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Leadership podcast: Has HR lost its soul?

Christoph Williams
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An In Good Company podcast with Christoph Williams, Head of Talent and Leadership Development, Sony Europe

Does Human Resources need to be more people centric?

Has HR lost its soul? Is it now the norm for employees who have an issue at work to turn to colleagues, their managers or the internet for help rather than HR? Has HR become the corporate voice of organisations, prioritising compliance over employees? Does the model need to be more people centric?

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There aren't many people bold enough to take on this question in a 30-minute podcast... but step forward Christoph Williams - Head of Talent and Leadership Development at Sony Europe. 

Dan: Has HR lost its soul? What does this question mean to you?

Christoph: Asking if HR has lost its soul, immediately leads to bigger questions like - what is a soul? But when I ask this question, people get it. And I don't know if that's because they're interpreting the question differently, but it lights up their eyes and it opens the doorway to a further conversation around where HR is now and where we're heading.

There's been a trend to empower line managers by giving them lots of tools to support them in their roles. But have we put a lot on the shoulders of our line managers? We've given employees access to a lot of self-services using technology. Again, this is great as a principle, but are we hiding behind this portal interface?

Christoph’s conversation with Dan not only covers what this means for HR, but they move on to discuss the impact AI might have upon the human element of HR, practical takeaway tips for instilling a culture of leadership and the link between internal and external customer centricity and satisfaction.

Listen to the podcast on Spotify

Watch our interview here:

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017: How to build and inspire teams with Beat Calabretti, Barry Callebaut Group

Coming up

019: Making every voice heard with Kaja Podgórna-Strzelec, PwC

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