HR Spotlight

The International Labour Organization released a report in April that should stop every executive and HR leader in their tracks. More than 840,000 people die each year from health conditions linked to workplace stress. When research uncovers a number that large, the instinct is to reach for structural fixes like workload audits and mental health benefits. These ideas have their place, but the problem is that most of them are applied after the stress has already taken hold.

Building Clera, I keep seeing the same pattern: companies review dozens of plausible profiles without finding anyone they want to meet, while strong candidates ignore dozens of relevant-looking roles until one opportunity speaks to something they actually care about. A hiring manager can look through thousands of profiles in an afternoon. A candidate can find thousands of open roles. Access is abundant. But access is not the same as understanding.

A company retreat can be a valuable chance to step outside everyday routines, bring colleagues together and create space for conversations that rarely happen during a normal workday. It can also become an expensive exercise in forced fun if every hour is scheduled and employees feel as though they have simply moved the office somewhere else. The difference usually comes down to planning.

As organizations continue to refine their workplace strategies, conversations about productivity often center on technology, leadership, employee engagement, and flexible work policies. While these factors certainly influence performance, one workplace issue is frequently underestimated despite affecting employees every day: noise. The modern office is expected to support many different types of work at once, often within the same shared environment.

For decades, large organizations have been trapped in a destructive antipattern: swelling staff during economic upswings only to resort to mass layoffs—sometimes in the thousands—when downturns hit. This boom-and-bust cycle is not merely a symptom of economic volatility but a consequence of outdated organizational design. Static roles, rigid hierarchies, and a lack of visibility into workforce capacity create inefficiencies that harm companies, shareholders, and employees alike.

Every business wants growth, but the organizations that sustain success over the long term usually have something less visible driving their performance: trust. Whether it’s between managers and employees, professionals and clients, or business owners and customers, trust creates the conditions for better communication, stronger decision-making, and greater resilience when challenges arise. While every industry approaches leadership differently, one principle remains consistent.

For years, corporate learning has often been treated as a content problem. When employees needed to learn a new system, complete compliance training, prepare for certification, or build technical skills, the answer was usually more courses. More modules. More videos. More PDFs. More learning portals. But many HR and L&D teams are now realizing that more content does not automatically create a better-trained workforce.

What is the most overlooked metric in recruitment, and why does it matter? The most overlooked metric in recruiting is not time-to-fill or even cost-per-hire. It is source quality and source accuracy. Most organizations still cannot reliably tell you where their best candidates actually came from, and that creates a massive blind spot in hiring strategy and especially spend. The fact that nearly every application still asks, “How did you hear about this job?” tells you everything you need to know.

HR has been through the wringer lately. From being the ‘bad guys’ during layoffs to the ‘fun police’ during RTO, a lot’s been happening. If you could clear the air right now, what is the one thing you wish every employee understood about HR? HR professionals often get a bad rap – and often unfairly in my experience. Most HR professionals (and I put myself as an organisational psychologist in this bucket) care deeply about people. It is often why we were drawn to the profession.

Thank you for joining us, Matt! Let’s begin with the current ‘mood’ of the workforce in 2026! Using just one word, how would you describe it? Why? “Fearful. And I don’t say that to be dramatic. I say it because I think it’s honest. There’s real anxiety in the workforce right now, in tech and outside of tech, and a lot of it is being driven by what people are saying about AI. Some CEOs have said publicly that people should watch out because AI is going to take their jobs.