Strategic & Sustainable HR

If you ask employees how they feel about their pay, you’ll rarely hear: “It’s perfect.”  

And that’s not surprising. In organisations across Europe, most people believe they’re underpaid, even when their salary is above the market rate. And while pay rises can create a short-lived sense of progress, the satisfaction often fades fast. So the real question is: can pay actually motivate people, and if so, how? 

What happens if we keep treating sustainability as someone else’s job? What if short-term wins come at the cost of long-term well-being, equity or adaptability? And what happens if your people outgrow the systems around them? 

AI won’t replace HR, but HR that doesn’t evolve is quietly slipping out of relevance. It’s a reality many leaders are slowly waking up to. We’re entering a new chapter in how people and performance intersect, shaped by intelligent systems, changing expectations and more fluid ways of working.  

Flexible working has shifted from fringe benefit to business norm. Yet many organisations are still stuck in reactive mode, tweaking policies or reverting to old defaults instead of leaning into the change and leveraging it.  

At work with Europe.

Explore the biggest workplace shifts from Europe’s largest annual HR study, including what employees and HR leaders really think about careers, trust, payroll and sustainability. 

The research involved 16,000 employees and 5,625 HR decision makers from 16 European countries. 

Payroll may not always be the first place you look for innovation. But when you consider just how many people it touches – and how often – the case for change is clear. The process needs to be fast, accurate and secure, of course. But it also needs to feel easy, trustworthy and responsive. That’s where conversational payroll comes in. 

Interview with Lorenzo Andolfi, Senior Researcher, SD Worx  

The gig economy is no longer a side story in the world of work. From food delivery drivers to freelance consultants, gig workers are playing an increasingly visible role in how organisations get things done. But what does this mean for HR? And how should businesses respond to a workforce trend that’s growing fast, but still full of complexity?  

When making a significant investment in your HR transformation journey with a new HRIS, you want to make sure your implementation goes smoothly, and you get a quicker return-on-investment (ROI) and time-to-value from your new processes and technology. While there will always be factors outside of your control that can put pressure on your well-planned project, there are certainly activities you can undertake prior to beginning your project that will optimise your preparation and make sure you can hit the ground running. 

In December 2024, we identified the key trends shaping our industry for the year ahead. In the HR Trends 2025 series, we explore the impact of these trends over time and explain how employers can embrace them.

With support for SAP HCM on-premise set to end in 2027, businesses face a critical need to migrate their legacy systems to the cloud before maintenance expires.

In a rapidly evolving HR landscape, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a focal point for organizations navigating complex issues like talent shortages, employee engagement, and workforce adaptability. At our recent HR Leaders Lab in Paris, SD Worx’s Chief Strategy Officer Michael Custers and our HR Evangelist Jan Laurijssen led an insightful roundtable exploring how HR leaders can harness AI to address these critical challenges.

SAP HR Mavericks Podcast – Episode 2: Everything You Need to Know about SuccessConnect 2024