International HR Services team contributes to CRF’s Evidence-Based HR: A New Paradigm
Written By
International HR Services Senior Associate Rob Briggs provided invaluable insight to CRF’s 2024 research report, Evidence-Based HR: A New Paradigm.
CRF’s second EBHR report, Strong Foundations: Evidence-Based HR, published in 2023, provided a stock take of where we are now by examining what had changed since 2011, seeking the views and perspectives of senior HR professionals, exploring the role of people analytics within EBHR, and providing some initial suggestions for how we can start to strengthen our EBHR practice.
This current report takes you even further by providing advice from HR professionals and a new and unique set of practical tools – the EBHR Toolkit – HR practitioners can use to embed EBHR in their work.
| As this report shows, evidence-based practice is critical for HR, in ensuring that strategies around performance, recruitment and compensation are successful in supporting business objectives, as well as ensuring that HR maintain the trust and respect of stakeholders across their organisation. It is important to harness a diversity of evidence, and there are many sources of evidence for HR to lean on. As lawyers, whether in-house counsel or in external firms, we are often relied on to provide evidence that is independent and objective, with the ultimate aim of reducing legal risk and the financial costs of getting the law wrong. Of course, we acknowledge that organisations need to balance legal compliance alongside commercial drivers, which may not mean simply adopting the lowest risk approach. One of this report’s recommendations is to ask the right questions. This applies both to the questions our clients ask us and to the information that we request from them. The legal position is often fact-dependent so the more information we have the better; context is key. Sometimes lawyers are criticised for giving options, but that is partly because the right approach depends on the context. What is the organisation’s commercial strategy? What data does the company have about the issue? What has worked well for the business in the past, and what has not? What is the appetite for risk? Of course, as lawyers, we then combine evidence from our clients with other sources of evidence that we can leverage – from constantly evolving employment laws and regulations to court and tribunal decisions, to legal commentary, to our previous experience in advising other companies on similar issues across different industry sectors. Whether dealing with lawyers, peers, or senior leaders within the business, evidence-based HR is not just about the evidence that HR use in coming to their decisions, but also the evidence they share with their partners in return. By working in partnership, an evidence-based approach can help drive a culture of high performance, financial success, and legal compliance. |
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Further resources:
- Mind the (gender pay) gap!: a critical analysis of EU gender pay gap rules
- EU Employment Law Report Q3 and Q4 2023
- Great expectations but limited outcome: on the EU Commission draft proposal for a revised EWC Directive
- Watch our ‘Protecting your trade secrets and IP in a global workplace’ session here
- Frontline UK Employment Law Update Edition 26 2024 - Case Updates
- Watch our ‘EU Employment Masterclass with Lexology: what's new for 2024 on EU Works Councils, Platform Workers, AI, Whistleblowers and the "S" in ESG?’ session here
