Blake Morgan is hosting the next Strategic HR Forum in conjunction with Hays, at our Oxford and Reading offices on Thursday 19 November 2026 (Oxford) and Thursday 26 November 2026 (Reading).
Hosted by Partner, Rajiv Joshi.
Potential discussion points:
Technology and how we work
- Do job titles/descriptions still work?
- Roles can change so fast that a written job description can often be out of date within six months.
- When is it appropriate to stop hiring for rigid job titles and start hiring people who can easily move between different projects?
- AI in the real world
- Everyone is talking about AI, but are people mostly just using it to write emails faster?
- How are your teams actually using AI right now? How do we stop staff from using unapproved AI platforms without detrimentally impacting their creativity? Have people encountered issues in client-based roles as to client expectations on use of AI?
- HR data vs. gut feeling
- Boardrooms want facts and numbers, but HR sometimes may not have this (at worst it may have to rely on ‘feel’ or on basic surveys).
- What is the most useful piece of data you track in relation to employees?
- Does your organisation have data that actually helps predict when people are going to quit?
Employment Rights Act 2025/UK regulatory shifts
- Legal update section, covering the below changes:
- Day-one rights
- Fire-and-rehire changes
- Flexible working defaults
- Duties relating to prevention of sexual harassment, and third-party harassment
- Other ERA developments.
- What are leaders doing to prepare for these changes?
Retention, internal mobility and hybrid/flexible work models
- Building career pathways vs external hiring, especially with UK skills shortages in key sectors.
- Moving past the ‘should we mandate RTO (return to office)’ question
- What is actually working in terms of hybrid / flexi-work?
Employee wellbeing, burnout and culture:
- The squeezed middle managers
- Some organisations want people back in the office whilst many employees want to work from home – are ‘middle managers’ caught in the crossfire?
- How are you supporting managers who are struggling to lead teams they rarely see in person?
- Making diversity practical
- Occasionally diversity initiatives can feel like a corporate “tick-box” exercise rather than a real change.
- How do we move past buzzwords and actually make sure different types of thinkers (like neurodivergent staff) and others feel welcome?
- Handling “change fatigue”
- After years of restructures and economic shifts, staff are simply exhausted by constant change.
- How do you keep morale up and protect mental health when the business has to constantly change its plans?
- Culture as a business driver:
- The impact of culture on productivity, innovation and customer experience and how culture is shaped.
- Can culture be deliberately designed, or does it emerge organically?
Pay transparency and equity
- Talking openly about pay
- We are seeing increasing publicity about making salary ranges public. Are the days of keeping pay a total secret ending?
- How ready are your managers to explain to an employee exactly why they earn less than a teammate? Have employers noticed an increase in employees discussing pay, or has this always been the status-quo?
- Fixing the “new hire” pay gap
- To attract new talent, companies often have to offer high salaries, which upsets existing staff who have been there for years.
- How do you balance offering competitive pay for new hires without causing resentment internally?
- The ‘first-year dropout’ problem
- Many employees quit within their first year because the actual job doesn’t match what they were promised.
- How do we fix onboarding, so it feels like a welcoming community rather than just a mountain of confusing paperwork on day one?
Outcome from session
During our discussion we will explore what HR alignment with business means in practice, how it can be achieved and look at current conditions in the UK workforce environment that may impact this.
Session format
The format of the session will be a round-table discussion and we will focus on the topics that are of most interest to attendees.
The topics set out above are amongst those that we will debate at our forum. However, please note that we may not touch on all the areas listed.
After the session we will circulate to attendees a summary report of the topics discussed and the ideas put forward to address the issues.
RSVP for Oxford Strategic HR Forum here
RSVP for Reading Strategic HR Forum here
