Sweeping change may grab headlines, but without HR at the table, the risks can be costly, as recent events in the US show. Steve Herbert, veteran, award-winning, speaker and commentator on HR and employee benefits, and co-host of the Benefits Unboxed podcast, explores why UK organisations and policymakers must put HR at the heart of reform, before history repeats itself.
One of the privileges of government – be that national or local – is the ability to set out and enact a course of positive change. Yet enacting such change is often a path strewn with obstacles. This led fictional prime minister Jim Hacker to announce: “The three articles of civil service faith: it takes longer to do things quickly; it’s more expensive to do them cheaply; it’s more democratic to do them in secret.”
Hacker’s comments were made in exasperation, yet there are nevertheless truisms captured in those apparent civil service mantras.
For change, when rushed or ill-thought-through, can lead to unexpected and expensive new problems. Indeed, the one omission from Hacker’s inadvertent list of truisms is the evident need to involve HR when the proposed change involves job roles, working conditions, or the hiring and firing of employees.
How not to do it
This oversight is now plainly visible on the other side of the pond.
Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – briefly headed-up by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk – initially promised some $2 trillion of national savings. This figure was swiftly lowered to $1 trillion by the time of the US election, and the actual amount saved at the end of Musk’s tenure is suggested to be a fraction of either amount at $180 billion. Yet that is still a huge saving.
Or is it?
Aside from the Trump administration’s tendency for exaggeration, there are many independent economists who believe that the way the savings have been achieved will lead to a significant reduction in that headline number. In particular the loss of government and state paid jobs and talent (some of which has already been rehired to maintain essential services) plus the many court cases for unfair dismissal (which will doubtless lead to compensation orders) will eat up much – or even all – of any cost savings this year.
Most or all of the above could have been avoided if a proper process – including guidance from HR – had been factored into the exercise from the start.
Over here
This is an important lesson, and one that UK politicians would be wise to understand before the next raft of UK workplace changes begin. And that change may well be led by Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Reform swept into power in no less than 10 council elections across England in May, and the party has already moved to set-up its first Musk-style DOGE unit in those councils it now controls. This process started with the largest of the councils, Kent, earlier this week.
Former Reform Party chairman Zia Yusuf said: “As promised, we have created a UK DOGE to identify and cut wasteful spending of taxpayer money. Starting with Kent, our team will use cutting edge technology and deliver real value for voters.”
It’s a good headline, but the challenges to such an approach – particularly at local rather than national government level – are many. Indeed the second largest party in Kent, The Liberal Democrats, have pointed out that 99.4 percent of all Kent council spending is actually mandated by national policy, and therefore difficult to curtail. It follows that there are understandable concerns that some job losses will need to form part of this process to help generate any meaningful savings from the 0.6 percent of spending that is available for full review.
Yet there are more than DOGE style changes to consider. Farage’s victory speech (in Durham) echoed Trump in other areas: “Those at the council working on climate change or diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, or anyone who thinks they can go on working from home, I think you better all be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly.”
The necessity of HR
It is therefore clear that in some parts of the public sector there is potentially very significant change coming down the tracks, and much of that will likely be linked to working conditions and/or job losses. In other words, core HR terrain.
It follows that Reform-led councils would be wise to put HR units at the front and centre of this exercise to ensure the processes and sequencing of any decisions are delivered in a fully compliant manner. This is particularly the case given that UK employment rights are significantly stronger than those in the US.
HR is hurting
Yet some recent data suggests that HR professionals may already be overwhelmed by the challenges they continue to face. The research published by Benefits Expert Magazine earlier this week found that HR professionals have the highest absenteeism rates across British industry.
This surprising finding may well reflect the reality of five incredibly challenging years for the HR profession.
The decade started with the people issues associated with Brexit, coupled with the myriad challenges of a “once in a century” pandemic and lockdowns. Those issues in turn helped create a post-pandemic candidate crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, and economic stagnation. Every one of those issues impacts the HR workload to some degree, and perhaps more so given that many HR teams were already under-resourced following the austerity of last decade.
HR’s response?
It is therefore apparent that we have a growing problem with the health of the very people tasked with ensuring the wider wellbeing of other employees across our workplaces, as well as their key role of ensuring compliance with people issues.
The bottom line is that the UK really needs a fit, healthy, and robust pool of HR expertise to help the UK navigate towards better times and economic stability, yet at the moment HR is so often the forgotten function in business planning.
The Benefits Unboxed podcast team of Carole Goldsmith, Claire Churchard and I looked at this issue last month, and this is something we will explore further in our forthcoming Benefits Unboxed: Live! webinar (free to attend – register via this link) next month also. But in the meantime, HR would be wise to ensure that they are taking advantage of all the wellbeing initiatives that they routinely highlight to others.
Another simple measure would be to better manage future HR issues and workload. I would suggest that HR ensure that management – be they business people or politicians – understand the risks of failing to utilise the expertise available within their HR teams. The reality of the US DOGE example is a neat case study in how to do change badly. It would be better for all – including HR – if UK organisations avoid a repeat of those US mistakes.
