How to build a sustainable enterprise-wide strategy 

Do you know which people risks provide the greatest threat to your business and how to mitigate them?

We continue to move from one crisis to another with organisations reacting to unfolding events. The cost-of-living crisis is dominating the political agenda. It has rapidly become a pressing problem for employers, one that presents a whole new set of people risks to organisations still grappling with the impact of COVID-19.

Organisations must learn the lessons of the pandemic, strengthen risk management foundations by being more deliberate, comprehensive and innovative in anticipating emerging and longstanding risks.

Critical to this is building on the trust established between risk and human resource functions so they work together to protect employees and mitigate people risks linked to health and safety, ESG and the future of work.


The five pillars of people risk that are having the greatest impact on businesses across the globe.

MMB people risk research looked at the 25 individual people risks with the greatest power to disrupt business.
  • Health & Safety

    • Pandemics & other communicable health conditions
    • Employee health & well-being
    • Mental health
    • Workforce exhaustion
    • Work-related illness or injury
  • Governance & Financial

    • Administration and fiduciary
    • Increasing cost of health, risk protection and well-being benefits
    • Benefit, policy and reward decision making & accountability
    • Legal, compliance and financial practices
    • Pension financial exposure
  • Accelerated Digitisation

    • Cybersecurity and data privacy
    • Impacts of automation and AI
    • HR technology obsolescence 
    • Misalignment of HR and business strategy
    • Skills obsolescence
  • Talent Practices

    • Changing nature of work
    • Talent attraction, retention and engagement
    • Succession and key person risk
    • Conduct and culture
    • Travel and mobility
  • Environmental & Social

    • Catastrophic personal life events
    • Environment
    • Working conditions and labour relations
    • Diversity, equity and inclusion
    • Leadership issues

Five blind spots. Risks that have a low priority despite posing a significant threat:

What are the key risks and priorities for HR and risk professionals in 2022? HR and risk managers are aligned on some of the top risks while ranking them differently.

Explore five people risks, how to mitigate them, and the differences across geographies and industries

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Global Results: The survey asked HR and Risk managers to identify the likelihood and severity of 25 people risks including: employee health and wellbeing; talent attraction, retention and engagement; HR technology obsolescence; catastrophic personal life events; increasing cost of health, risk protection and well-being benefits. The top effective measures for addressing the pillars of people risk are: pandemic preparedness; an articulated cost containment strategy for the next three years; cybersecurity policies, controls and support systems; training and engagement around company culture, value and ethics; policies and programs for loss of income due to disability, including return to work and accommodations.

Possibility begins with people

Every day we see that the health and resilience of your people drives the health and resilience of your business. The pandemic and other recent events have shown how risks are interlinked, with people at the center.

People risk is what connects the worlds of Risk and HR together.

About the report

The Global People Risk report 2022 includes views from 2,594 HR and Risk professionals in 25 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, North America, the Pacific, and the United Kingdom, from industries including finance, communications, media, technology, manufacturing, automotive and retail.

2,594

1,314

1,280

Global organisations

HR respondents

Risk respondents
Contributor(s)
Nick McMenemy

- Partner, Digital, Strategy & Markets Leader, UK, Mercer Marsh Benefits

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