5 Things People Leaders Need To Know in 2024

When Workvivo’s Chief People Strategist Gillian French went to the 2024 Talent Summit, she got the chance to sit down and chat to four seasoned people leaders: Ryanair’s Chief People Officer, Darrell Hughes; People, Strategy & Change Consultant, Stephanie Prenderville; Aer Lingus Chief People Office, Anne Kiely; and CHRO of Harvard Business Publishing, Angela Cheng-Cimini.

Check out our top takeaways below and listen back to their conversations in the video further down.

1. Technology is key to managing a dispersed workforce

Ryanair’s Darrell Hughes described Ryanair as always having a disparate workforce that’s geographically spread.

“At the moment, we've got 94 bases across 17 countries across Europe and North Africa. But the challenge for us is, not just that dispersion and that variety, it's also the fact that those people do their work 20,000 feet in the air so they're not in an office.

“So what we did from a very early stage was we set up a very centralized HR function. So rather than having HR people out there who wouldn't see the staff anyway, we have them in Dublin, which means we can have fewer of them and they could be more specialized. But in order to deliver that, you have to have the right tools in place. So we've always had a huge focus on internal communications.

“The technology has gotten better and better. Our ability now to pump out rich content, videos and so on is great. And we've got new tools in our arsenal, but it's the same philosophy all along in terms of communicating with people and getting our message out there.”

Tools that facilitate two-way communication are particularly impactful. “People give back to us, and people are very direct. We like our people to be cynical. We like our people to be questioning, we like them to be pushing boundaries. And that includes with us, because you can't have it both ways on this.”

2. ‘There is no part of an organization that will go untouched as a result of AI’

With over 25 years of experience, Stephanie Prenderville has played a key role in evolving HR from a support role to a strategic partner across various industries. Now, she’s passionate about communicating the benefits AI has to offer HR professionals.

But you talked about the three categories that people tend to fall into when thinking about AI. So maybe you could talk us through the three categories and how you think about it?

“The big impact is, almost all of our existing HR frameworks are going to go out the window. I think we're going to have to reinvent and reimagine the entire organization. It's not going to happen overnight.

“But in terms of what AI can do, think about the wasted hours that HR spend on doing transactional work, on fixing errors. HR's data by its nature is dirty. AI can help make a difference on the quality of the data and the quality of the analytics that have been such a bane of our lives.

“And it's not just about HR statistics or hiring numbers or how many people have left us. It's sentiment analysis that you would've taken weeks and spent a lot of money with organizational psychologists to go through our employee engagement surveys and pull out the comments. AI can actually do that this fast.

“So the efficiency it creates is to allow HR to then step into its superpowers of doing what it's great at doing, which is bringing value add and creating empathy with employees, and allowing employees to have a much better employee experience.”

3. Three things that keep a CPO awake at night

Anne Kiely has learned many things in her role as CPO. She’s learned that when you reach the C-suite, for example, you’re “very often the only challenger in the room”.

“And we have to be; that's part of our job to kind of call out if culture isn't going well, or if there's something that we need to tweak.”

But there are three things in particular that concern her about the HR industry right now.

Now our managers are coaches, mentors, philosophers, financial advisors, and more. So we need to figure out a way to unburden our managers and let them get back to the day job. And AI and technology all can and should leverage that. 

Another thing is making sure that the people function is given the plaudits that it deserves. We work very hard, we do a lot of things, we do a lot of work that most people don't need to do, nor would they do. So finding a way to make sure that the HR team, the people team are branded correctly and are seen for the impact that they have. 

The question being asked around diversity and inclusion, really, still? Are we not there yet? We're never going to be there because there's always going to be a voice that needs elevating, and we want to elevate all the voices because that's what makes better outcomes, aside from it's the right thing to do. And aside from the empathy and everything else, businesses need all the voices to make the biggest and the best decisions.  

4. People teams need to get ready for hyper-personalization

Angela Cheng-Cimini knows that hyper-personalization is coming, but also that good people leaders are already laying the foundation.

“The beauty of hyper-personalization is that it's actually not that different from what you're already doing day to day. So you should be having regular conversations with your employees, whether that's one-to-ones or your quarterly reviews, or your annual review or career discussions or coaching sessions. It's just leaning in more fully and being more intentional about the listening that you're doing.

“Do less talking, do more listening so that you can understand where that person is. Perhaps their mental state of that day is different than it was the day before. And being able to pick up the emotional cues so you can respond and say, ‘You know what? I'm going to hit pause on the agenda today because you look a little distracted’ or, ‘You look a little tired’ or, ‘I remembered that Johnny was in a play yesterday. Tell me about that’.

“Just taking those moments to really care about the other, that's hyper-personalization.”

5. Self-care needs to be a non-negotiable

Angela believes that the greatest challenge for people leaders over the next 12 months is self-care.

“No question. We take care of everybody else, and not through any fault of their own, but rarely does anybody ask us how we are. We take on some of the most difficult decisions that happen invisibly. And I think we put on a brave face because that's a little bit of what we try to do. We uplift others, we try to keep others inspired. And so it's a little inauthentic to be sure, but within our own function, we need to be taking care of ourselves.

“But at the same time, for me, it is as exciting a time to be in HR as ever.”