Philippa Lamb is joined by Jackie Orme, Chief Executive of CIPD, John Philpott, CIPD Chief Economist, Liane Hornsey, Google’s EMEA HR & Staffing Director, Satish Pradhan - Executive Vice President Group HR Tata Sons, Alex Wilson - BT's Group Human Resources Director. They are discussing HR trends for 2009.
John Philpott says his predictions for 2008 were more pessimistic but more accurate than most economists. As we have seen, things turned out rather worse than even he foresaw. Unemployment has reached his predicted levels and 2009 will look even worse than what we have seen to date.
Jackie explains what would be worrying her if she were still in a big HR role and where her attention would turn. She thinks employers are reacting a little differently from the way they did in previous recessions.
Alex Wilson thinks there are challenges for BT, but also some opportunities for the long term. He also agrees with John that industrial unrest could surface when things start to improve.
Satish Pradham from Tata and Sons talks about coping with sudden changes, treating employees differently and some more strategic challenges.
Jackie says how she sees that CIPD will have to change to respond to different agendas and situations.
Liane Hornsey from Google thinks she will be bucking the trend. Listen to what she is planning for the next year to grow her organisation.
Jackie thinks that while we can plan ahead, there are some traps to avoid, one of which we can all avoid.
Finally, Philippa asks John if the Government has done enough to correct the downturn. John weighs up the measures that Government has taken to date. Can you agree with John's predicted date for some improvement?
Useful links
You may like to hear John's predictions for 2008. John also has a blog.
Visit our subject page whch has links to our resources on dealing with HRM in an economic downturn
Employment relations was mentioned in the podcast. We have a factsheet on this topic and it was also the focus of last month's podcast.
If the worst happens and you need to make redundancies, you may find our Hot Topic on redundancy helpful. We also have training courses