Every year, the strategy consulting firm Akoya publishes the Human Transformation Index barometer(link) in partnership with the media Parlons RH. The objective: to measure the evolution of the world of work in all its dimensions.
In this interview, the CEO of HR startup HeyAxel, Arnaud Weiss, also a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, answers Akoya's questions.
When consulting the results of a survey, one should always consult the methodology used: is the sample size sufficient? Is it representative? Were the questions asked in such a way as to limit bias? Akoya's report presents its methodology explicitly and can thus, in my opinion, be considered as a serious database for HR research.
This work is valuable and feeds our understanding of the evolution of the French working world. The HR literature often tends to repeat the same distorted figures, taken from American surveys and based on populations that are not representative for us, French and/or European workers. The people interviewed have a very different experience from ours and the results do not allow us to highlight the real problems.
The figure that surprised me: 79% of respondents have a positive opinion of the telework policy in their company. This is quite incredible, considering that most of these policies were introduced in a hurry.
Generally speaking, I was impressed by the speed with which HR functions adapted to this new situation. Beyond the crisis period, they have been able to think in the long term. Many organisations have taken the lead and signed agreements to make telework sustainable. We are moving towards a hybrid model, which will allow employees to keep the social link while enjoying the benefits of telework.
I was struck by the dissatisfaction of employees with HR functions, which was highlighted in the report. The HR profession is not very visible when everything is going well. It is interesting to note that employee dissatisfaction with the function is much higher in large companies (2.1/5) than in SMEs (2.7/5 and 2.8/5 respectively), in my opinion due to the additional distance from employees.
In my experience, I have often observed that HR lacks the time to communicate about their projects to employees. At HeyAxel, we offer our HR clients a ready-made communication plan for each deployment of our application to save time and facilitate employee adoption.
Our Axel Management application, developed in 2020 following the departure of our teleworking employees, responds to some of the challenges described in Akoya's Human Transformation Index, notably that of empowering local managers. Managers are the transmission belt of HR policies, initiatives and processes on the ground. Their buy-in and involvement is absolutely crucial to ensure that all employees are on board.
In my opinion, winning the support of managers involves two vectors of action.
The first is to involve them from the start in the design of HR policies and processes. The idea is to take account of the reality on the ground thanks to their presence and to make them feel like actors of change. Moreover, the managers involved are then the promoters of this new way of working among their peers and their teams.
The second is to build tools and processes taking into account their feelings. For example, local managers systematically report having too many different tools and suffering from a lack of time. With this in mind, our strategy at HeyAxel is to develop invisible applications, directly integrated into their workspace.
You can find the download link forAkoya 's Human Transformation Index barometer right here → link.
