Hr To Heart - We're All In This Together

Chris Maddock, partner Head of the Employment Team at commercial law firm Muckle LLP, discusses the value of a HR problem shared during COVID-19.

The power of collaboration is not something that I ever thought as an employment lawyer I would be writing about at my desk (ahem…kitchen table) on a sunny Friday – but the last few months have told me to never rule anything out! This article is inspired by the resourcefulness, practicality and resilience that the North East and Cumbria community of HR professionals has shown throughout lockdown, which in turn gives me real hope for the future.

Weathering the storm

At the beginning of 2020 no employer could have envisaged the issues thrown up by the responses needed to COVID-19.

When the pandemic arrived we saw a surge in demand for employment law advice; the need to understand and practically apply Government guidance as it frequently changed, often from hour to hour; and managing the uncertainty of what the near, medium and long term future looked like for us and our clients.

What became apparent early on during the response to COVID-19 was the sheer volume of information that employers were grappling with. Many HR leaders had to make decisions in isolation, based on an overload of information, and rely on their intuition as to what the right thing was to do.

The situation we all faced was the same, but with very different implications for each of us. One client aptly likened it to “us all being in the same storm, but in boats of different shapes and sizes”.

Very rapidly we adapted to daily team knowledge sharing meetings, pulling together the information we needed from multiple news, political and legal channels. The 10am daily CBI webinar became a team “must do” given the accuracy of its predictions, with the notes that we compiled on the latest position quickly being circulated to work colleagues, business partners and clients. This helped with taking the daily decisions needed to weather the storm, but it did not equip HR leaders with the support that they needed for themselves. Nor did it provide a forum to plan for the future.

Help for HR leaders

This idea was shared by others and early during lockdown Maureen Brown of Sullivan Brown Resourcing Partners asked me, together with Jules Smith of People Science Consulting, to take part in an online networking session to help support local HR leaders for as long as needed.

The first meetings took place with no agenda – other than to talk openly and to all commit to help each other as best we could. Little did we think that when we started the first session on 23 April, that by August we would have 24 sessions and over 31 hours of content under our belts, with more to come in September! The sessions have morphed over time as the needs for HR leaders have changed – from initial furlough considerations and pooling of responses to common practical issues, to managing communication and remote working, to organisational planning, to managing physical and mental health and diversity and inclusion considerations.

All of the topics we have covered have been identified by those attending and the goodwill of over 20 external contributors from a range of organisations across the country has also shown what can be achieved from collective effort.

The sessions have provided a huge amount of discussion and learning, with many contributors sharing their personal stories, ideas and approaches.

Want to take part?

There’s still the opportunity for HR managers to get involved in the discussions and shape what we cover into the Autumn. Topics already requested include helping managers to coach employees remotely and helping employers to understand the Government’s new Kickstart Scheme.

The sessions start again from 8 September and Mo, Jules and I will keep to our promise and continue to provide the sessions for as long as is needed. Who knows how long that will be, but it’s never too late to join the conversation.