Listen Again: Talent Storm US Webinar

We recently held our second Talent Storm webinar for the US, with an audience of over 260 HR, talent acquisition and business leaders. Our panellists included Deanna Oppenheimer who is the founder of boutique advisory firm CameoWorks and non-profit BoardReady and is a Senior Independent Director at Tesco, Non-Executive Director for Whitbread and the Chair of Hargreaves Lansdown PLC. We were also joined by Anu Datta, Vice President of HR for Worldwide Sales and Services from VMware and Christina Seckar, Executive Director of HR from Merck who leads HR for the Discovery, Pre-clinical and Early Development portion of Merck Research Labs.

Alongside insights on the impact of COVID-19 on business generally, we discussed the specific impact, challenges and opportunities for leadership change and succession, talent retention and talent acquisition across various sectors.

At a board level, Deanna shared her thoughts about why some companies are thriving while others are merely trying to survive and how the different choices businesses are making are largely based on talent strategy. This includes the global reassessment taking place by companies about their people strategy, the shift in talent acquisition, the short and long-term ramification of remote working including economic impact, and how to create and maintain a culture remotely.

Anu Datta followed on from this and discussed how VMWare’s guiding principal has been to take an employee-centric approach with wellbeing underpinning everything they do. He shared how companies have historically moved from an expensive real-estate footprint to looking at lower-cost hub options and are now essentially have as many ‘offices’ as they have employees working remotely. In addressing the impacts of COVID, VMware are not just asking if people feel safe to return to the office, they are asking if it is necessary to return to the office. In a highly competitive talent environment, VMware are also helping their managers to articulate their employer value proposition in a remote environment.

Christina Seckar brought a unique angle to the discussion, as her remit includes lab scientists and much of their work is not only critical in the context of COVID-19, but much of their work cannot be completed remotely. Merck have addressed this with three guiding principles in order of priority which are; the safety of their employees, continuity of supply of medicines and vaccines and monitoring COVID and their pipeline in general and thinking of patient needs.

The panellists also answered a number of questions from the audience, speaking in particular about what companies are now looking for in the leaders of the future and how authenticity and a growth mindset are both critical.

You can hear the webinar in full and read more about the topics discussed on our dedicated Talent Storm Hub.