As another power-packed year kickstarts, let’s look back at some of the breakthrough HR trends that emerged during the last year to realign your strategies and strengthen your workforce practices in this year.
1. Don’t be surprised if the CHRO becomes the next President/CEO of your company:
HR Head/ HR Director/CHRO has been noticed to exhibit higher-level leadership abilities and strategy implementation skills significantly in recent times. Top HR executives display the competencies required to be an effective CEO to a greater extent than the executives in charge of finance, marketing or technology. Since the HR leaders have better communication ability and insights to install a positive organization-wide culture, they seem to have a broad purview of the entire organization and clear functional understanding of the strategies and challenges in each operational area and business unit. General Motors, Xerox, MetLife are some of the globally reputed companies whose CEO and the president came up through the HR department.
2. HR is considered and acknowledged as a key part in the future growth of the business:
Today HR is considered as a ‘change advocate’ who is capable of moving the organization’s traditional, rigid systems into agile organization structure, while also building positive employee experiences day after day. Beyond the routine HR activities, the new age HR leaders are expected to initiate and sustain right conversations with other business leaders to carve out futuristic business strategies. To stay ahead of the competition, forward-thinking organizations ask their HR experts to provide strategic advice on talent management to achieve business objectives and constantly co-create HR solutions that work best for the company.
3. Keeping up with the expectations of New Age employees:
With five generations coexisting in the same workplace today, a need to understand the expectations of New age employees (especially millennial and GenZ) will have to gain priority.
- Gone are the days when fancy paychecks and perks can keep the employees happy. While analyzing a job offer, new age employee values a job that is meaningful, flexible, a collaborative work culture, which lets an individual forge deeper connections, giving an enhanced scope of innovation and creativity along with constant mentoring.
- Being agile learners, the New age employees need a mix of formal and informal learning & development experiences including workshops, webinars, e-learning, mentoring, visibility and networking to stay prepared for future.
- Holistic wellbeing has become a greater expectation from the corporates today. Realizing the importance of wellness for a highly motivated, productive and engaged workforce, companies are increasingly working on providing wellness programs that focus not just on employees’ physical and mental health, but financial and spiritual health too.
- Since the expectations of company’s ‘internal customers’ keep on moving up, the HR strategists have adopted more human centric approach by shifting focus from Employee Engagement to Employee Experience, wherein the companies and their people work together to create personalized and authentic experiences that ignite a passion to strengthen individual, team and company performance. By understanding the needs and desires of the employees, companies create memorable moments for them at their workplace and in their career. So as to stir loyalty and retention among the employees along with creating a thriving company culture that drives business too.
4. Embracing Flexible Working practices to enhance Productivity:
- Considering the benefits of Remote working/ Flexible Timings like improved work-life balance, increased employee productivity and many more, several companies have adopted flexible work approach, wherein if an employee has the ability to work remotely from home, they can save time on commute and work at their convenient time within the set deadlines. With the emergence of the digital age, it’s no longer the case that every employee needs to be in the office to be productive.
- HR managers are endorsing Flexibility as a ‘Talent Retention Tool’, which can also be used to attract and reward resources. Gen Y population of India would prefer the company, which is encouraging remote working and flexible work arrangements over Nine-to-five full-time jobs. In totality, offering flexible work options to current and future employees is surely a smart move for companies to employ the full potential of their workforce while keeping them motivated.
5. Get the right talent through professional HR Consulting company to fuel planned growth:
Hiring talented individuals is critical to an organization’s success. That’s why the corporates now a day rely on the professional HR Consultancy to attract and hire the candidates, who contribute to both their business goals and company culture. If your company is also facing the ‘capability issues’, the time is ripe for following this key HR trend.
Make sure you aren’t left behind in adopting any of these key HR trends in 2020.
