What does 'good HR' look like in 2026?

Most business functions are under pressure to constantly evolve. At The Adaptavist Group, we believe that HR should be, too. Find out how we’re making sure HR plays a supportive role in the growth of our 1,100-strong group.

The first thing to say about HR at The Adaptavist Group is that we don't believe in 'textbook HR'. It just doesn't work here. I suspect that the same tension is being felt in many organisations. For businesses that need to harness the knowledge, passion and innovation of their people, HR should exist to support the business and its goals. We're here because of the business; the business isn't here because of us.

In my experience, the business's objectives are best addressed by getting the foundations right. We should be helping managers support their teams and spending more time being proactive and focusing on exceptions. More often than not, those are the incidents that make the biggest difference to people and, ultimately, the organisation as a whole.

Complex and challenging

The Adaptavist Group has 1,100 people in 27 countries and serves more than 23,000 customers with solutions, products and services. Change, flexibility and innovation aren't just essential; they have to be part of the entire company's DNA.

I've met many CEOs, but very few like ours. Simon Haighton-Williams is a combination of philosopher, engineer, and systems thinker. He's both pragmatic and fiercely driven. As a result, the company is comfortable resisting orthodoxy. Continuing to grow and evolve means maintaining this pragmatism and recognising there's always more than one way to look at a problem.

My challenge to the HR team has been: How can we make HR unnecessary? Not because I want to reduce headcount, but because I want us to do such a good job that managers don't need HR support for 'business as usual' work. If we can do that, HR becomes an advisor rather than a bottleneck.

Evolving to meet the challenges

HR at The Adaptavist Group has naturally evolved as the company has grown, moving from a traditional vertical structure to a more flexible, geographically based model. Employment laws can differ significantly across countries and regions. The biggest challenge for HR teams is knowing when something is fundamental, while remaining as adaptable as possible the rest of the time. We are finding the balance by:

Establishing an Employee Support Hub with follow-the-sun coverage and response times that work for the business,
Providing an HR Service Desk to handle administrative tasks, such as pulling reports and gathering information for pay reviews,
Reviewing our processes and reducing bureaucracy whenever possible with a team that handles governance, audits, and quality assurance. Their remit is to do what works for the business and our people, not follow a 'purist' HR mindset, and;
Evolving our services around People Performance, building high-performing teams by aligning learning and development, performance management, leadership development and employee experience.

In my experience, culture always wins over strategy. But to change our culture, we must change our approach and behaviour.

Isobel McWilliams

Head of HR, The Adaptavist Group

Experience has taught me that models and processes have their place. However, compliance shouldn’t be the goal; it's just part of the process. We always aim to meet the needs of teams and individuals. Of course, we meet the statutory requirements in each country, but we adapt our approach to set a 'high bar'. For example, we offer enhanced parental leave beyond our legal obligation across the whole company. We believe that it's important to 'do the right thing' - not just what you’re compelled to do by law or convention. While it can be difficult to define exactly what 'the right thing' is, it's a powerful guiding principle.

There isn't an all-encompassing 'best practice' that can pre-prepare us for every eventuality. We take good practice from wherever we can and focus on the outcomes we want to see. The Adaptavist Group is building new frameworks - job grading, career tracks, performance management – and these are emerging from understanding the business's needs, not from copying a playbook. In my experience, culture always wins over strategy. But to change our culture, we must change our approach and behaviour. For example, we've adopted Scrum in HR, where we share our top three priorities and blockers. This means that, as head of HR, I'm probably more involved than might be expected. However, it really fosters collaboration in the team, helps us all understand what we're working on, identifies and shares ways to unblock things, and encourages everyone to make suggestions - and not just those in HR.

Managing risks vs. enabling outcomes

Like any role in the organisation, HR has one eye on risk. However, we firmly believe it needs to be balanced with enabling the business and, more importantly, its people to function at their best. Of course, we must be across the legislation as it affects the business. Our response has been to establish a Policy and Compliance team that runs audits, applies quality assurance to employee relations cases, and maintains a compliance calendar. Similarly, we focus on ensuring there are no 'single points of failure' in our teams. The team works with business unit leaders to ensure that deep, considered succession plans are in place. Without that, how could we offer the appropriate training and support for people on that path?

The biggest risk we face, I believe, is not evolving as a function and, ultimately, as a business. Keeping pace with the dynamics of an organisation like The Adaptavist Group is challenging, but the answer isn’t to try to slow it down to a manageable pace. With that in mind, onboarding to the HR team focuses on:

Removing any corporate conditioning. People who enter the business often bring a default approach to HR, learned from other businesses or HR orthodoxy. We work hard to help the team unlearn any reflexes from environments where the CEO behaved differently and HR sought to control rather than guide and support.
Shifting from transactional to advisory. People whose role is loaded with admin often struggle to see the bigger picture and advise or pre-empt. My view is that you're unlikely to add much value if you're constantly in the weeds. I need the team to apply their expertise to help teams to become self-managing.
Embracing the technology, processes and tools. As a business, we use tools like Confluence, monday.com and Jira extensively. It would be incomprehensible not to use the tools available to capture, plan and communicate, especially as we work in a myriad of time zones. I encourage the use of AI alongside the expertise the teams bring. Having experts within the wider organisation who can advise on how best to use it to execute faster is an advantage for us.

The vision: self-managing teams

My goal is for HR to evolve so it isn’t constantly called upon for business-as-usual activities. What if we did such a good job that the business's managers don't really need us day-to-day? Establishing self-managing teams requires two things: providing the right infrastructure and adopting an advisory role. Our Centre of Excellence model has the HR team focused on their geographical and subject matter expertise, while the shared services function handles operational work. Senior HR professionals can focus on what matters most: supporting business partners, advising on complex situations, and building capability.

My vision can be summed up as 'Agile HR'. Not merely a nice tagline, it's an idea to transform how we work. What does Agile HR look like in a company that prides itself on constant evolution? My mantra is 'people over processes', and there's a great deal to learn from The Agile Manifesto. Having access to one of the authors of the Manifesto as a colleague is guiding us on this journey. Principles such as pragmatism over orthodoxy, good practice over best practice, and outcomes over process are invaluable.

How will we know we're on the right track? Well, conventional metrics won't necessarily help us measure our progress. We need a dashboard to inform our decisions and my priorities include:

Are we reducing noise and friction? When we launched our industry-leading enhanced parental leave policies, for example, the noise around that ceased. It had been a widely discussed topic since I joined the business.
Does everyone know what they're working towards? When performance management works as it should, everyone knows - and understands - where they are and where they’re going. One set of objectives doesn't work for all. We need a framework that supports the business units and functions, but a tailored approach to performance. The outcomes we want from the sales team, for example, differ greatly from the deliverables expected of an engineering team.
Is self-management taking root? When line managers are comfortable handling day-to-day people matters, I expect queries to the service desk to reduce dramatically. The nature of the queries should change, too. I expect to see more 'exceptional' questions and less repetition.
Does everyone have a career path, and are we building future fit? We need to place greater emphasis on proactive work to improve internal planning of existing and future resources.

Integrity when no one's watching

As C.S. Lewis said: 'Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one else is watching.' We encourage open, continual communication and radical transparency at The Adaptavist Group. The challenge in HR is that we can't always be fully transparent, as we are often dealing with personal information and issues. Consequently, that quote becomes ever more pertinent.

Good HR in 2026 and beyond means doing the right thing for people and the business - even if the textbook says otherwise.

Want to learn more about the culture at The Adaptavist Group?

Check out this blog from our Head of People Experience, Emma Weston:

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