Teaser 1: “It's interesting you talked about buy, build, borrow, the next bit is 'bot' because AI is becoming a big topic of conversation.”
Teaser 2: “If, as a leader, your'e not demonstrating those behaviours and non-technical skills yourself then your teams are unlikely to do the same.”
Teaser 3: “I can't stand the phrase 'soft and hard skills'. Soft skills are very very hard to do”
Teaser 4: "To bring it back to that iced coffee debate, I think it would be a shame if somebody was judged on their ability to do a job because they walked into the interview room with an iced coffee."
[Intro Music Fades]
[Speaker Holly Ivins (HI)]
Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. I'm Holly Ivins, the Reference Content Manager at the CIPD, and joining me, I'm delighted to have...
Andrea Gordon (AG)
I'm Andrea Gordon, I'm Chief People Officer at the Pensions Regulator.
[Speaker Janet Campbell (JC)]
Hi, I'm Janet Campbell. I'm the Interim People Director and OD at Sport England.
[Speaker Gareth Neal (GN)]
I'm Gareth Neale. I'm Head of HR for Crimson Hotels.
[HI]
Lovely. Thank you very much all for joining me. It's great to have you here. Just a quick reminder before we get going, that everything that we discuss today, we'll be talking about the general principles of what's happening. You all know as experienced professionals that it's very difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes. So, we'll be taking these stories as a jumping off point for our discussions.
To kick us off, the CIPD recently published our 2026 resourcing and talent planning report supported by Omni. The biennial report explores trend analysis and employer practices across a number of areas, including benchmarking data on recruitment, retention and talent management.
One aspect that jumped out to me was advancements in strategic workforce planning. The data suggests a positive trend with organisations reducing the reliance on short-term planning (that's planning looking up to six months ahead), that figure now sits at 26%, down from 31% back in 2024.
On the other hand, though, only 16% of organisations are planning more than two years into the future. So, I think we can all agree the pace of change makes predicting future workforce requirements genuinely difficult.
But how much of an issue is lack of workforce planning three to five years out? Is it simply the reality now that the pace of change makes meaningful planning - with certainty - difficult?
[AG]
Yeah, I mean, we've been doing quite a bit of workforce planning at the Pensions Regulator. I think in terms of the length of time you need to workforce plan, I think obviously nobody can predict what will happen in three to five years because the pace of change across any sector and any organisation is always significant.
For us, in the pensions sector, obviously we've just had a new pensions act come in and that means that as an organisation, we're having to look at the way we operate and regulate.
We've been trying to scenario plan. So, look at what capabilities we need as an organisation rather than, I think, traditional workforce planning was a spreadsheet with numbers on: we will need 20 additional people in the next year and 50 additional people within the next sort of three to five years. We don't do workforce planning like that anymore. It's scenario planning. It's what capabilities - either people capabilities or tech capabilities - organisations need to operate in the future.
So, we've been doing quite a bit around this. We've built a business capability framework at TPR. We've been using the sort of build, buy, borrow method for workforce planning and really looking at what our organisation shape might be in sort of the next three, five, ten years.
[HI]
Yeah, and that idea of skills forecasting, Janet, I don't know if you've got any thoughts about whether that's still a niche skill or something that's going to become more and more important?
[JC]
I think it's less of a niche skill. I know back in the day, it was a very niche skill. I'm not sure that's the case anymore.
Similar to Andrea and the TPR, we at Sport England are looking at reshaping, resizing the organisation. And part of that is about thinking, do we have the right capabilities and skills to deliver what the organisation needs over the next three to five years?
There's clearly an element of planning that one must, and should, do around that capability piece, particularly since there's a technology aspect to that as well. But in any workforce plan, whether it's three years, five years or whatever, you've got to build in that flex so that you can respond in an agile way to whatever external things are affecting what it is you thought you might need, when you might need them.
[GN]
It's interesting you talked about buy, build, borrow. The next bit is 'bot' because AI is becoming a big topic conversation. And I've had conversations with some of my peers and some people are frozen by that concept that they can't plan ahead and they can't think much further than the next two, three months, let alone six months, 12 months, three years down the line. And you can't let that stop you because everything just suddenly becomes reactive and you go from being a potentially transformational people leader to being purely transactional. You might as well be back in the days of personnel, which I don't think anyone wants. Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe some people do!.
For us, there are various other key challenges that are coming up.
We've been directly affected by the changes in right to work and the regulations around that. And that has led us to actually start thinking way ahead in terms of talent succession planning, because as an industry alone, hospitality is really challenged with trying to find our next workforce. So, we've started to already plan ahead and think about how we can really attract people into our business, but also how we can develop those people from within, and what are the key skills that are going to be coming through?
Funnily enough, we're using AI to be able to do some of that stuff and help us to be predictive with that and help us to actually think, okay, so this is what our job descriptions say at the moment, this is what people's skills are, this is what they are - What is it going to be in the future? And then obviously, the other classic bit people end up doing with AI is just relying on that as purely the information and that's it. But you have to think - and really think - about what you think your own organisation really needs and where the potential challenges are. And, as Andrea said, you have to put in contingency planning: So, what happens if, so what are the challenges if something goes wrong along the lines?
[HI]
Any advice for someone out there who's thinking, how can I make this process more effective to not have that frozen feeling, the knowing the unknowable almost?
[AG]
I think it's sort of circling back to your plans, consistently. It's not creating a strategic workforce plan at the start of the financial year and not coming back to it until mid-financial year. Change is so constant that you have to keep circling back to it. And, I think, we talked about build buy borrow method. And there's a lot that connects with talent planning in the organisation and making sure that your succession planning and, as Gareth mentioned, recruitment practices are really sort of feeding into those strategic workforce plans. Looking at, again, sort of future proofing all of those other people practices, so that they sort of underpin and support and give some bench strength to your strategic workforce plans.
[JC]
What I'd add to that, I think, are a couple of things. I think in organisations where you've got low turnover, the external capability, that's less of a focus for you if people are happy and content to stay in the organisation.
So, you've got to think about that from a very different perspective, right? And it's what the development is and so on and how you can stretch your internal capability, your succession planning takes on a different lens, doesn't it? when you've got a relatively low turnover. So that's one thing.
And I think the other thing is, what's the data telling you? So, you might have said that you need this thing over here, but the data, the way the market is shifting, how candidates are presenting, etc, means that you might have to just pivot and think about things in a different way.
So just to add, I think there are some other, those are other things to think about, because not everybody - the point you were making, Gareth, where you're thinking you've got to think really strategically given right to work, changes, etc - so your whole workforce approach to workforce planning is quite different.
[GN]
Yes, totally, of course.
[JC]
Do you see what I mean? Because you've got people that move.
[GN]
Oh, I mean, our start turnover is totally different to yours .
[JC]
Whereas we've got a relatively low turnover and that varies throughout the organisation. So, the most important thing about your point about skills is there's not a cookie cutter to take to this – it's very contextual to the organisation, the sector and the business they're in. And then you layer on top of that what is happening in the external world.
[GN]
I mean, you're absolutely right. I think that some of the mistakes that people make is to go, 'I've seen this in another business, let's just replicate it' and it just doesn't work, and that's where these things fall down. I think the other piece, just to add to both your bits of wisdom, is that ultimately, I think it's not just doing it in isolation, it's talking to fellow leaders in the business, trying to understand from their perspective where they see challenges, where their particular area of the business will change and what things are coming up. And actually, therefore being able to understand, 'okay, this is a way forward that is going to make a difference for the business as a whole'. It can be a thing where you think, I just got to do this, I'm, responsible for the whole HR function and this is our thing...it's the business thing.
[HI]
This actually leads us on beautifully to our next topic, which is the idea of soft skills. So, I think we'll probably touch on whether that's a suitable name for them or not. But recent research from City and Guilds suggests that shortages in communication, problem solving and other key soft skills are causing operational problems for employers. More than a third of UK businesses say that shortages in these skills are restricting productivity and growth. The findings also highlighted the importance employers and HR place on these capabilities, with 74% saying that these skills mattered more than technical skills for workplace success.
Do we think that term is relevant today? But, also, building on what we were saying about workforce planning, is that the area that we should really be focusing on?
Gareth, I'm going to kick off with you.
[GN]
You're just looking at me, but you know this is one of my favourite subjects. So, I can't stand the phrase 'soft and hard skills'.
Soft skills are very, very hard to do. It is difficult to have a challenging conversation with someone. It's difficult to stop and think about things and carefully think about your strategy as a business. It's difficult to sometimes say to people the news they don't want to hear, and it's also very hard to train soft skills.
I come from an L&D background and ultimately this idea sometimes that people have is that you can magically just go to a training session and suddenly someone will completely change. Really, soft skills are behaviours and attitudes and it's the behaviours and attitudes you're looking for in people. And I think the really crucial bit is hiring for that in the first place and setting out what you are expecting someone to be like, as a person, rather than focusing too much on the skills, which are not hard skills, they're just their skills of the job. So, what does someone need to do in the job?
From my perspective, I think that you can generally train up in the skills of the job, the things the person has to do, but, actually, having the right person in the first place and the right attitude and the right behaviours from that person is much harder to change. So, I would always say you hire for that as a first port of call, the behaviours, the attitudes that match the values of your business first, and then you work on the skills that they need to have in the job. And that's an easier thing to change and develop.
I've seen it in business where you can tell, I've walked into businesses where there's very high staff turnover and that's because they're not the right fit for the business. And I think that's such an important thing. So, yes, as the stats point out, it is hard to train on this stuff or develop this stuff, or sometimes even find this stuff, but it's so important you do that.
[HI]
Thinking about that, what's trainable and what's not trainable, does that play into this idea of what skills we're looking for with people?
[AG]
Yeah, I think it does. I agree with Gareth. I think we recruit, whether that's externally or internally, predominantly based on somebody's technical skills.
And you often see, in pretty much any organisation I've worked in, people will progress and develop and be promoted based on their technical ability, and, people forget about the, I’ll call them 'non-technical skills', Gareth, because I know you don't like the word soft skills. They forget about those soft skills, but I think they are absolutely trainable. Yes, it's harder, but you know, the type of things that you can focus on are things like stretch assignments, and coaching helps with that, of course, and mentoring and things like that, and having a good leader in the first place to support somebody and being a good role model as a leader.
If, as a leader, you're not demonstrating those behaviours and non-technical skills yourself, then your teams are unlikely to do the same. So, I think they're definitely trainable, but it's the different methods that you use to get there. And I think it's probably a combination of a few different things.
[JC]
The trainable point is really interesting. So, I agree that it's incredibly trainable. And I'm always, as a leader, I like to think about what's delivered and how it's done and try and get a balance between them. But for a long time, (not a long time, forever, actually!), and it will continue to be the case that people often only care about what's been delivered and are less bothered about how it's done, which is where those non-technical skills play a real massive role.
The thing about being trained in something, you've got to be really, really self-aware. Otherwise, when in moments of stress or anxiety, you revert to type. So, whatever you've learned, however you've learned to behave better, or role model in an effective way, in those moments, people tend to revert to type, don't they? So it becomes harder to draw on your training. So you present in that way.
But I do agree, however, non-technical skills can be trained. And honestly, not that I want to turn this into a different conversation at all, right, but AI and the increasing use of AI in every aspect of our lives will make non-technical skills - and focus on developing those and training people - much more important, when it comes to critical thinking and exercising judgment and that sort of thing. Those sorts of things that require you to, this is not that technical, right, this is that... the word I want...it's completely gone out of my head! But you get, you're nodding, so I'm assuming you understand.
[GN]
I always, I honestly, intuitively understand anything you ever say, Janet.
[HI]
I guess that idea of it can be trained and it's helping people develop those as they go through their career, especially in the future when it's the impact of AI. Do we think that, as we said about strategic workforce planning, needs to be built into capability frameworks? What are we looking for and how we measure those things and value those things in the workplace?
[GN]
I think it's critically important. We're working on leadership and management capabilities and looking at what those are for our business.
I think going back to the point about training soft skills, as it's been called, I think you can develop them. I think it takes a long time. But, as an organisation, and it's part of workforce planning, is you have to put the effort in and think it's not going to turn around tomorrow morning and suddenly this person's doing things the right way, it's going to take some time to turn that corner. And that has to be planned out and expected to take some time. And I think it's about, are you willing as an organisation to give someone the time to be able to improve, develop? Because I'm sure every single one of us in this room will all have at some point have been given some feedback and thought, oh my goodness, how do I change and develop myself? And it doesn't happen overnight. I'm not the same person, I don't act and work in the same way as I did when I first started my career. It's developed over time, and it's changed depending on what I need to do in my role within the business.
I think that's a really important thing to think about, is how do you properly think this, what is the point at which this person will turn around? And the critical bits that Andrea pointed out was about the feedback coaching and also mentoring is really important to be able to help that person and steer that person in the right direction.
[JC]
In all of that, the nugget becomes that level of self-awareness, because you have to develop that. And to your point about not being the same person you are now as you were then, none of us are because with age comes great wisdom. I think I've butchered that quote entirely! We learn, don't we? Learn how to adapt our behaviour, especially the more senior you become in an organisation, you play a different role. So that role modelling that Andrea talked about earlier becomes even more critical, almost more than what is delivered, right, as a senior leader. I think you're right, role modelling that becomes really important. And being really self-aware.
I think having people around you as well who go like, you know what, in that minute, 'can I just give you a bit of feedback about that? What were you thinking when you?...' having people around you, whether you've got some trusted relationships or creating that environment in an organisation where you can do that, where you can hold people to account if they're not delivering on those soft skills in a way that works for the organisation and matters, I think is also a really helpful way of doing that. So creating that language around the organisation that allows you to call it out in a very safe way. But of course, you have to have psychological safety in an organisation to do that. But that's a different conversation.
[HI]
I guess just a final question for me on this, for the people professionals out there who think ‘I want to take the time, over time, to help people develop these types of skills’, the other push is the pace of change and how do we respond rapidly. How can they lay out a business case that will help them lay out that this will take time but will be effective in the long run and impactful in the long run?
[GN]
Ultimately, it's where your business is going. And obviously, you can always think (it goes back to what we were just saying about workforce planning) you can always think just the next six months, but really, where are you going three years, five years down the line? And as a people leader, HR leader, you also have to think, ‘okay, yes, that might be what other people are trying to push on, but we also have to think long term’.
We also have to think about the long-term challenges. And actually, in a funny way, this is the feedback for other people in the business. Stop thinking about the next six months, start thinking about longer term, because otherwise you just get caught up in things and people don't change. And 'oh, let's not talk about to that person about how they were in that particular situation. It's not worth the bother. They're good at doing something else'. But actually, those challenges are really important.
As a people leader, you sometimes have to have challenging conversations with senior people in the business to say, 'actually, that didn't work as well as you might have thought it did. Here's a suggestion, here's some thoughts about how you can do it better.'
[AG]
As I mentioned earlier, we've done a lot in the strategic workforce planning space. I think linking talent in with that, we started to look at going back to the soft skills, versus the technical skills, we've started to break down our review of performance and talent into sort of four signals:
So the technical leadership behaviors and impact people have. We've recreated, we've done away with the old nine box grid and recreated our own, which we can use alongside our strategic workforce plans and our talent plans to really think about how we develop - not just from a technical perspective, but from a leadership and soft skills perspective - how we develop our people over the next sort of three to five years.
[HI]
For our final topic today, we love a good social media debate, right? We've had the blue/black, white/gold dress. We've had the hashtag #Oreo-gate recently. The latest debate puts iced coffee at the centre of the controversy; with claims that turning up to a job interview with one in your hand is unprofessional, too informal and a distraction.
So, this has kicked off a huge debate with some people saying that turning up with an iced matcha latte is in fact the worst thing you could do. But I think there's something a little bit more meaningful hidden behind this debate.
What does workplace professionalism look like now, and in the future, if we're thinking ahead? How important is it to set out and showcase an organisation's culture during the recruitment process?
[JC]
I came to icedcoffee-gate, not via, I think it was originally on TikTok. I don't do TikTok, so I didn't see it there. I can't remember where, I think I may have seen it on Threads or Instagram or something. So, and then you find yourself, found yourself in a rabbit hole, right, going through all of these interesting comments and going, oh my goodness, really? And then you go deeper and deeper and deeper into it. I must have spent about an hour, going on various comments. And most of the ones I picked up were in America. So some of the references and so on were slightly missing.
And then what I did pick up in a lot of the comments and things, and some were UK based as well, were two distinct things, right:
One was a sort of a bit of a downer on Gen Z.
And the other was certain groups of people could get away with an iced coffee versus others.
And the debates sort of split along those lines broadly in the various threads and so on that I was reading.
So, and that got me thinking about all sorts of things. And where I landed was, this isn't necessarily a Gen Z thing. When you think about the oldest and that Gen Z, they’re 28, 29, there or thereabouts. And when you think about their working life, many of them were in the early days of their working life during COVID. And during COVID, work became much more casual. We became much more relaxed about how we showed up at work, right? Whether it was on screen or in person. It's not just an on-screen thing, like it's an in-person thing. So, we became much more relaxed about that. We asked people to be authentic and show up as themselves. And in some of the discourse, a regular coffee was fine, but an iced coffee wasn't fine. And I couldn't quite understand the distinction between why was an iced coffee bad and a regular coffee was perfectly fine? People show u with a glass of water or bottle of water or whatever.
So, if somebody turned up to an interview with me with an iced coffee, I wouldn't write them off. I wouldn't think that they were uninterested. I wouldn't think that was a poor professional choice. I really wouldn't. I might be thinking, what was that? Or whatever. That might be a way to have a really interesting conversation to find out a bit more about that person, right? Rather than a job description or the, you know...so I wouldn't write somebody off if they turned up with an iced coffee. I genuinely wouldn't. And iced coffees are not just a Gen Z thing. I have been known to have an iced coffee from time to time myself.
And then this sense that it's not professional or it's against the culture of the organisation. Let's be honest, when we're interviewing people, we don't say, 'oh my God, the culture, we're going for a bit of a culture problem at the minute, you know, oh my goodness, we've got some terrible managers that we're trying to, we're trying to get them to be better at what they do. That's the culture that you walk into'. We don't do that in an interview. We make it all a bit bland, don't we, right? So it fits in. And at the end of the day, when you're in an interview, I know some people don't think this, is a two-way street, right? If you're interviewing me, I'm interviewing you. I need to work out whether I want to come and work in this organisation, and you need to work out whether you think I will fit. And I think an iced coffee is not, I think, a measure of whether or not somebody would fit in an organisation. But again, I think that's contextual, right?
So if I were going into an interview in one of the big banks, I may not turn up with anything other than a smart suit and heels. But if I was going to go into a media organisation, I may be quite comfortable with an iced coffee and slightly more relaxed dress. And I think it's contextual.
[HI]
Yeah. So Gareth, that idea of 'fit', is that something recruitment managers, hiring managers should be looking for? Or is it just going to cause problems?
[GN]
No, going back to exactly what Janet's just said, it entirely depends on the company you're walking into or what you, who you're being interviewed by.
So, if someone came into an interview for something at Crimson Hotels with an iced coffee, I think, we could just give you a nice lovely cup of coffee or tea or whatever beverage you choose, because that's part of what we would do, as a hospitality company. But I wouldn't look down on someone for doing that.
Personally, I remember going for an interview in a previous business and being warned by the recruiter for it, don't come in with a tie because otherwise the CEO will cut it off you. I mean, yeah, extreme, but it's true.
So it's important to understand the context of the business you're walking into for an interview. But equally, one of the challenges that we've had previously as a business, was we had a challenge with people staying with us for a long period of time.
Now, in hospitality there is generally higher turnover. But what we realised was we weren't really presenting what the role was about, particularly. So, what were the expectations of the role? What was someone going to be doing in the role? So, what we've actually done as part of the hiring process is get people to experience that, to see what it's like, to understand what the challenges might be. You know, it's not all rosy. And actually, the final piece of the puzzle is we are really clear about our values when we're interviewing people. So, our values aren't just something on a piece of paper or something that we've just got on the wall in offices. They are something that I work with, with our leadership team. We agreed on it pretty quickly, what the values were and the behaviours that fit underneath that. And actually, that's the first thing we set out with someone. Do you have the right mindset to be able to work in this business? Are you really thinking in the right way? And also, here is what it's really like. And if you do that, then I think it sets someone up to succeed. And I think that's the critical piece I always think of recruitment. I'd rather set someone up to succeed when we give them the role.
[HI]
Andrea, thinking about capabilities as we were discussing, is it about showcasing to someone during an interview what the norm and what's expected is, as Gareth said, but also helping them understand what will be expected?
[AG]
Yeah, I think it is. There are different ways you can do that. We have staff engagement panels. So, and I did one myself when I joined TPR. So, you have a topic, you have a presentation, you have probably eight to ten colleagues from around the organisation, who will listen to that presentation, not just within your own business area that you're applying for, but a good cross-section of people from across the organisation, and then they will ask questions and you will interact with them. And that's a really good opportunity for candidates to understand what people are like within the business, how they operate. They can ask questions back and quite often one of the questions people will ask is, what is the culture like here?
I think you shouldn't pull the wool over people's eyes about what the culture's like. But as Janet said, it's sometimes, you know, you're not going to say, oh, it's terrible, everything's bad. There's got to be balance. But equally, you know, if you're working in a very fast-paced environment and that's the type of person you need in that role, you need to be honest and upfront about that.
[JC]
To bring it back to the iced coffee debate.
I think it would be a shame if somebody was judged on their ability to do a job because they walked into the interview room with an iced coffee. I think that says more about the interviewer than it does the interviewee.
[HI]
Yeah. Yeah, it's more telling of the culture rather than the person who's attempting to join that culture.
[JC]
Yeah, I want to just recognise that I did make some real generalisations about what banks might be like and what media companies might be like and I just want to recognise those generalisations. But the point, I think, my overarching point still remains.
[HI]
Excellent. So that's all from us today.
I'd like to thank my guests, Janet, Gareth, and Andrea for your thoughts and reflections.
And, as ever, thank you to you, our listeners.
We'll include links in the show notes to a number of useful supporting resources discussed in the episode, including the CIPD's latest resourcing and talent planning report supported by Omni.
A reminder that we publish new episodes of the HR People Pod every fortnight, so make sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen or watch. And of course, catch up on anything you've missed on demand.
I'm Holly Ivins and this is the HR People Pod.
