TALENT
Brexit planning Strategies and approaches to the talent challenge
A year after the referendum, negotiators are attempting to agree exactly how the UK will leave the European Union. Ruth Holmes examines how organisations are planning their response and where this leaves UK employers and the labour market.
I
n the context of Brexit and the talent agenda, it is telling that two letters from chief executives tasked with overseeing
statutory relocations have recently raised concerns about skills and resourcing. The first letter came from the chief
executive officer of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), Sam Woods, in correspondence to Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, in early August. Updating the committee following
his April letter to banks, insurers and investment firms asking for confirmation of the nature and scale of their contingency planning, Mr Woods reportedly alerted government that “the authorisation, and then the ongoing supervision, of a significant number of additional firms [post-Brexit] is likely to place a material extra burden on the PRA’s resources”. The second warning came from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which
must move by 2019 to within the EU (see p6). In its relocation-planning communiqué, the regulatory body stated, “Unexpected higher, faster or more permanent loss of staff as a consequence of the agency’s relocation may lead to a situation in which EMA’s operations can no longer be maintained.”
Relocation and talent management Both concerns bring skills and talent management squarely into the relocation and business continuity realm. They also add a new dimension to the mobility and talent conversation, highlighting the importance of skilled people to maintaining critical services, and the financial cost of disengagement through mismanagement of relocation during group moves. Noel Wathion, deputy executive director
of the EMA and head of its Brexit task force, said in a statement announcing the agency’s business continuity plan, “Preparing for the move, managing the necessary changes,
and addressing challenges such as possible losses in skilled and experienced staff in a proactive and efficient way requires considerable internal resources.” But it is not just a question of skills
shortages; there are also likely to be job losses. Brexit is combining with technology and lower profits, particularly in the financial sector, to see fewer jobs go to the European mainland than some originally anticipated – anecdotally confirmed at a recent RES Forum discussion – and restructuring of organisations.
Managing Brexit-related relocation For HR and mobility leaders, the challenge, then, is creating and communicating a compelling vision for people who are relocating, and for those who are left behind. The danger of not doing so, or of not supporting relocating employees sufficiently that they want to move, is that they leave the company altogether, as the EMA warns.
18 | Re:locate | Autumn 2017
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