Inside This Issue:

H2FLY is building hydrogen-electric aircraft. That creates a fairly unusual recruitment problem: for some roles, the ideal candidate simply does not exist. There are not many people who can show that they have already spent years doing the exact job.

So H2FLY’s HR Manager Christina Fretz looks for something a CV records rather badly: how somebody approaches a problem they have never met before. And H2FLY is not relying on instinct. The company decided against using AI to screen applicants and have a clear plan in place to get to the talent they need.

Our second interview questions the decades-old employee engagement survey. Charlie Coode, founder of Culture15, share his thoughts on the behaviours it can reinforce and how concrete culture measurement works differently.

These are different problems, but both features are challenging age-old ways of doing things, and asking the brave question: what if there is a better way now for where work is going.

Christina Fretz has a hiring problem many employers claim to have, but H2FLY genuinely does: much of the work is so new that few candidates have done it before. Therefore she can’t look for previous job titles on a CV to ascertain suitability.

She explains what the company looks for instead, why H2FLY chose not to automate applicant screening, and how it keeps human judgement from becoming inconsistent.

In a world where businesses are spending big on on AI and their ROI hinges on adoption, culture is ever more in the spotlight. Yet we still don’t have a gold standard for measurement. In an interview with Charlie Coode he explains why engagement is the wrong thing to measure, and his approach to culture measurement and why that is more worthy of HR’s time than hours spent analysing satisfaction scores.

In other news

Stay current with key headlines and announcements from across the industry.

Events

Find the full calendar of upcoming HR and employee experience events at emexmag.com/events.

Free event of the week

AI & The Future of Work Summit

30 September 2026 | London AI Hub, 140 Goswell Road, London | Free to attend, hosted by AskOllo

16:00 to 19:00 UK | 11:00 to 14:00 ET | 10:00 to 13:00 CT

An evening in London to hear how AI is changing day-to-day work, and to compare notes with other people leaders.

US

ECE Washington 2026: Employee Communications & Experience
29 September–1 October | Washington, DC
Three days on internal communications and employee experience, with a strong focus on remote teams and the digital tools that connect them.
Find out more

UK

Unite 26
29–30 September | London
An employee experience and digital workplace conference built around peer discussion and real case studies.
Find out more

Europe

UNLEASH World
20 to 23 October | Paris
Readers can claim a free pass through our partner offer.
Find out more here

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