Reimagining Corporate Culture Post-Pandemic

Abby Krauce is the Head of Human Resources, ANZ for Haleon, a world-leading consumer health company with a clear purpose to deliver better everyday health with humanity. With over 20 years of experience across Australia, New Zealand, and North Asia within consumer healthcare, retail, medical devices, and mining industries, Abby is responsible for leading Haleon’s HR function in ANZ.

Following the pandemic, Haleon, like many companies, has worked hard to evolve workplace culture to ensure its people have the flexibility and freedom to enjoy a full, balanced, and well life whilst also thriving and growing in a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment. Being at the forefront of some major company-wide changes and initiatives in support of this vision is something I am incredibly proud of and passionate about.

Innovation With Humanity at its Core

Haleon is dedicated to being an organisation that absolutely lives its purpose, ‘health with humanity’, supporting greater everyday health with a human element. To support this, here in ANZ we offer our people five additional paid days of leave in addition to standard annual leave, which we call Feel Good Days. These can be used when and how our people wish in any way that benefits their wellbeing – enjoying a longer weekend, attending children’s school events, celebrating cultural dates that are not covered by ANZ public holidays, or simply taking time out.

We also take our wellness program to a new level. In addition to the foundational corporate wellness program offerings such as fitness classes, flu shots, massages, mental health discussions, and external counselling programs, we offer financial well-being programs to help our people better manage their finances. This is even more important right now as we know the economic pressures many Australians and New Zealanders are under.

In April of this year, Haleon launched a new global policy that provides our people with access to four weeks of paid caregivers’ leave, available from their very first day of employment. At Haleon, we understand that no one knows what the future holds, so by providing these four weeks of leave right from the day they start with us, we are giving people peace of mind that, whenever the need arises, they have these days available to care for their loved ones.

“Being There For People In The Moments That Matter Is Really Important To Us As An Organisation And Very Important To Me Personally.”

I know compared to many countries around the world that Australia and New Zealand already offered our new parents great parental leave entitlements.

With our progressive global Parental Leave policy from January this year, now gives everyone in Haleon can access to 26 weeks fully paid parental leave globally irrespective of how that child arrives in the family.

So, from day one as an employee with Haleon ALL parents can access paid leave to spend with the new arrival in the family which is available from day one at the company. There are no “minimum 12 months at Haleon kind of stuff!”

One Step Ahead

At Haleon, we consider our culture and ways of working as ‘leading’ and work hard to pre-empt what our people need and want and align that with what’s right for the business. I like to think of it in terms of surfing where you’re not going to get very far anytime soon being behind the wave! As we settle back into the new normal of the remote/in-office work post the pandemic, we wanted to truly bring to life our hybrid@Haleon ways of working, which includes how we work, when we work, and where we work. These considerations also influenced how we designed our new office spaces. In ANZ we moved into new office spaces in 2022. In Australia into level 48 Parramatta Square in Sydney and in New Zealand new shared work offices in Auckland. While both offices have amazing views, I am a bit biased that our ANZ HQ on L48 PSQ with breathtaking views across Sydney and all the way out to the Blue Mountains is a stunning view to enjoy while working. More importantly that the views, both offices were designed to enable collaboration, innovation, flexibility, and well-being.

One area of change we experienced throughout the pandemic, along with many other organisations, was the new shape of working life. We heard about the feeling of being “always on” with blurred lines between work and personal life. This ‘alwayson’ mentality stemmed from the rise of the home office and losing sight of the boundaries we once had when we would physically leave the office. For some, it worked beautifully as they managed their time as they chose across the hours of the day but, for others, the lack of boundaries saw them staying online longer and feeling obliged to be available beyond their working hours or time zone.

“We Support People with work because we Know it’s Part of Life, not Separate From IT.”

Haleon ANZ has bitten back on this trend and has implemented processes and initiatives that give people a framework to get into good work-life rhythms, such as scheduled focus time. For example, from 2 pm each Wednesday afternoon, we encourage meeting-free time during which are encourage focus on professional development, or simply concentrate on work without the interruption of meetings and we call “tools down” at 3 pm on a Friday.

“We want to Move to Function more like a High-Performing Sporting Club.”

In our high-performing culture, our people want to do their best work. It’s meaningful and exciting. But as an organisation with humanity at its core, we are mindful that you can’t always “go hard”. A bit like a sporting club, you can’t push the top players month after month, year after year to play the full game. They need time to rest and recoup else they risk fatigue and burnout. With this in mind, we look to share the “big” projects across the team and allow our talent to continue to grow and thrive with varying levels of intensity in their work. This approach speaks to me and will be something we focus on further in the future.

Technologies Bolstering Diversity

With diversity, equality, and inclusion front of mind for Haleon, there are several pieces of technology we have leveraged to reduce any unconscious bias in the workplace. Texico is a recruitment job advert tool that ensures we attract a good balance of gender, age, background, and more.

In addition, Haleon ANZ uses Enboarder, an onboarding orientation tool that supports all new employees and ensures they receive consistent training and onboarding. Leaning into these technologies has been valuable, especially in a hybrid world, to create a seamless experience for all new employees.

Overall, Haleon has shifted in the way we support our employees since the pandemic. In some ways we have the pandemic to thank for this renewed take on culture and ways of working, which I think, arguably serves employees more than ever before. As we navigate through tough times, Haleon remains human-centric, putting people’s lives before work, because work is a part of life, not separate.