Clear Workforce Strategies as a Unique Advantage on the Market

How people and culture leaders are creating a competitive and happy workforce?

What are the main human capital optimisation challenges?

The human capital is equally important as the financial capital of any organization. People and culture are driving organizations’ purpose and profit in the uncertain world were on top of pandemics, social and political unrests, and wars, the ageing workforce, demographic shifts and volatility of access to talent are hitting all employers around the world.

The effective transformation of human capital into strategic impact continues to be the main challenge for many global corporations. The strategic human capital plan enables the identification of organizations’ strategic capabilities, identifies strategic positions in those capabilities, places players with strategic capabilities in those positions and finally enables them to implement the strategic human capital plan throughout the organization. The investment is focused on the jobs and people that create the most value.

Organizations having clear workforce strategies implemented are positioned on the market with the unique advantage that competitors can’t replicate.

How do you see the current role of human resources function in global corporate strategy?

People and culture leaders and professionals are business experts on people and culture topics. People and culture leaders are global corporations’ assets and are the front line in creating a competitive and happy workforce driving that strategic and competitive advantage mentioned in the previous human capital strategy question.

How “people analytics” can improve employee performance and boost engagement?

People analytics are data about human behaviour, relationships, and traits to make business decisions. Without people analytics business is taking decisions based on hierarchy, risk avoidance, emotions, or anecdotal experience. With people analytics, the decision-making process increases the quality of decisions based on data analysis, prediction, and experimental research.

Global corporations are competing in the new world of data, in the age of AI, machine learning, and it’s clear that data create a competitive advantage. People analytics are an essential part of the analysis when driving strategic, cultural or process transformation in the organization.

People analytics can help us in various situations, e.g., small changes or in specific question to answer, such as analysis of the aging workforce and its talent replacement with capabilities of the future.

Recently my team has used in-depth people analytics analysis as a preparation for “an opening door” to business insights when conducting strategic workforce planning with a focus on tenure, age, gender, potential, performance, and level of the workforce.

Another example of in-depth people analytics used is Equity, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion program that has triggered a cultural transformation. A transformation is a whole portfolio of change initiatives that together form an integrated program. People analytics in this transformation played the most critical role as the first change initiative in the portfolio of many – provided the voice and consequently a movement of the system.

People Analytics enable major transformations, hence transformations become a little less daunting and a little more successful.

 

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Elena RAJNAK is an HR Director R&D at AbbVie. She leads the AbbVie’s Human Resources team with responsibility for the business partnering with the second most strategic Research and Development site within AbbVie enterprise. She is also driving AbbVie’s EED&I topic across the Global R&D function, Western Europe and Canada area, and Germany. Recently, Abbvie has recognized Elena with two awards for her work on EED&I by CEO and CHRO.

In her previous role with Roche, she served as Global Human Resources Partner dedicated to the scientific environment, Global Quality and Regulatory and Research and Development. Elena Rajnak was responsible for their transformation into modern and agile organization able to adapt to internal customer needs while fulfilling all regulatory and compliance requirements. In addition, she has actively advanced work on internal HR Transformation.

Before joining Roche in September 2015, Elena established Amazon corporate site as HR Site Head on the green field. This was Amazon’s first footprint in Eastern and Central Europe, where she was instrumental in further growth of Amazon’s operations and the establishment of several corporate site offices, including fulfilment centers in the region.

Elena Rajnak holds a master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from New York University, and a master’s degree in Slovak and English Language and Literature from Comenius University.