UNLEASH’s top 10 most-read stories of 2021

Remote work, the gig economy, funding rounds, culture wars and of course, the ‘Great Resignation’. What can we say about 2021 that hasn’t already been said?

After two straight years of uncertainty and upheaval, we go into the holiday period perhaps a little battered and bruised by the many twists and turns of the last 12 months, but also more resilient and looking to next year, hopeful of an employment landscape that puts the needs of the global workforce front and center.

Here are UNLEASH’s most read HR stories of 2021.

1. Inside Standard Chartered’s HR tech stack and hybrid working model

Snagging top spot is UNLEASH journalist Allie Nawrat’s piece about Standard Chartered’s hybrid working model. At a time when the finance giant’s peers were railroading staff into getting back to the office, SC’s policy caught the attention of our readers for its progressive and counter-intuitive approach.

2. Four lessons from Basecamp’s culture binfire

2021 was not a good year for the project management software company. As writer Sharon O’ Dea said in her opinion piece, “When you build your culture — and your external brand — on trust, inclusion, and collaboration, a sudden switch to command-and-control leaves people questioning your motives, and you risk long-term damage to your reputation.”

3. Face reality, Rishi: the remote work genie is out of the bottle

In March of 2021, the UK was in the middle of its third lockdown, almost exactly a year after everyone shut up shop and got used to shouting “you’re on mute” more often than is healthy.

As UK chancellor Rishi Sunak tried to make the case for staff needing a return to the office, we made the point that it’s not as simple as all that and the data don’t bear out the supposed benefits.

4. Spotify’s VP of HR on working from anywhere

Spotify have long been an UNLEASH collaborator, and this piece from former editor Yessi Bello-Perez in conversation with VP of HR Alexander Westerdahl showed why the forward-thinking music platform will remain an employment destination for top performers when it went early with its ‘work from anywhere’ policy back in February.

5. Xero’s chief people officer on “creating a culture of psychological safety”

‘Psychological safety’ was a term that came to prominence in the business world back in the summer of 2020, and almost a year later, some of the world’s biggest fintech brands were making it a key part of their people strategy. MaryLou Costa sat down with their CPO to find out more.

6. 11 listed companies embracing the future of work

Ford, Dropbox, Salesforce, Twitter. Just four elevenths of the listed companies that we collated for a listicle to illustrate how some of the world’s biggest employer brands are navigating the future of work.

7. $5 billion HR tech VC floods market in 2020

A round-up of the financial goings-on from the previous 12 months, UNLEASH journalist George LaRocque’s analysis piece pulled together the biggest trends of 2020.

As the global economy was rocked by COVID-19, it was unsurprising that the HR tech sector came out of it quite well, as companies – and hot on their tails venture capitalists – scrambled to get a piece of the hottest new tech that would enable a smooth transition towards employee productivity in an uncertain business world.

8. Another win for gig economy couriers: Just Eat’s European drivers are now ‘workers’

Only a few years too late, but a win for gig economy workers everywhere as Just Eat joined Uber in providing its workers with the benefits and protections that they should have had all along. Allie Nawrat was reporting on the welcome changes.

9. Five companies supporting employees with menopause at work

In another win for employee equity, we reported on the long overdue conversation around the menopause and supporting women at work.

Like mental health before it, the menopause is now a subject much more open for discussion and we’re all here for that.

10. Peter Hinssen: Reinventing HR to thrive in the ‘Never Normal’

Tech is just the enabler, let’s not forget. But sometimes, it’s not even that. We’ll sum up author and contributor Peter Hinssen’s op-ed for UHLEASH with his joke: “What is the future of HR? It’s a giant computer, a massively intelligent AI, combined with a human and a dog. Why the dog you ask? The task of the dog is to bark to keep the human operator from touching the machine, in case they would like to change anything.”

We’re looking forward to next year and hope you are too.

It’ll bring tremendous challenges without a doubt, but UNLEASH will be here to report on it, analyze it and give you all the business intelligence you need.

See you for the journey and have a great holiday!