CHRO IN ACTION Resilience is everything If there’s one word to describe the past few years, Moving forward, Dryburgh expects to be able rethinking of the talent strategy in a time of it’s uncertainty. Whether it’s the pandemic, Russia’s to use analytics and insights for a real-time look upheaval that not only helps the business in a invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation, the energy at employee sentiment—and react quickly, if time of crisis, but also the people most affected crisis or the cryptocurrency crash, businesses necessary. For instance, Dryburgh’s team found that by that crisis. have had to adapt quickly to change. Some bp employees who work for great team leaders are Ultimately, Dryburgh sees resilience—and organizations have even thrived since they have 15 points more engaged than those who see their leveraging that platform of opportunity—in three the right mix of people and technology to adapt to team leader less often and receive less feedback. facets. The first is transformation and using HR changing conditions. Moving forward, bp is creating an agenda focused tech and talent to help the company evolve and on driving engagement and performance. “So, grow to meet its goals in a constantly changing Kerry Dryburgh, Chief People Officer at bp it’s having that discussion as opposed to it being world. (To this end, bp is aided by Accenture’s calls this the platform of opportunity. “It’s about about what we intuitively think we need to do…[and] transformation GPS tool to help them understand leading transformation internally and then looking underpinning the ‘why’ in a much more robust way.” their progress on the journey.) The second is beyond, considering the challenges externally, embedding the importance of transformation and to make a difference in the world” she says. “It’s Dryburgh has also found bp is well positioned about purpose and how we respond to societal to support the greater good, beyond what’s talent throughout the C-suite and with the board expectations. And then it’s about engagement traditionally expected of a CHRO or HR in general. and opening the door to collaboration. And the and the commerciality.” She worked with external partners, including NGOs, third is leaving a legacy, so that the company and to create a system of support for refugees—not just the communities it serves are all better off than There are examples of this everywhere in the connecting them with jobs, but linking all the other when she arrived at bp. organization. On a high level, all of bp’s HR tools aspects as well, such as determining if someone and data are in the cloud, all to ensure that needs language training or financial support to Her advice? “Think bigger than the seat employees have the best possible experience. cover the costs of requalification. It’s a complete that you sit in.” 28