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32 The HR Agenda for 2010So here are the three key trends and sets of actions that we at IES hope, (rather thannecessarily expect or predict), will happen in this field in the next 12 months andbeyond. These need to reflect our learning from the past 12 months and fromprevious recessions and public spending cutbacks, while taking the opportunities forchange and improvement that will, we believe, emerge. As the economy picks up,will it be ‘back to normal’ in reward management? Or have some new insights andapproaches emerged to create a new ‘new reward’ movement, or a ‘new normal’?From isolated to integratedIn recent years many HR professionals have concentrated on designing technicallyexcellent HR and reward programmes. The trouble is that they often haven’t talkedto, and therefore can duplicate or even conflict with, each other. The recession andconsequent cost pressures have forced employers and IES members to face up to andaddress questions such as:■ Why do we have five different performance management systems operatingaround Europe (in an FMCG multinational), or six different overtime regimesoperating in the UK (in an accountancy firm)?■ Why do we have so many grades when we are trying to develop our talent up intosenior level roles more quickly (in a professional services firm)?■ Why are different parts of our organisation all commissioning work from the samesupplier on leadership development, and why do so many of those with leadershippotential seem to be frustrated in their current jobs (in a public sector organisation)?With improved HR information systems we have seen more organisations in the pastyear working on this ‘lateral’ integration of their HR and reward programmes, takingthe opportunity presented by restructuring to: develop more interesting andenriching roles; using briefer role profiles and more focused and practicalcompetency frameworks for a range of reward, performance and talent managementpurposes; and thereby increasing their effectiveness and their efficiency.We need to see more of this activity in 2010 and beyond, with Unilever’s work levelsapproach to organisation design, reward and talent management providing aninteresting integrated model.But integrated shouldn’t mean uniform and inflexible. The common assumption that2009 has been one of complete austerity on pay in the private sector and that thesame will be true in the public sector in 2010 is and should be a false one. In fact, onlyaround one‐third of private sector pay reviews in 2009 resulted in a freeze, (theaverage pay increase in retail banking, interestingly, was over 3%). As GDP and RPIrecover and rise in 2010, we hope that earned and affordable pay increases becomethe norm once again throughout the private and third sectors. Incomes after all are akey driver of growth in our heavily knowledge and service‐based economy.