COVID-19 turned 2020 into a 21st-century watershed for the entire HR function.

HR teams have had to react to the extraordinary demands of the pandemic in real time, providing a lifeline to support employees whose personal and professional lives were abruptly upended.

For many of you still in the trenches of sustaining employees’ wellbeing, talk of an HR recovery strategy might well seem premature. Yet the reality is that people’s expectations of HR have changed radically since the crisis began. Having been thrust to the helm of several transformative workplace trends since early 2020, HR teams now find themselves in new territory — and there’s no going back to the ‘old normal’.

As employees reassess their working lives, this raised profile within the organisation affords your HR team a chance to deviate from established norms. It’s a unique opportunity to mould the MO that will increasingly come to affect the entire employee life experience,1 as well as the wider perception of your brand.

Drawing on findings from the ADP Research Institute survey People at Work 2021: A Global Workforce View, this workbook is your go-to resource as you start to plot your own company’s HR recovery strategy over the coming months and years.


1. Gartner: 9 Work Trends that HR Leaders Can’t Ignore in 2021