Real-Time HR in Practice, Lessons from TomTom CHRO | Arne-Christian van der Tang

Try the trusted marketplace for every People and Culture challenge today: https://www.thetruthworks.co/ Real-time HR is not about reactivity, it’s about staying close to the problem, building the discipline to prioritise what matters most, and designing an operating model that can move at the pace of the “now of work”. In this episode, Emily Firth sits down with Arne-Christian van der Tang, CHRO of TomTom, to unpack what “Real-Time HR” actually means in practice and why TomTom created Real-Time HR 2026, a gathering for brightest minds in the HR space to speak openly about the realities they’re navigating and the solutions that actually hold up under pressure. In this conversation, we discuss: • Why HR keeps “falling in love with the solution” (and how to fall in love with the problem instead) • Moving from siloed projects to one shared backlog of problems • What a product mindset looks like inside a People team (MVPs, prioritisation, adaptability) • The trade-offs of changing your operating model (including unlearning, reskilling, and losing people along the way) • Why community matters more than ever: shared challenges, shared learning, higher standards Explore TruthWorks: https://www.thetruthworks.co/ 💬 Join our free Community for independent People and Culture experts: https://thetruthworks.circle.so/join?... Connect with Emily Firth:   / emilyfirth   Connect with Rhiannon Stroud:   / rhiannon-stroud