UK in 2021: relationship with the EU and a new take on GDPR

Teiss spoke to four industry leaders on how Brexit and new conversations surrounding GDPR have been impacting UK businesses.

It’s now been half a year since Brexit, when the UK was awarded its new independence. Although the media attention of this momentous event has been clouded by COVID, the effects on UK businesses and employers has been significant. It’s still in the early days of this new chapter for the UK, but it’s becoming clear that there has been a substantial change in how organisations conduct basic day to day tasks.

Arguably one of the most publicised shifts for businesses has been to the recruitment process. Ian Rawlings Regional Vice President, SumTotal Systems comments, “changes to the UK’s immigration system, have heralded a new era for the UK and talent management. Over the last six months, companies have struggled with staff shortages as restrictions on overseas hiring have come into force. Indeed, recent research found that over half (55%) of technology professionals believe that Brexit will negatively affect the industry by widening the skills gaps that are already prevalent.

As organisations navigate shrinking talent pools, never has it been so important to build - and retain - skilled employees. Succession planning is key in future-proofing the workforce: identifying and developing future leaders, not just at the top but for major roles at all levels. By investing in skills development, it is possible to generate all the talent an organisation needs. Indeed, as Brexit continues to impact the ever-growing skills gap, investing in talent is no longer a ‘nice to have’, the future of business depends on it.”

Kathryn Barnes, Employment Counsel EMEA at Globalization Partners adds, “the recruitment market has become increasingly competitive over the last six months, with over three in four UK executives claiming that it’s difficult to recruit people with the right technical skills. As the war for talent intensifies, we are seeing a shift from company vs company towards country vs country. Whilst previously, many businesses looked further afield to access broader talent markets and address these shortages, the end of free movement has had a significant knock-on effect on global mobility.

Pre-Brexit, UK based employees had access to a huge talent pool of skilled workers. Six months on, the reality of bringing on new staff from overseas has become more complex. Any employer relying on workers from EU countries faces a set of hurdles, documentation, timescales, and not to mention the significant financial burden, that could put the brakes on their talent expansion plans.”

Of course, the effects of Brexit have been felt in all aspects of business practices, not simply the recruitment element. “It’s still very early days for Brexit, which since February 2020 has been masked by Covid. Brexit is like a flooded city where you can’t assess the real damage until the waters subside. Right now, we are paddling along the surface and it all looks deceptively peaceful”, Comments Martin Taylor, Deputy CEO and Co-Founder at Content Guru. He continues, “We are starting to notice the first signs now: late deliveries caused by a lack of lorry drivers, basic essentials such as wood running short because of import difficulties, or restaurants and construction sites that can’t open because staff have vanished back to the EU during the pandemic – some of them no doubt on paid furlough.

We had been actively preparing for Brexit for more than two years before the so-called extension period ended last December. Most of our business activities and supply chains are now localised in our overseas subsidiaries and we are sourcing equipment and skills locally within the EU, and indeed elsewhere.

The biggest business impact we’ve seen from Brexit so far has been the difficulty in importing anything. This has exacerbated the effects of the global chip shortage. For us to import additional data servers at the moment is taking several weeks, rather than a few days, and that’s quite significant when you’re expanding as fast as we are.”

Finally, our exit from the EU has opened up the conversations around GDPR. Jakub Lewandowski, Global Data Governance Officer at Commvault remarks, “post-Brexit UK now has the possibility to redefine this balance by introducing new legislation. This might mean that in the years to come, we will see increasing discrepancies between the broadly understood UK’s and EU’s data protection regimes. It is important to note that there are certain constraints as well. The adequacy decision contains a built-in procedure for periodically reassessing whether the UK conforms with the requirement to provide adequate protection of personal data. The next such assessment will take place in 2025, creating a new wave of uncertainty for businesses.

In order to understand what changes to expect with regards to data protection regime, organisations should monitor all sorts of legislative activities (e.g. strategies, policies, frameworks acts) in various areas (AI, face recognition, automated decision making etc.)... The government is working to maintain a pro-growth data regime that ‘promotes growth and innovation for businesses of every size’. This hints that the UK might be leaning towards a more business-focused approach, where data can be increasingly used to support competition and innovation, and drive future growth."

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com