Here’s this week’s edition of our Coworking series. Each week, we chat 1:1 with an HR Brew reader. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.
Long tenures for HR executives are increasingly rare these days. The job has become much more difficult in recent years, and HR leaders have burned out from juggling several challenges at once, prompting them to quit for less stressful opportunities or retire.
But Scott Redfearn seems to have found the secret sauce. Redfearn has served as EVP of global human resources at management consulting firm Protiviti for nearly 18 years. Previously, he spent 20 years at Accenture, a firm known for incubating top HR leaders.
The key to his tenure at both companies has been embracing change as an HR leader, and working for a firm doing the same, he told HR Brew. You were expected to come prepared as an HR leader, have a point of view and speak up, Redfearn said.
AI is a prime example of that pressure to keep pace with changes.
“There were days in the past where HR people didn’t have to totally dial into technology. Those days are gone,” he said. A significant aspect of employee experience—a top priority for HR leaders today—is whether workers feel that they have the tools to do their jobs effectively.
“Having your people know how to use technology, the company being willing to invest in those technologies, those are all really critical parts of the employee experience.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?
One of the most interesting changes was the introduction of paid parental leave in the US as we moved away from what had traditionally been called “maternity leave.” Working with our management team to examine changing social constructs, study market trends, identify alternatives, reorient our thinking, and then test the change with our people was incredibly energizing.
The end result was a gender-neutral parental leave policy that has been transformative for so many people as they welcomed a new child into their family. The experience also affirmed, for me, the importance of HR leaders proactively engaging their management teams in fresh ideas.
What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?
What people often miss about HR is that there is a lot of selling in this job. It’s easy to see this in recruiting activities, but every step in the employee’s career journey calls for us to continue selling the experience and the opportunity. During onboarding, we are convincing new employees they’ve made a good choice. We are [convincing] employees who are considering leaving to stay.
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Internally, I’m also selling programs and initiatives to management teams. While it can be hard to quantify the financial impact of the proposal, you have to find a way to show that it is worth more than it costs. There’s so much room to persuade and influence others.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
It’s rewarding to see the positive impact our HR team can have on our employees’ ability to manage work in addition to their personal lives. We like to say that we are focused on our people’s success in life and work. I believe it’s important to move away from labeling it as “work-life balance” and just call it “life balance.”
Helping people manage through stressful situations, providing clear expectations, communicating openly and frequently on things they care about, encouraging our people to build strong relationships with each other, offering flexibility when possible, and providing good benefits enhances their work experience, which ultimately improves their overall quality of life.
What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?
As organizations make the move to becoming a skills-based organization, the role of HR will become even more important. The shrinking talent pool, the highly competitive market for talent, and the pace of change call for new approaches in HR—and in the rest of the business. Transitioning to a skills-powered organization is not just about filling open positions with different job postings. We’re actually aligning our team's real-world skills with what our company needs to succeed. It’s exciting because it boosts our people’s resiliency, productivity and innovation, and it creates an environment where everyone is encouraged to keep growing and adapting.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?
We need to be thoughtful about hybrid work. The recent push by companies to return to the office is being met with some resistance by employees who desire flexibility and choice. On the other hand, too much remote work reduces opportunities to get to know colleagues, collaborate together in groups, receive spontaneous coaching and feedback, build social networks, and experience the ups and downs of life with other humans…
Companies [that] find ways to accommodate both in-person and remote work will build a motivated workforce, and if they equip and empower those employees to make good decisions about their work location, they will reap an even greater reward.