News

Almost four in 10 Australian workers say they’re being forced back into the office full-time – more than double the number at the same time last year – as employers clamp down on the post-pandemic revolution in hybrid working.

A new survey from recruitment firm Robert Half reveals 39 per cent of workers surveyed are now mandated to attend the office five days a week, up from 19 per cent last year.

While the number of companies with policies requiring staff to attend the workplace at least one day a week had fallen slightly to 86 per cent, there was a push for workers to spend more of their working week in the office.

According to the survey of 1000 Australian office workers and 300 hiring managers conducted in June, four-day mandates are imposed on 12 per cent of workers surveyed, followed by three-day (17 per cent), two-day (14 per cent) and one-day (4 per cent) requirements, while 14 per cent of workers retain complete flexibility over their working location, up from 13 per cent one year ago.

Robert Half director Andrew Brushfield said the softening jobs market and resulting power shift back to employers had enabled many to enforce stricter rules around in-office attendance.

“The pendulum is swinging back to pre-pandemic levels where working from home was an anomaly rather than an expectation,” Mr Brushfield said.

“Staff are attending the office more than they have since the pandemic as many employers have taken the opportunity of a job market with less candidate leverage to request their employees to come back to the office.”

While most workers are happy with the number of days they’re required in the office, more than one in five are unsatisfied, with the level of staff dissatisfaction rising in line with the number of mandated in-office days per week.

Survey respondents say improved collaboration, teamwork, communication and relationship building are the most important benefits of working from the office, however 84 per cent of staff say there are also negative impacts, led by the increased cost of commuting, lunch and other expenses (48 per cent), challenges managing a healthy work-life balance (37 per cent) and increased levels of stress (31 per cent).

The survey results reveal how hybrid working has emerged as one of the most important perks valued by white-collar workers.

Mr Brushfield said employers needed to strike a fine balance between catering to the demands of workers and maintaining a positive and collaborative workplace culture.

“In the current workplace landscape where flexibility is the new high-level currency for many employees, not everyone is pleased with this change of direction away from remote and hybrid work,” he said.

“Mandated office days can be a double-edged sword for workers. While they foster collaboration and connection, they can also lead to resentment and disengagement if not implemented and justified thoughtfully.

“Even with staff coming to terms with attending the office more frequently, the key for employers is to create an environment that highlights the positives of in-office work and sparks joy, not dread.”

A record number of Australians returning from overseas could thwart the Albanese government’s attempts to cut migration levels, as expats are lured home by the strong jobs market.

A net total of 37,380 Australians arrived in the country in 2023-24, a record number that reverses the trend of surging departures after the borders reopened at the end of the pandemic.

In 2021-22, the first year borders were reopened, a record net of 380,510 Australian citizens left the country. Another 242,610 exited the country in 2022-23.

Immigration expert Abul Rizvi said the figures indicated that good employment and economic conditions in Australia were attracting expats home from overseas. He said the labour market was a particular drawcard for Australians living in New Zealand, Britain, Europe and China.

Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 4.1 per cent in June. But the country still boasts one of the lowest jobless rates across advanced economies.

Inflation figures due in less than two weeks will be the key to the Reserve Bank’s interest rate decision in August, as the country’s jobs market remains strong despite economic headwinds.

The unemployment rate rose by less than 0.1 percentage point to 4.1 per cent in June, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In trend terms, unemployment has remained flat at 4 per cent for four months.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the strong figures were good news in tough economic times.

“This is encouraging but we also know persistent inflation globally and higher interest rates are weighing on our labour market and our economy,” he said.

Opposition employment spokesperson Michaelia Cash said the figures showed a record number of Australians were working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

“People are working harder than ever just to keep their heads above water,” she said.

Both the participation rate (66.9 per cent) and employment-to-population ratio (at 64.2 per cent) remain close to record highs recorded in November.

CreditorWatch chief economist Anneke Thompson said this was positive news for the Reserve Bank, which has been keen to ensure employment remains strong while it works to reduce inflation.

“So far, they are succeeding on the employment side, but it remains to be seen if inflation can be pushed back into the band at the current monetary policy setting,” Thompson said.

The last quarterly consumer price index figures showed inflation had eased to 3.6 per cent through the year to March, down from its December 2022 peak of 7.8 per cent.

However, the more volatile monthly inflation figures have been rising, from 3.6 per cent in the year to April to 4 per cent in the year to May.

A lift in the June-quarter inflation figures would not necessarily spook the Reserve Bank board, but economists said the strength in the jobs market would allow the central bank to lift interest rates next month if inflation was surprisingly high.

AMP deputy chief economist Diana Mousina said job vacancies and advertisements had continued to deteriorate, a leading sign that the labour market was turning, but added that it was easing slowly.

“On its own, today’s labour force release does not pressure the RBA to raise rates again,” she said.

But Mousina said there was a risk the board would lift interest rates next month by 0.25 percentage points, from 4.35 per cent currently, if the June-quarter data showed another high reading for underlying inflation.

EY senior economist Paula Gadsby said the June inflation data, out on July 31, was the key piece of information ahead of the next RBA meeting.

“If that read indicates an acceleration in underlying price pressures, a rate hike is not out of the question. Our central expectation remains that the Reserve Bank will hold the cash rate for some time yet,” she said.

Almost four in 10 Australian workers say they’re being forced back into the office full-time – more than double the number at the same time last year – as employers clamp down on the post-pandemic revolution in hybrid working.

A new survey from recruitment firm Robert Half reveals 39 per cent of workers surveyed are now mandated to attend the office five days a week, up from 19 per cent last year.

While the number of companies with policies requiring staff to attend the workplace at least one day a week had fallen slightly to 86 per cent, there was a push for workers to spend more of their working week in the office.

According to the survey of 1000 Australian office workers and 300 hiring managers conducted in June, four-day mandates are imposed on 12 per cent of workers surveyed, followed by three-day (17 per cent), two-day (14 per cent) and one-day (4 per cent) requirements, while 14 per cent of workers retain complete flexibility over their working location, up from 13 per cent one year ago.

Robert Half director Andrew Brushfield said the softening jobs market and resulting power shift back to employers had enabled many to enforce stricter rules around in-office attendance.

“The pendulum is swinging back to pre-pandemic levels where working from home was an anomaly rather than an expectation,” Mr Brushfield said.

“Staff are attending the office more than they have since the pandemic as many employers have taken the opportunity of a job market with less candidate leverage to request their employees to come back to the office.”

While most workers are happy with the number of days they’re required in the office, more than one in five are unsatisfied, with the level of staff dissatisfaction rising in line with the number of mandated in-office days per week.

Survey respondents say improved collaboration, teamwork, communication and relationship building are the most important benefits of working from the office, however 84 per cent of staff say there are also negative impacts, led by the increased cost of commuting, lunch and other expenses (48 per cent), challenges managing a healthy work-life balance (37 per cent) and increased levels of stress (31 per cent).

The survey results reveal how hybrid working has emerged as one of the most important perks valued by white-collar workers.

Mr Brushfield said employers needed to strike a fine balance between catering to the demands of workers and maintaining a positive and collaborative workplace culture.

“In the current workplace landscape where flexibility is the new high-level currency for many employees, not everyone is pleased with this change of direction away from remote and hybrid work,” he said.

“Mandated office days can be a double-edged sword for workers. While they foster collaboration and connection, they can also lead to resentment and disengagement if not implemented and justified thoughtfully.

“Even with staff coming to terms with attending the office more frequently, the key for employers is to create an environment that highlights the positives of in-office work and sparks joy, not dread.”

or the last two years, we've seen many companies announce layoffs, particularly in the technology industry. Last year alone saw a 10% increase in layoffs across all industries — 19.8 million in 2023 compared to 17.6 million in 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In tech, layoffs rose 59% as companies that overhired during the pandemic strove to do more with less amid rising interest rates and global uncertainty. What does this mean for you?

Great people are being let go. After laying off lower-performing workers, companies are now making the painful decision to part ways with exceptionally talented employees, particularly in departments with the least growth.

Fortunately for these workers, the job market today is proving resilient, and steady layoffs don't mean high unemployment. Since December 2021, the jobless rate has stayed steady, hovering between 3.4% and 3.9% (that's compared to a 14.7% unemployment rate in the second month of the pandemic). The best and the brightest aren't staying out of work for long.

The good news about the current environment is that attentive companies can bring on great talent. This means it's important to pay close attention to who's available in your business sector and be ready to start a conversation. Some of the best workers are out there, and they're looking for quality roles.

But that begs the question, how do you identify the right talent amid all the layoffs? How do you spot a game-changer? Here are a few strategies to help you identify candidates who could be your next superstars — and then keep them.

Raise the performance bar

As a company leader, I've seen a dramatic difference in the quality of available talent compared to just two years ago, when businesses were scrambling just to fill seats. One of my managers recently pointed out that the best applicants for a key job she posted had all been laid off from their previous jobs.

The best way to start is by keeping an eye on who's out there in your sector. Then take a hard look at your talent profile and ask yourself, "Do I have the right people filing the right jobs, or are there people out there who could do better?" Next, don't rush. When it comes to hiring, I like to say, "Go slow to go fast." We intend to grow headcount by upwards of 30% this year, so if we're not intentional in our hiring, our culture could suffer.

Most importantly, make sure every hire is impactful. Amazon has developed a programmatic, repeatable way to do this through its "Bar Raiser" program. To keep fueling the company's innovation, Amazon's hiring managers are tasked with ensuring every new hire brings skills and abilities that are better than 50% of their peers in similar roles, thereby raising the talent bar. To achieve this, they bring in employee interviewers — Bar Raisers — who have received extensive training to look for certain qualities and calibrate candidates with the hiring bar. To provide the best feedback to the hiring manager, they ask themselves questions like, "What does Amazon miss out on if we don't hire this person?" and "What about this person makes you want to work with them?"

At BambooHR, we've adopted a philosophy that embraces the idea of a diverse interview panel with employees from throughout the company who can provide a gut check: Will this person definitively raise the performance bar and also be a good culture fit? With this philosophy, we're getting better and better at identifying and keeping the best talent, and I believe every small to medium-sized company could benefit from doing the same.

Take a critical look at your managers

Of course, hiring the right talent doesn't matter if you don't have managers who understand how to keep them inspired. I've found that top talent wants to be actively managed, so it's important to discuss expectations during the interview process. But more than anything, they hate being treated like everybody else. They want to grow faster and do more. Once you've identified and hired the best, can your managers actively manage them? Can they give clear and candid feedback so talent can continue to progress and grow? You may think they're already doing that, but there's a good chance they're not.

Some leaders have gotten out of shape when it comes to active performance management, particularly when it comes to having hard conversations around expectations and accountability. Consider that new assistant you hired in marketing, for example. From your perspective, they're doing okay, not great; however, they may think they're excelling at their role. According to BambooHR performance management data from 2019-2023, 38% of employees who received the lowest performance rating from their manager rated themselves as highly valued. That disconnect does not help employees thrive — particularly your newest ones — and hurts the company.

You need to make sure your managers are talking about active management in hiring interviews and having the right conversations with new employees right away. It's on you as a leader to invest in their training.

Offer purpose and a clear vision

Know your company's why, and communicate it clearly during interviews with prospective employees. Research shows that more and more employees want to know that their work has a purpose, especially millennials and Gen Z applicants. For every recruit I talk to, I spend the entire first interview on mission, vision and values — I don't talk about our revenue and how we're going to grow. At BambooHR, we're on a journey to become the number one HR platform for SMBs in the world — but that's our product, not our purpose.

I start with our mission: What's our purpose? At Bamboo, we set people free to do great work. We have over three million people who log into Bamboo every day, and I want to make their lives better somehow. Then we go to vision: What are we trying to accomplish? And then values, like how we show up for each other. I want to know, does all this excite the individual I'm speaking to? Do they want to be a part of this?

Never underestimate the impact the right hire can have. Who you have on your team is everything, and understanding how to leverage layoffs can help you find just the right people.

Retail bosses are hopeful that the income tax cuts and new migrants will bolster consumer spending even if the Reserve Bank of Australia raises interest rates in the coming months.

Higher costs, as a result of stickier than expected inflation and 13 rate increases since May 2022, have put pressure on household budgets and curbed spending, the chief executives of retailers Nick Scali and Harvey Norman have said. But the pullback has not been as bad as feared, they add.

They now hope that tax cuts from July 1, higher immigration and shoppers buoyed by stronger house prices will help cushion the effect of expected rate increases following this week’s strong inflation data.

Interest rates are the highest they have been in more than a decade, and the RBA is now considering whether it needs to lift them again to curb spending. It was not long ago that investors and business leaders were expecting a rate cut this year.

“I don’t think consumer sentiment is great when interest rates are going up, so potentially, yes [a rate rise could damage us], but you do have the tax cuts coming in July, right? It’s hard to read,” Nick Scali boss Anthony Scali said.

The retailer is more concerned about the rising cost of importing goods, which will have to be passed to the consumer.

Mr Scali, who imports all sofas and furniture, said about two weeks ago that shipping companies had doubled their container rates. Retailers and manufacturers were once again battling surging freight pricing and port bottlenecks, he said.

Shipping companies were effectively acting like there was no contract by saying they had no containers at the contracted price, Mr Scali said.

“That’s happening in the UK, that’s happening in the US, and ... in Australia, and it is certainly not going to help inflation. You have to pass it on eventually.”

Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey said the household electrical retailer was “pretty strong this month” and shoppers were snapping up end-of-financial-year bargains.

“The next three or four days will be very strong for Harvey Norman,” he said. If rates did go up before Christmas, however, that could “quieten things down a bit”, he warned.

Mr Harvey said the cost of doing business was “horrendous”, citing increased power bills, land taxes and other government charges.

The nation’s largest baby goods retailer, Baby Bunting, reaffirmed lower full-year net profit guidance on Thursday, after issuing a warning last month. New chief executive Mark Teperson said independent retailers were doing it “very tough” and continued to discount to help drive sales.

He said supplier feedback showed some retailers were making late payments.

“More are going under in recent months; the independent sector seems to be under pressure,” Mr Teperson told investors.

Baby Bunting’s comparative store sales for the second half to the end of April fell 5.6 per cent, but this was not as bad as analysts had feared. Sales for this month and the previous one improved dramatically.

On Thursday, ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told an investor briefing economic growth had slowed, consumption was soft, and inflation was stubbornly above target.

“For many people, times are incredibly tough,” he said, pointing to Foodbank, which is delivering 65,000 meals a day in Melbourne.

Only three in every 1000 ANZ home loan customers are in financial hardship, but Mr Elliott expects this number to rise.

Although 79 per cent of ANZ home loan customers were ahead on their repayments, and mortgage offset balances were growing, Mr Elliott said there were customers without home loans who were struggling.

He said the bank expected financial stress to increase over the next 12 months.

Investors say there is now a one-in-three chance of an August interest rate rise after inflation accelerated to its highest rate in six months and economists warned price pressures remained too strong.

Annual inflation jumped to 4 per cent in May, from 3.6 per cent in April, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. The S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.7 per cent lower at 7783 points, as investors reckoned with the prospect of another interest rate rise.

The inflation result was above market expectations and led to calls for Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his state counterparts to rein in spending, which economists fear is fuelling inflation.

Warning of the possibility of multiple interest rate rises, Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said it was “essential that governments help to contain inflation”.

“Recent budgets featuring unrestrained spending, which have driven up debt and deficits, particularly at the state level, have been especially unhelpful in the inflation fight,” he said.

While the monthly consumer price index is volatile, the figures highlighted the persistence of Australia’s inflation outbreak. Headline inflation is running at its fastest rate since November, while underlying inflation has been stuck about 4 per cent since December.

Consumers were hit with the biggest annual rise in fruit and vegetable costs in a year in May, while inflation in the cost of alcohol, clothes and electricity also increased in annual terms.

Economists agree the RBA’s August 6 meeting is “live”; both Deutsche Bank and UBS now expect the board to raise the cash rate to 4.6 per cent, from 4.35 per cent, at the next meeting.

Investors also ramped up rate rise bets, pricing a 36 per cent chance the RBA board will raise the cash rate to 4.6 per cent in August, up from 13 per cent on Tuesday. The probability of a rise by September hit 54 per cent.

June quarter consumer price index figures due on July 31 will be decisive in helping the RBA determine whether inflation is on track to return to target.

Dr Chalmers played down the figures, saying international experience showed inflation “doesn’t always moderate in a straight line and the last mile can be a bit harder”.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said inflation was increasing and running ahead of most of the developed world.

Deutsche Bank chief economist Phil O’Donaghoe said inflation was “intolerably high in Australia”.

“In fact, Australia is the only G10 country where underlying inflation has increased since December,” he said.

Betashares chief economist David Bassanese said the inflation figures were a “shocker” and placed “huge pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates in August”.

“Stepping back from the month-to-month noise, one clear disappointing signal emerges – annual inflation across various measures has failed to decline much further in 2024, and remains stuck at an uncomfortably high level of around 4 per cent,” he said.

Wednesday’s figures suggest inflation is running ahead of the RBA’s forecast for underlying inflation to ease to 3.8 per cent in the June quarter.

Excluding holiday travel and volatile items such as fruit and fuel, inflation edged down to 4 per cent in May, from 4.1 per cent April. However, trimmed mean inflation accelerated to 4.4 per cent, from 4.1 per cent.

Worryingly for the RBA, inflation in the labour-intensive services sector remained strong in May. The cost of going to the vet increased 7.1 per cent over the 12 months to May 31, while the price of getting a haircut went up by 5.5 per cent, and a restaurant meal became 4.2 per cent more expensive.

Mr Willox said monetary policy settings had not yet brought inflation to heel, due in part to fiscal policy working against the RBA.

Westpac analysis last week found government budgets would add more than $50 billion of stimulus into the economy in the next 12 months thanks to growing deficits.

Housing costs surge

Inflation in the housing market remained a major source of upward pressure on the CPI in May.

While rent inflation edged lower to 7.4 per cent, it remained close to its fastest rate since 2009, as a lack of home building and strong demand drives rental vacancy rates to record lows.

Disinflation in the cost of home building has stalled at an annual rate of about 5 per cent, due in part to a substantial pipeline of state government infrastructure projects, which are putting upward pressure on building material and labour costs.

Goods price disinflation, which drove much of the fall in inflation last year, looks to be tapering off, with price rises seen across clothing and footwear over the past 12 months.

While the RBA still considers the quarterly CPI the best gauge of inflationary pressures, the new monthly indicator factors into the central bank’s interest rate decisions, particularly when it delivers an unexpected outcome.

Economists expect headline inflation to fall sharply when federal and state government electricity rebates come into effect from July.

Commonwealth Bank economist Stephen Wu estimates the various measures, which include a $300 subsidy from the federal government and a $1000 rebate for Queenslanders, will cause electricity prices to fall 20 per cent in the September quarter, subtracting 0.5 percentage points from CPI.

Even though that could be enough to temporarily send headline inflation below 3 per cent, underlying inflation would still remain well above the RBA’s 2 to 3 per cent band, negating the prospect of a near-term rate cut.

RBA governor Michele Bullock has said the board would ignore the disinflationary effect of the subsidies since they were temporary.

JPMorgan chief economist Ben Jarman said the RBA had set a high bar to lift rates again.

“We expect the cash rate to stay on hold this year as growth has slowed, policy is restrictive, and the mix of the inflation appears consistent with achievement of the target next year,” he said.

“The primary question you ask in your business, your relationship, and your health will determine your outcomes far greater than any goal.”  – Tony Robbins

Every day the human brain asks thousands of questions.

And it’s all done subconsciously. Most of us don’t even know we’re doing it.

If you consider it, that’s all thinking really is. Asking questions.

What if I told you the quality of your life was determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself on a daily basis?

You might think that sounds like an exaggeration.

But let me explain.

If you want to lose weight and you ask yourself, “Why can I never lose weight?” Your brain will supply all the reasons why you can't.

Your brain will come up with answers like, “You’re lazy,” “You have bad genetics,” “You can’t control your cravings,” and other unhelpful responses.

But if you ask the question, “How can I lose weight and enjoy it?” your brain starts coming up with ways you can accomplish your goals.

You see, questions can predispose our answers.

They can point us in the right or wrong direction. They can limit or expand our possibilities. They can create joy or pain.

Questions have power.

We all know what it’s like to feel stuck, to have a belief that things can’t get better, or that life won’t go our way.

Questions can change your way of thinking. Questions can change your life.

And if you’re willing to take responsibility for your experience in life, the right questions can lead to inner freedom.

You wouldn’t be here reading this if you didn’t have a willingness to live life on your terms and take the necessary steps to get there.

And I’m here to help you along the way.

Primary Questions

I’ll give you a sneak peek into my most exclusive event, Date With Destiny. There we talk about what I call your primary question. Everyone has one. It’s the question you ask yourself the MOST in life.

The majority of people don’t even realize they’re doing it, but it’s running in the background every single day.

For some people, it’s:

Why am I always messing up?

What’s wrong with me?

For myself it was:

How can I make it better?

For my wife Sage it was:

“Where is the good in this?”

Can you feel the difference between the former and the latter? Can you see the difference in the quality of emotion each question creates?

What's good about my original primary question?

I'm always looking to improve. But what does this presuppose? That something isn't good enough. Over the years, I've refined this and now it's simply: How can I help? How can I serve even more?

The primary question you ask in your business, your relationship, and your health will determine your outcomes far greater than any goal.

And it will determine your level of happiness or suffering in life.

In the past my focus was fixing things, always making them better. I still do that every day, but I have a new focus for serving.

My new primary question predisposes that I’m already making an impact and that I can make my impact even more meaningful.

Take a moment to think about what your primary question is...

Write it down.

Can you reframe it to be one that is more empowering?

Maybe you need a new primary question. What would you like your new question to be in life?

Remember, questions ARE the answer, my friend.

Now that you’ve given your primary question some thought, I want to offer you a tool that I use every single day. It’s a simple exercise I learned from my dear friend Byron Katie that you can use next time you have a challenge.

I use these questions with executives in all my businesses, and when working with people at my events.

4 Questions and a Turnaround

Pick a limiting belief you have about your career, business, health, or relationship. Something you think often.

I’ll provide an example from a recent client I worked with. Their belief was, “I’ll never find a way to grow my business.”

Yours might be:

I’ll never have a connected relationship with my kids.

I’ll never feel confident in my own skin.

I’ll never identify the right partners for my business idea.

Q1 & Q2 Break the Pattern:

Now start by asking these questions...

Is this true? Is it REALLY true? Can you absolutely know this is true? Could this be a misinterpretation or a misconception? Do you have all the possible information necessary to know exactly what this means?

The moment that you start to see that a limiting belief is not always true, you begin to break the pattern.

Q3 Get Leverage

How do you react – what happens – when you believe that thought? What do you feel, what do you experience, what do you become when you believe this thought?

Change is never a matter of ability; it is a matter of motivation. It’s never “can you,” it’s “will you.” The next question will generate leverage for you to push through to break the pattern.

It gives you a reason to change.

Q4 Annihilate the Limiting Belief

Who would you be without the thought?

If this thought didn’t exist, if you never had this thought, what would you feel, how would you behave, how would you experience life, what would you be like without it?

The Turnaround

This is where you say the opposite of the thought. Instead of, “It’s impossible to grow my business,” say, “It’s totally possible to grow my business.”

...or have a connected relationship with my kids...

...or feel confident in my own skin...

...or identify the right partners for my business idea...

You name it. Whatever the limiting belief is, say the opposite.

Now lastly, come up with at least 3 reasons you CAN accomplish your goal. Once you do that, you’ve created a new belief. The more reasons you come up with, the stronger your belief will be.

This is especially potent when you do this as a team at work around a limiting belief that may be plaguing your project or business.

Apply this whenever you have a limiting belief, and you can change it in an instant.

Questions are the answer.

Tony Robbins

The rapidly evolving workplace demands a fresh set of leadership skills. Here are the key capabilities leaders need to cultivate now in order to navigate the future of work.

With our ways of working changing rapidly, relying on traditional leadership approaches could put organisations at risk of falling behind in the future of work.

Some aspects of the traditional leadership model, such as command-and-control structures and rigid roles, are slowly losing relevance as organisations traverse the rapidly evolving technological and economic landscape, says Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August.

Below, Jesuthasan unpacks four key capabilities leaders of the future will need in order to navigate emerging disruptions and harness the opportunities presented by technological advancement.

1. Shift from hierarchical authority to empowerment and alignment 

There are several forces at play in the current business environment which make the traditional hierarchical model of leadership difficult to sustain, according to Jesuthasan.

One example is the shift towards hybrid and remote work models, which challenges traditional dynamics of control and requires a more trust-based approach to management.

Another is the emerging shift towards more agile ways of working. 

With skills shortages continuing to impact employers, many are recognising the value of a skills-based approach to work, where work is allocated to employees and non-employees based on their capabilities rather than whether it’s part of their job description. The rapid shifts in the skills landscape mean this strategy is likely to become more prevalent in the coming years.

While this approach allows employers to allocate resources more efficiently, effectively and with greater impact, the move away from rigid roles requires a significant mindset shift on the part of leaders.

“As we move towards these more agile, skills-based ways of working, leaders’ ability to empower teams and align them to a mission becomes increasingly important,”says Jesuthasan.

“All of this is a reversal of about 140 years of learned behaviour on the part of leaders. So it’s really important that they have the space to experiment, practice and fail.” – Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services, Mercer

“And leading through empowerment and alignment has one prerequisite, which the hierarchical model doesn’t. And that’s trust – trust in your people that they are motivated to accomplish the same things you are and their trust that you have their best interests at heart.”

HR should keep in mind that this transition might be uncomfortable for leaders who might be used to functioning under a command-and-control model, he says.

“All of this is a reversal of about 140 years of learned behaviour on the part of leaders. So it’s really important that they have the space to experiment, practice and fail.”

2. The ability to redesign work

With the shift away from rigid roles and towards skills-based ways of working, leaders will need to hone their ability to redesign work so talent (and AI and automation) can flow to it, says Jesuthasan.

“[Leaders need] that skill of being able to take an emerging body of work, deconstruct it into its elemental tasks, understand the skills required and the work options available, and figure out how to deploy that work,” he says. 

“For example, where should I use automation versus using the skills of an employee? Where should I use a gig worker or shared services? And then continuously reconstructing new ways of working that optimise speed, profitability and the workforce skills.” 

With work being resourced based on skills and capability rather than roles, leaders will need to adapt to having fewer dedicated teams, he adds.

“[There needs to be] a pivot from leaders who are really good at process execution to leaders who are increasingly exceptional at project guidance.”

3. Humanistic automation

With technological advancement moving at an unprecedented rate, it’s no surprise that digital literacy is projected to be a critical leadership skill of the future. To remain competitive, leaders need to constantly ask themselves if they are going far enough in understanding and leveraging emerging technologies, says Jesuthasan.

“What the past two years have taught us is that just being digitally savvy is too low a bar. We need business leaders who really understand AI in all its forms, understand the tools available and understand how it’s going to reshape their operating models.”

In the future, it will become increasingly important for leaders to strike the right balance between harnessing the capabilities of AI alongside the capabilities of their workforces.

“[Ask yourself], ‘How do I automate in a way that ensures that I’m not compromising ingenuity and innovation in my business? How do I automate in a way that makes the most of the human skills I’ve invested in for decades?’,” says Jesuthasan.

As AI takes on more and more of our repetitive, rules-based work, leaders should be placing more focus on cultivating human skills such as communication, problem-solving and critical thinking in both themselves and their people.

“What the past two years have taught us is that just being digitally savvy is such a low bar. We need business leaders who really understand generative AI.” – Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services, Mercer

According to research from the World Economic Forum, the half-life of a technical skill is currently about five years. While it remains crucial to develop technical skills to navigate emerging technologies, employers should remember that the so-called ‘soft’ skills will always be necessary for success.

4. Cultivating diversity of thought, experience and perspective

The most effective leaders in the future of work will be those who can leverage the benefits of diverse workforces, says Jesuthasan.

“A key skill is managing diversity, equity and inclusion – not episodically like we typically do when we hire someone or promote them, but continuously by opening the aperture to having different skills, different perspectives and different experiences being deployed to work,” he says. 

“Because that’s the only way any business stays ahead of the competition – that diversity of thought, experience and perspective.”

Inclusive hiring practices are essential not only to innovation, but also to business stability, he says. He offers the example of a US airline that set up its own flight school as its traditional talent pool of ex-military pilots began to dry up. 

“Because of who was accepted to fly in the military [in the past], most of their pilots, unsurprisingly, were older white men. But with their own flight school, their first class was 80 per cent female and minorities. 

“By opening the aperture and creating their own school, they know that in less than two years, they’ll have a flight crew that is exponentially more diverse than the talent that they’re going to be replacing. It’s a win-win – we secure our supply, and we ensure that the supply is more diverse than the legacy supply chain.”

This strategic approach to diversity ensures that organisations are not just keeping pace with change, but are actively shaping the future of work.

As we move into the next iteration of work, HR plays a critical role in cultivating this next phase of leadership. As the champions of human-centred ways of working, HR practitioners are in a unique position to support leaders as they develop the skills to lead through empowerment, implement humanistic automation and enhance their approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Danielle Handley left her comfort zone in 2022 – moving from a long-term senior manager position in the insurance industry to a brand-new role in a company expanding into healthcare.

But by the time she arrived at the offices of international healthcare and health insurance company BUPA, the executive who had hired her six months before and the head of corporate strategy had left. She was without a sponsor, without a boss, and she was asked to lead a new strategic program of company transformation.

“There had been a lot of change across the business,” says Handley, now BUPA chief customer and transformation officer based in Sydney and in charge of about 500 employees. She has been named the winner of the Health category of the Women in Leadership Awards.

“The team I joined to lead was surrounded by ambiguity; they were going through a bit of an identity crisis about the role they would play in the broader organisation.”

Handley decided to lean in to build the right connections, provide reassurance and determine where she could add the most value to the organisation as it shifted focus.

With some psychology training under her belt, Handley began her career more than 25 years ago as a manager with professional services company Ernst and Young. In a career comprising decades of senior executive leadership, she has ticked off a master’s of business administration degree, five years working for Ernst and Young in London, many years working for leading insurance companies in Australia, and more recently another master’s degree in creative intelligence and strategic innovation.

From her first days at BUPA her focus has been on the company’s transformation from a health insurance business to a healthcare company that also has wide-ranging and connected healthcare options, including optical, digital, dental, hearing and aged care.

“Connected care is the name of our program of work,” she says. “It includes looking at our health insurance customer base today and driving for increased connection and awareness to enable greater access of all of BUPA’s health services.”

Handley’s overall responsibilities have included building and deploying BUPA’s digital health platform, Blua, and ensuring the platform has smooth and easy-to-use core services, such as virtual consultations, navigation to health programs, as well as chemist delivery.

“All these are accessible digitally for our members,” she says. “In addition, we are looking at the ways we can engage our members more broadly by identifying how a health insurance member can get greater access or benefit from using BUPA dental, BUPA optical and so forth.

“All of those elements become part of connected care because we enable the customer to move between our services. It’s important so that customer experience is more of a continuum.“

Reaching consensus

Handley is passionate about the way technology, data and digital continue to enable innovation. In one of her earlier roles, she pushed herself into difficult territory, taking on the analytics and artificial intelligence.

She knew she didn’t have the data science, data engineering, mathematics or actuarial skills usually required for these positions, but she felt her understanding of business strategy combined with the team’s digital skills could accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in the business.

As a senior executive, Handley tries to ensure there is consensus for difficult decisions, rather than ramming changes through opposing opinions. One Australian company she worked for was a market leader in its field, but accelerating costs made it clear that unpopular changes had to be made to certain elements of the business.

Handley set up a team of about 15 long-serving senior employees with a deep understanding of the different functions of the business, all well-respected by their peers, to look into the problem and come up with solutions.

“We did a heavy six-to-eight-week piece of work, really exploring all of what we do across the entire value chain,” she says. “It was a difficult project, with everyone’s sensitivities around it.”

The team considered external partners, what a model could look like, how much core capability could be partnered to build that business case. In the end the team came to the inevitable conclusion that unpopular action had to be taken, and Handley had 15 or so backers when she instigated the change.

She says she is always open to new challenges. “When there are open doors, I always feel that’s an opportunity,” she says. “Is that open door going to give you a new challenge, a new capability, and enrich your career path in a way that is positive and takes you to a new destination?

“I have a fabulous challenge right now, in terms of my role, my team and leading the transformation across BUPA APAC. I’m juggling many different balls, but it’s an exciting time and has so much opportunity to deliver meaningful impact for our customers and the community.”

She has been mentored by a boss she likes and admires, and in turn she is mentoring four manager-level women – two in the company and two outside it.

“I often think what’s even more important than mentoring is championing,” she says.

“To me, being a champion is what we really need to be for one another. To go above and beyond calling out some of the fabulous capabilities of other women across the enterprise, that you shout out and give them a voice when they’re probably a little bit more self-deprecating and aren’t as well-equipped to be self-promoters. We need to be champions of other women.”

Share the Dignity

The world changed for Rochelle Courtenay when she read a 2015 newspaper article and learned 48,000 Australian women didn’t have anywhere safe to call home. Looking for more information, she was rocked again when she read many of these women living in poverty couldn’t afford period products, instead using socks, newspapers and wadded-up toilet paper.

“I had never even thought that that would be a problem,” the Queenslander says. “I was really embarrassed, to be honest.”

She was running a physical training business at the time, and she asked all her clients to bring her a pack of tampons or sanitary pads for every glass of wine they drank in the month of March 2015. The period products were then distributed to five charities in the local area.

Inspired, Courtenay founded the not-for-profit organisation Share the Dignity. Today, thousands of volunteers help to collect, sort, log and deliver period products for women who need them – homeless women, women fleeing domestic violence, living in poverty, living in remote Indigenous communities. Tampons and sanitary pads are sent to 3500 partner charities across Australia for use by their clients.

Share the Dignity has partnered with the Queensland government to install 500 bright pink Dignity Vending Machines in schools to dispense free period products. Hundreds of these Dignity machines have also been installed in places of need across Australia: in refuges, homeless centres, high-need schools, Indigenous health centres and hospitals.

Share the Dignity campaigned for the removal of GST from tampons and sanitary pads: the tax was dropped in 2019.

The non-profit’s aim is simple. “We completely believe in menstrual equity, which means that everyone everywhere should have access to free period products,” Courtenay says.

Eliminating shame and stigma is also core, and Share the Dignity has been awarded a contract to run a menstruation education program in Queensland. “Period Talk is six sassy kids delivering the program to kids,” Courtenay says. “Two of them are boys, because boys have never been educated about menstruation the way they should be. That little boy who doesn’t get educated ends up being somebody’s dad, somebody’s boss, somebody’s husband, and he’s got no idea.”

From the beginning, Courtenay took pains to ensure Share the Dignity was set up efficiently. With experience as a self-employed photographer and exercise trainer and, for a time, as the manager of a health club, she had little corporate knowledge and she was keen to tap into the expertise of others.

“There are thousands and thousands of charities in Australia,” she says. “They are set up all the time, but then it doesn’t go anywhere. I was very clear on the fact that this was a business and it needed to be set up like a business, because if it didn’t have good foundations and good walls, we wouldn’t still be around to help people.”

Share the Dignity’s board of directors has included professionals with expertise in marketing, accounting, legal affairs, people and culture, human resources, insurance, and information technology.

“We’ve always had an amazing board of directors,” Courtenay says, “people with skills that I don’t have.”

Share the Dignity’s regular donation drives include bright pink collection boxes in Woolworths supermarkets. A customer shopping in Woolworths, for instance, can just add a package of tampons or sanitary pads to his or her shopping trolley and drop it in the collection bin. Woolworths also donates a small percentage of the price of every period product sold during those drives to Share the Dignity.

This year, the organisation is again conducting a Bloody Big Survey to understand more about menstruation in Australia. Data from the 2021 survey, which had 125,000 responses, was used to push for menstrual equity, including the provision of free period products in all Australian high schools. This year’s survey had 153,000 responses, Courtenay says.

“We hope to advocate for every primary school, every TAFE and every university to provide period products,” she says. “No girl should ever miss a day of education because they don’t have access to period products.”