Future of Work: How can People and Culture stay ahead

In the age of automation, talent management needs to sync with the rapid steps of change - tech and humans, altogether. Since Future of Work is building as we speak, the People and Culture (PaC) departments have an undeniable, constant thirst for understanding workforce needs and perspectives on their career growth. Get insights into how the Linnifian People and Culture aim to stay ahead of the game. Allow Carina, our People and Culture Generalist, to brief you on her takeaways from a whole week of Learning and Development. 

When it comes to in-depth focused work sessions, what better way to enjoy the silence, witness, and participate in growth, if not a full-on remote Learning and Development (L&D) work week?

As Linnify’s People and Culture Department, we decided to put L&D as the focus of a full week. We had the opportunity to encapsulate this time in such a manner as a result of a quarter of intense work that allowed us to wrap it with a full growth-week.

Myself, Raluca, and Cosmin packed our bags and retreated within the tranquil scenery of ‘Dawn Cabin’ (Cabana Zorii Zilei). Being welcomed with open arms and traditional food has constructed the perfect getaway safe space for the week. 

Come with us to this retrospective.

As the Head of People and Culture (PaC) within a talent-first, fast-growing tech company, Raluca, familiarly known as PaC Fairy, has been extremely determined to create an L&D hub and focus on our professional improvement. 

The main general aim of our L&D week was to reinforce and step up our know-how basis for internal growth while, of course, strengthening the team.

As a goal breakdown of the entire week, People and Culture aimed to achieve:

• Upskilling our internal talent platforms management
• Perspective building on our refreshed core systems
• Better understanding of efficient solutions for reaching the company’s growth objectives

How to navigate the new world of work in the age of automation

There are infinite lists of HR tools designed for growing companies, but what’s essential for these companies is to find their perfect mix and match of what works best for them.

We focused on sharpening our skills on three main platforms: Personio, Confluence, and Lattice. 

Our major learning goal was to bring clarity on how to use them at maximum capacity.

What these platforms mean to us, besides their intelligent process automation, is that, if used well, they have the power to bridge the gap between processes to people.

Here's why we've chosen these tools:

• Personio optimizes processes aiming to ‘give HR teams time to focus on what really matters: people’, 
• Confluence creates a place for people to collaborate on any project or idea with dynamic pages, and 
• Lattice puts people's growth first, enhancing the best places to work and bringing great company-wide transparency, alignment, and feedback opportunities. 

Go beyond just using HR tools - meet and engage with communities of HR professionals

Aside from the ease these tools bring to everyday tasks, their communities, us included, participate in growth-oriented events, one of which we’ve attended this week. 

Hosted by Lattice, the conference focused on - you’ve got it there - ‘the people’. But how? In plentiful of perspectives, three of which were our favorites:

1. Engaging with the ripple effect in collaborative goal-setting methodologies 

That put things in perspective on the professional company-wide effect: how each person’s progress takes the whole company a step closer to accomplishing its goal; but also on the personal progress side: on how to improve yourself 1% at a time (suggestion from a special guest: James Clear, author of ‘Atomic Habits’)

2. Elaborating wholesome experiences within the Hybrid work model

When it comes to the combination of office-remote arrangements, the conference highlighted how HR professionals need to accommodate their magic in both working scenarios: office and remote. 

We are all in for amazing remote experiences. At the same time, we are also all about maintaining collective innovation, productivity, and well-being by getting together to work at our HQ. 

We’ve gone hybrid since 2021. What’s always nice to see is how Linnifians mostly opt for working from the office regardless of the liberty to work remotely.

3. Broaden our burnout knowledge spectrum by shifting focus to HR professionals' burnout

There is indeed a big difference between burnout and fatigue, I know. Burnout comes from a psychological background indeed, but it is the result of prolonged fatigue. (And if it wasn’t scary enough, it can even transform into compassion fatigue.) 

The burnout phenomenon can happen in multiple spheres of activity. In spite of its overwhelming and draining effects, one should keep in mind that challenges faced with the right people by your side are not impossible to overcome.

Sidenote on how we see burnout:

Burnout in tech is real and we want to raise awareness of how heavily it can impact those who have gone past the fine line that turns exhaustion into a mental health disorder. 

But burnout is also a problem for HR professionals managing the burnout levels of their people. ‘Burnout and exhaustion are widespread in HR with 42% of teams struggling under the weight of too many projects and responsibilities’ says SHRM.

Preventing it should always be on our minds. One mindful method is to always be aware of yourself and how you feel about the work you’re doing. Frequently revisit your personal ‘why’ to see what brings joy out of your efforts. 

If there is no joy felt, work fatigue seems to have a special invitation. 

Although autumn and the cold weather are slowly creeping in, we were lucky enough to enjoy some sunny days in the mountains. Being in tune with nature and with our inner selves has proven, once again, to be beneficial to our work performance and internal balance. It was honestly very considerate how we effortlessly respected each other’s boundaries and personal time. Each of us had the opportunity to work on our foreign language skills, read books or realign with ourselves through meditation and breathing exercises. 

Our team’s bond got even stronger throughout this process. It was the type of experience that gave us even more positive vibes and energy to propagate into our work environment, also internally known as Linniverse. 

Definitely, something that we will do in the future also.

Further reads:

Human resources in the age of automation | McKinsey

‘Back to human’: Why HR leaders want to focus on people again | McKinsey