Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends Report

Wellington, 22 February – Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report, ‘The social enterprise in a world disrupted’ examines how organisations and leaders can use the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic to fundamentally reimagine work, shifting focus from surviving to thriving, and putting human capital issues at the top of their agenda.

This year’s report includes responses from more than 3600 executives in 96 countries, including 58 from New Zealand. Also, for the first time in the report’s 11-year history, business respondents (59%), including CEOs, outnumbered HR executives (41%) in the survey, underscoring the growing importance of human capital in organisational decision making.

“In New Zealand over 30% of respondents were from a C-suite level, clearly indicating that human capital issues have been top of mind for organisations as they navigated their way through a year like no other,” said Deloitte Human Capital Partner Hamish Wilson.

This year’s report takes a deeper look at the five key trends of 2020 which focused on designing work for well-being, unleashing worker potential, building superteams, setting new directions for work and the workforce as well as re-architecting work. The report provides insights as to how organisations took these trends and used them to survive, to reimagine work itself, and are now positioned to thrive in the future.

Human capital is now at the centre of thinking by leaders as they shift organisational views on preparedness to effectively deal with multiple possible scenarios and the importance of real-time workforce insights and data to support this.

“Nearly 1 in 5 New Zealand businesses did not have business preparedness strategies in the lead up to COVID-19,” said Mr Wilson.

“However, this fell to 2% after the arrival of COVID-19 and 50% of business now define their preparedness as identifying multiple, likely business scenarios and creating multiple, robust mitigation plans. Furthermore, respondents identified leadership behaviours, culture and work redesign as the three most important factors to achieve business preparedness”.

COVID-19 further blurred the lines between work and life which has resulted in organisations shifting away from prioritising a work-life balance and instead designing well-being into work. 91% of New Zealand respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that changes their organisation put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic empowered workers to more successfully integrate the demands of their personal and professional lives.

Other notable findings from New Zealand include:

• Nearly two-thirds of respondents are now “reimagining work" after COVID-19, compared to just 30% prior to COVID-19.
• 90% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that they are “confident that today's remote work practices will be sustainable".
• There was a 60% positive impact on wellbeing for those businesses using remote/virtual work practices.

“Organisations which integrate well-being into the design of work at individual, team and organisational levels will build a future where employees can feel and perform at their best,” Mr Wilson said.

“COVID-19 taught organisations that the need to have human-centric strategies was not just a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have. Organisations and leaders who address human capital holistically and ensure human potential is factored into decision-making processes will be placed well to thrive moving forward.”

The full report can be viewed here.

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