with the shift described in the Trends report – meaningful development is no longer tied to a job title, but rather the accumulation of experience, learning, and capability.

A Future-Ready Leadership Approach

Swiss Re continues to prioritise leadership development, particularly in preparing talent for bigger roles amid growing complexity. The organisation uses a structured assessment framework that goes beyond performance to evaluate ambition, agility, emotional intelligence, and cultural alignment. Importantly, leadership development is tailored to different career stages and integrated into succession planning — ensuring leaders are identified and nurtured well before key roles become vacant.

In parallel, Swiss Re is exploring how AI can complement leadership. Early efforts focus on using AI to improve productivity and data-driven insights, while preserving the role of human leaders as sense-makers and culture carriers.

This hybrid approach reflects an emerging trend: the rise of AI-powered leadership, where leaders use intelligent systems to support strategy and team development — without replacing emotional intelligence and ethical judgment.

Embracing AI with Clarity and Care

Swiss Re has taken a deliberate, phased approach to introducing AI into the workplace. The first phase focused on workplace productivity—giving employees access to tools that save time and reduce manual tasks.

This lowered anxiety and built confidence, laying the foundation for more transformative AI adoption in the future.

Importantly, Swiss Re has framed AI not as a threat, but as a co-pilot. This narrative shift—supported by education and clear communication—has allowed the organisation to introduce new technologies while maintaining trust.

The World of Work Trends 2025 report reinforces this as a best practice: organisations that embrace AI as a partner rather than a disruptor are seeing improved employee engagement and internal promotion rates.

Evolving Culture through Distributed Ownership

Swiss Re has opted for cultural evolution rooted in lived experience. Since the arrival of its new Group CEO in 2024, the company has focused on enhancing what’s already working, while being clear about new expectations for speed, collaboration, and impact.

Key to this effort is the activation of “culture movers”— employees embedded across the business who act as champions of culture and practice. Combined with regular pulse surveys, this approach ensures Swiss Re can respond to local realities without losing global coherence.

Culture, as Nicole puts it, “isn’t about sameness. It’s about alignment between our stated values and how people actually experience the workplace.”

This model aligns closely with insights from the World of Work Trends 2025 report, which highlights how organisations must design cultures that are inclusive of diverse experiences and that extend beyond the organisational boundary.

Responding to Generational Shifts with Inclusive Design

With Gen Z becoming the dominant demographic in many organisations, there’s pressure to tailor workplace strategies to their expectations. But Swiss Re has taken a more inclusive view by creating policies that resonate across generations.

While Gen Z may value flexibility, purpose and sustainability, these are increasingly universal desires. Swiss Re’s approach is to meet those needs in ways that also support mid- and late-career employees.

This is a core message in the Trends report: that building sustainable workplaces requires designing for all life stages, not just the loudest demographic. By doing so, organisations build cultures of trust, equity and long-term retention.

Advice to the HR Community

Reflecting on her own journey, Nicole shared one piece of advice for HR professionals that stood out: “Stop being apologetic. Claim your space.”

HR, she emphasised, must confidently take its place at the strategic table. That means understanding the business deeply, speaking its language, and demonstrating value through data and action.

It’s a timely reminder that HR’s influence grows when it delivers both care and clarity, and when it acts as both an advocate for people and a steward of business performance.

Closing Thought

Swiss Re’s example offers a practical roadmap for any organisation aiming to align its people strategy with the realities of the modern workforce. From transparency and culture to AI and careers, the emphasis is on intentionality—designing systems that are human, fair, and future-ready.

As the world of work continues to shift, these lessons serve as a benchmark for what forward-thinking, principle-driven HR can look like in practice.

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