From ensuring equitable development opportunities to managing the emotional climate of a redundancy, senior HR leader Anita Carver CPHR shares practical tips on how HR can navigate the complex workplace scenarios facing practitioners today.

Whether it’s rebuilding trust after a large-scale redundancy, convincing executives that HR is more than a support function or ensuring equity in professional development, these challenges demand sensitivity, judgement and strategic acumen from HR practitioners.

In a new video series, The Big Ask, HRM posed a few of these scenarios to Anita Carver CPHR, Senior Learning and Development Business Partner at the Northern Land Council and the State President of the AHRI Northern Territory State Council. 

Carver shares her perspective on questions such as how leaders can rethink their learning and development strategies for a hybrid workforce and how to influence executives to see HR as a strategic driver. 

Watch the full video below.

Don’t have time to watch the full video? Below, HRM has outlined an edited excerpt from the conversation.

Developing an equitable learning culture

Q: How do you ensure equity in development opportunities for both remote and on-site employees?

Anita Carver CPHR: I work in an organisation where we have many remote employees scattered across the Northern Territory. For us, it’s about framing development not as attending a course and going to a workshop, but about learning from each other, and sharing experiences and knowledge. 

That’s something we can facilitate as learning and development professionals, no matter where you’re based as employees. It’s about building connections between the people who have the experience and the knowledge, and those who need it.

Tell the story of change

Q: Do you have any tips for managing the implementation of a change you anticipate will be unpopular with various stakeholders?

Anita Carver CPHR: Change management can be really tricky. The biggest tip I can give is to tell the story. Tell the story about where you are, why things don’t work and why you need to change. Tell them how you’re going to change, how it might impact them and bring them along the journey.

Take lots of feedback along the way. Don’t assume you know all the answers and that your plan is rock solid; take the advice from the people being affected by that change and build it into your change management.

Managing the emotional climate of a redundancy process

Q: How can HR restore trust and engagement after a large-scale redundancy?

Anita Carver CPHR: Redundancies can be tough in organisations and leave people feeling fragile, whether they were affected by redundancies or lost colleagues and friends through the process. 

HR needs to be sensitive to the emotions in play, ensuring they give space for those employees to navigate the change and provide support for them, whether that’s through their EAP or leadership engagement.

Throughout the process, ensure that employees understand the journey and the organisation’s future vision. While things might be tough, they need to understand how this might benefit everyone in the long term.

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