The evolving HR landscape: Insights & strategies from Kelly Vines of Reign HR

With the ever-changing HR landscape, things can get confusing when it comes to ensuring best practice and meeting WHS regulations. We sat down with Founder and Managing Director of Reign HR, Kelly Vines, to gain her key insights of current HR challenges, onboarding and compliance tools and tips, and what the future holds for this dynamic space.

To start off, can you tell us a bit about your role at Reign HR and and what sets your approach apart in the HR consulting space? 

I’m Kelly Vines; Founder and Managing Director of Reign HR.

At Reign HR, we believe HR works best when it is proactive, not reactive. We partner with business owners, directors, and leaders as trusted advisors to build confident, capable teams; strengthen compliance and reduce risk; and foster leadership, wellbeing, and culture. Every partnership begins with a deep understanding of your business, people, structure, and goals, ensuring our solutions are practical, tailored, and sustainable.  

When you work with our team at Reign HR, you’re not outsourcing, you’re gaining a strategic partner invested in your success. We deliver straightforward advice, clear processes, and actionable outcomes that build confidence in your leaders, enhance performance, and protect your business.  

Our clients across trades, building and construction, engineering, manufacturing, professional services, and defence sectors choose Reign HR because we understand the balance between compliance and culture and we deliver both with purpose and integrity. 

What inspired you to start Reign HR, and what sets your approach apart in the HR consulting space?

I was inspired to create Reign HR for a number of reasons. One was to have the flexibility and freedom to partner closely with small to medium-sized business owners to help them achieve their goals not just in business, but in life. 

Through Reign HR, I’ve combined over 22 years of hands-on experience in HR, leadership, and coaching to deliver practical, people-first solutions that truly make a difference. My approach goes beyond compliance, as for me it’s about connection with people, education, and empowerment. I don’t just “do HR for you”; I work with you, embedding tools, systems, and frameworks that give you confidence as a leader and help your team thrive.  

I believe that when leaders feel supported, clear, and capable, their people perform better and their businesses grow stronger. Every project I take on is about creating sustainable results and aligning strategy with culture, structure with wellbeing, and performance with purpose.

What sets Reign HR apart is our partnership approach. I become an extension of your business and your team, helping you navigate challenges, build strong foundations, and develop your team so you can focus on what you do best, and that is leading your business. 

Ultimately, my mission is to make HR approachable, actionable, and aligned to empower business owners to lead with clarity, confidence, and care. 

The changing landscape of HR 

What major HR challenges are you seeing organisations face in 2025? 

2025 has been an interesting year within the HR space with challenges of AI, wage theft, skills shortage, and continuous updating the legislation.  

AI:

Within AI, many employers and employees are sceptical about adopting AI practices into the business and some have fears around jobs losses and the use of AI and privacy with AI. I feel that we need more engage effectively using AI in the right ways will support our team to grow and develop. AI is a tool to support the team and business; I don’t see AI fully replacing people however it will reshape the way we work and how we work. My question to people in roles that are thinking about AI will take my role, would be to reframe this thinking and thing how can AI support me in my role? 

Wage theft:

From 1 January 2025, Fair Work Australia introduced the changes to legislation around intentional underpayment of wages or entitlements to be a criminal offence. Wage theft is to ensure that businesses are paying their employers correctly and the correct entitlements. Therefore, my advice is to ensure that you have the right processes in place for paying employees and this starts from the moment you decide to create the position description. The business needs to understand the responsibilities and requirements of the role, understand the Fair Work National Employment standards, which award or agreement that this position is covered under and ensure that they have the basic compliance requirements in place such as payslips, record keeping, employment contracts.  

Skills shortage:

The skills shortage is interesting, and I am on the taskforce in Newcastle and the Hunter Region on how we can support within this area. Again, I believe that businesses need to be strategic in their thinking within this area and have workforce plans internally and externally in place to support current, short term and long term skills requirements. Engaging with HR to really get clear on your strategy, your current workforce skills, experience and knowledge and what is required for your future strategy and what future workforce skills, experience and knowledge is required. Then considering strategically the workforce succession planning and development needs, identifying the skills shortages and the gaps, the timeframes, the training, the budget, and applying process to support the business with the change to move forward.  

Legislative changes:

From the legislation changes, the importance on being updated the changes and reviewing internally policy and procedures for changes and remembering to educate the leaders and teams as required and don’t forget your documentation.  

How are you seeing technology reshape the HR function? Especially in onboarding, compliance, and training? 

Technology has transformed the HR space by streamlining onboarding, compliance, and training processes and how we collect data and analysis it through automation. It’s excellent. It is excellent also for handling transactional and routine tasks efficiently, ensuring accuracy and consistency.

However, my recommendation is to balance technology with genuine human connection.

Once the digital steps are complete, it is important to check in personally with the person, have a conversation, ask questions, and make sure the individual feels supported and informed. This isn’t just about ticking boxes (which is what I hear often); it is about building understanding, engagement, and maintaining consistency and standards across the business. Don’t forget how important that human connection and relationships are in business.  

What trends do you think will define the next few years in the HR landscape? 

For 2026, I feel that we will have another year of change in the HR space and that the role of HR is to support the business and the workforce and be positioned within the business as a strategic partner. The value and the perspective that the HR can bring to the strategic initiatives and input for consideration within the executive team and decision-making process is a real valuable resource for companies that are open to evolving and shaping their companies for the future. HR in this strategic space can support the business to shape the future by providing workforce strategic planning, data and metrics, talent development, technology integration and productivity, compliance and change management practices to support this transition successfully. 

Onboarding & Compliance 

In your experience, what does a truly great onboarding experience look like? 

For me, it would be when I created an incredible onboarding experience for a start up business that I worked for and the feedback from the new starters was ‘your onboarding and induction was excellent. I have never had an experience like this were everything was done, set up and my computer ready for me to get started on the first day’. To my HR ears that was a high five all around to the team members that supported me and to collaborate with me to get our onboarding processes together – it was a team effort.  

What was successful about this onboarding project was that I had mapped out the journey of what the company values and operations were then I mapped out from an employee perspective and gained feedback from our current employees too via discussions what did they enjoy about our onboarding experience and was did they feel was missing. I collocated the information from difference departments such as IT, Accounts and Payroll, the executive, the managers and created the process, the timelines required and ran the pilot onboarding and induction program together. 

How do tools like Altora help simplify or strengthen onboarding and compliance processes for HR teams? 

I believe tools like Altora are fantastic for simplifying and strengthening compliance and onboarding processes. They provide structure, consistency, and ensure that all the essential training, policies, and education are clearly communicated and completed. 

But the real value comes when you combine the system with human connection. Once the onboarding modules are complete, it’s important to check in with your employees and ask how they found the program, whether it was easy to use, and what they learned. Continuously seeking feedback, listening, and looping back to your people helps build trust and continuous improvement. 

Altora takes care of the transactional side and ticks off compliance and onboarding requirements which is fantastic, while the manager and business can then focus on the relational side.

That follow up conversation reinforces learning, deepens understanding, and drives engagement right from day one. 

People, Culture & Leadership 

What advice would you give to leaders who want to balance compliance with a people-first culture? 

My advice is to see compliance and culture as partners, not opposites. Compliance creates the structure and safety for people to thrive; it is the foundation that protects your business and your team. But the way you bring those policies and frameworks to life is through your people.  

Lead with empathy and kindness, communicate effectively and lead by good example.

Don’t just roll out policies; take the time to explain the why and the goal behind them. Ask for feedback, listen, and involve your team in shaping how things are done. When employees feel heard and understand the purpose behind compliance, it builds trust and accountability rather than resistance. 

Developing a people first culture isn’t about being less compliant, it is about leading with clarity, consistency, and care. When you get that balance right, both your people and your business perform better. 

How can readers connect with you or learn more about Reign HR’s work? 

I’d love to connect and start a conversation about how Reign HR can support your people, culture, and business goals. You can learn more about our services and approach at www.reignhr.com.au and can connect with me on LinkedIn  

for insights and updates or reach out directly via email at kelly@reignhr.com.au 

At Reign HR, we’re here to make HR meaningful and to help businesses lead with clarity, confidence, and care.

More about Reign HR: 

Our vision is to be the leading provider of tailored HR solutions, empowering small and medium-sized businesses across Australia to achieve their strategic goals through compliance, innovation, and sustainable growth, while passionately supporting and nurturing their people to develop. 

Our mission is to mission at Reign HR Consulting is to deliver personalised and comprehensive HR solutions that enable small and medium-sized businesses across Australia to thrive. We ensure compliance while equipping our clients with essential processes and tailored tools to effectively manage their human capital, serving as their trusted partner in achieving organisational success. 

Our values are: 

• Integrity by upholding honesty, transparency, and ethical conduct in all interactions and decisions. 

• Client-Centric by placing the needs and success of our clients at the forefront of everything we do, ensuring personalised and effective solutions. 

• Excellence by committing to delivering high quality services and continuously striving for improvement and innovation in HR practices. 

• Collaboration by fostering partnerships through teamwork, consultation, communication, and mutual respect among our team members, clients, and partners to achieve collective success. 

• Empowerment by empowering and inspiring businesses to optimise their human capital, fostering a culture of growth, development, leadership, and empowerment within our client organisations. 

Our Services 

The services that we provide are:  

At Reign HR Consulting, we go beyond policies and paperwork as we partner with our clients to create thriving, compliant, and high-performing workplaces. Whether you’re a growing business without a full HR team or an established company needing strategic support, our HR Business Partner model ensures your people strategy aligns with your business goals so you can focus on growth with confidence. 

Our packages include: 

Kelly Vines

Founder & HR Consultant - Reign HR Consulting

This article was written by Kelly Vines, Founder & HR Consultant at Reign HR Consulting. Kelly has significant experience in HR consulting, Leadership development and Alignment strategy.

This content was 100% human-created.