The Next Evolution of Data Centres Isn't Technology. It's People

A great deal of discussion in the data centre industry is currently focused on speed and scale. The sector is building bigger and faster than ever before, mostly to meet demand for AI infrastructure. 

In the midst of a $3 trillion investment "super cycle" that's expected to see global data centre capacity come close to doubling by the end of the decade, it's not altogether surprising that the conversation is hyperfixated on the hyperscale. Gigawatt campuses. AI-driven rack densities. Soaring power demand. The race to bring capacity online is relentless. The magnitude of this infrastructure challenge is only matched by the industry's ambition to achieve something monumental. 

However, in the background, a less visible challenge threatens to undermine efforts to execute this generational infrastructure buildout. The real hurdle facing data centre builders in the race to deliver a global AI infrastructure buildout has little to do with silicon chips, liquid cooling, or supply chain worries. In the age of AI, the enduring challenge for the data centre industry is people. 

This isn't simply a matter of not having enough people, although staffing shortages are part of the problem. It's a matter of understanding how an organisation gets the best from the people it already has, and how it develops the leaders and culture that enable people to perform.

Meeting this challenge demands a different approach to HR: People Partnering. 

People Partnering isn't about doing more HR work, but rather changing the role HR plays in the business.

People Partnering is more than a traditional HR function

Conventionally, HR is largely viewed as a supporting function. Need an employee issue resolved? Speak to HR. Need a policy? HR. Need advice on compliance? HR. These functions (and the many more HR departments perform) are vital to the smooth running of a business, but they don't capture the full potential value that a People Partnering function can unlock for an organisation. 

People Partnering is an effort to move away from the more traditional, transactional, back-office model of HR and towards a system where the department works alongside business leaders to build people and organisational capability and support business objectives.

As data centre projects expand and delivery timelines contract, this is creating new kinds of complexity for data centre builders, which a People Partnering approach to HR can help mitigate. A People Partner should understand the business they support in terms of strategic direction, expected challenges, and its people (including its leaders). They should be close enough to recognise problems when they arise and confident enough to challenge a leader when necessary.

The difference is being part of the conversation

HR has a reputation for being a reactive function of the business. A People Partner shouldn't be waiting for a problem to arrive in their inbox. Ideally, they've been a part of the conversation all along. 

If a business is growing but its leadership capability isn't keeping pace, that's a people issue. If a technically exceptional engineer is promoted into a leadership role without the skills to lead a team, that's a people issue. If a team is struggling with communication, accountability or culture, that's a people issue.

The role of the People Partner is to bring that perspective into the room early enough to make a difference - ideally removing key pain points long before they impact the business' performance. That means advising, coaching, and challenging leaders and their ideas. It means helping them understand the impact of their decisions on the people they oversee and, ultimately, how that will affect the performance of the business.

Why it matters in data centres

The data centre industry is a prime example of a sector where a more proactive approach to people management is needed. 

A data centre project is a profoundly complex operation. From construction and design to commissioning, project teams are increasingly international and multicultural. The data centre boom is putting programmes under significant time pressure. In environments like this, technical expertise is critical, but so too are communication, collaboration and leadership.

The industry is already facing significant pressure on skilled labour. New data from Turner & Townsendshows that demand for AI data centres is exacerbating existing labour shortages, from construction personnel through to specialist engineers, electricians, and commissioning agents. 

But the answer isn't just to increase headcounts. Once those people are in the business, what happens next matters just as much. They need to be led effectively by managers equipped to manage increasingly diverse and geographically dispersed teams. Strong people should be developed into capable leaders. And, when things go wrong, organisations need to identify and mitigate problems early enough to prevent them becoming performance, retention or cultural issues. 

The leadership gap

The industry has rightly spent a lot of time discussing the skills gap in terms of engineers and construction workers, but there is another gap forming too at leadership level.

The sector has built up enormous technical expertise over the last decade, but experience doesn't transfer automatically when people move on, or up.

Data centre companies can't afford to simply promote their best technical employees and assume they will become great leaders. Technical expertise and leadership expertise are different capabilities.

People Partners have a role in helping businesses identify and close the gap between those skillsets. They can help determine who has the potential to lead, what experience they need to make the transition, and how to close those gaps. 

Culture isn't an HR initiative

The same applies to company culture.

Culture isn't something the HR team owns. It's created by leaders, reinforced by managers, and experienced by everyone else in the organisation. Culture determines how people perform when a project is under pressure. How challenges are handled and whether or not people feel able to speak up when they see a problem. Culture determines whether accountability is consistent, and ultimately whether people trust the people leading them.

A People Partner can't create that culture for a business, but they can help leaders understand and deliberately shape it into something that benefits the organisation and everyone working within it.

However, doing so requires a People Partner to be close to the business, while remaining independent enough to say what leaders may not always want to hear.

People are the competitive advantage

Technology can be bought. Equipment can be replaced. Processes can be replicated.

The culture an organisation builds, the leaders it develops, and the trust between its people are far less replicable and replaceable. 

In the current data centre landscape, culture has become the principal source of competitive advantage, and the organisations that consistently deliver complex programmes under pressure will not just be the ones that have the best technical expertise or the deepest pockets. They will be the ones that know how to develop culture, support and challenge their people and create the necessary conditions for them to perform at the highest level.

That is what we mean by People Partnering. It isn't HR by a different name; it's a different kind of relationship between the people function and the business.

And as the data centre industry continues to scale, that relationship will become increasingly important, because the infrastructure may be what we build, but people are what make it work.