Looking ahead, my resolutions are grounded in building a bold, future-ready resourcing function that enables long-term growth. Central to this is investing in our people – developing confident, inclusive leaders, building high-performing teams and fostering an environment where learning, curiosity and progression continue to be actively encouraged.
I’m committed to my own continuous development, staying closely connected to market evolution, technology and emerging skills, so that our resourcing strategy remains agile and relevant.
Growing future talent will be a defining focus in 2026, from reimagining early career pathways to unlocking potential through diverse, skills-based hiring approaches that reflect the workforce of tomorrow.
At the heart of everything sits the candidate experience. Recruitment is often the first and most lasting impression of an organisation, and we have a responsibility to make sure it’s a positive, fair and inclusive experience for all, and so this is something that sits at the top of my list as we enter the new year.
As I look ahead to 2026, my focus is on enhancing the employee experience. I want our employees to feel empowered to succeed by providing a clear path for career progression and learning resources that are intuitive and easy to engage with.
One challenge I’m tackling this year is modernising our performance system. We are seeing how AI is transforming the skills employees need to thrive, yet the systems we use to evaluate them often lag behind. At the same time, we’re asking our people to prioritise critical skills, such as adaptability, critical thinking, and communication, but few organisations have objective, standardised ways to measure these capabilities or connect them to meaningful talent decisions.
I also plan to introduce more AI agents to simplify workflows and ensure our employees have an exceptional experience. For me, technology isn’t about replacing people, it’s about amplifying what they can achieve.
In 2026, HR strategies must be defined by speed. I believe the traditional 18-month planning cycle is obsolete; today, leaders need to operate in six-month increments to keep pace with technological change.
My focus in 2026 is shifting from doing more to mattering more. Focusing less on being caught up in the day-to-day and more on shaping how the organisation thinks, prioritises and makes decisions.
As businesses face rising cost pressures and higher productivity expectations, HR decisions are becoming central to business success. With this in mind, I want to drive commercial growth through a robust people strategy that involves the opinions of senior leaders.
I also want to strengthen the judgement of my peers, supporting leaders through critical moments. Recent years have highlighted significant skills scarcity, and alongside growing AI adoption, organisations can no longer rely on traditional workforce planning. This requires a shift toward skills-based capability clusters, enabling faster redeployment of talent than external hiring, improving agility while controlling costs.
With AI constantly evolving, I want to broaden my perspectives beyond HR, to ensure people strategy keeps pace with technological and ethical implications. I want to do this whilst being a leader that is ambitious and human, constantly giving back where I can.
This year, I want to ensure AI eliminates the administrative burden on my team and to reinvest the capacity we gain into our people. My first resolution is to ensure my team is moving beyond leading by instinct and becoming more data proficient. I am committed to upskilling in AI literacy, not just to automate labour-intensive tasks like onboarding, but to gain the technical confidence to interpret AI outputs and ensure our data remains clean, compliant and actionable.
Equally, I will be focusing on reclaiming time for the human side of HR. As automation reduces my administrative workload, I will reinvest that capacity into strengthening workplace culture. It’s a focus to double down on wellbeing and engagement initiatives to ensure employees feel valued as individuals. Automation creates capacity, but a strong organisational culture creates the real results.
Finally, I am committed to sharpening my commercial influence. I will focus on using AI-driven insights to engage my team, ensuring I can clearly demonstrate how our people’s initiatives directly fuel bottom-line results. My mission is to move the conversation from ‘what HR is doing’ to ‘how people and culture are delivering business growth’.
Looking ahead, my resolutions are grounded in building a bold, future-ready resourcing function that enables long-term growth. Central to this is investing in our people – developing confident, inclusive leaders, building high-performing teams and fostering an environment where learning, curiosity and progression continue to be actively encouraged.
I’m committed to my own continuous development, staying closely connected to market evolution, technology and emerging skills, so that our resourcing strategy remains agile and relevant.
Growing future talent will be a defining focus in 2026, from reimagining early career pathways to unlocking potential through diverse, skills-based hiring approaches that reflect the workforce of tomorrow.
