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Despite being unjustifiably labeled as outdated, the HR world is constantly undergoing changes and evolving. In 2020, when the employment market is more competitive than ever, the employee is the center of attention – not the workplace. “Talent” management is therefore today’s preferred nomenclature. A modern HR manager must become a product manager of sort; one whose clients are company employees. They need to know the employees’ needs and offer solutions accordingly.
Here are five trends you probably won’t be able to avoid in the coming year:
- “Home” is Not a Dirty Word
While everyone used to look suspiciously at the first employee who Leaves the office, today’s workplaces recognize the importance of the work-life balance.
Reducing office hours does not mean fewer working hours. In fact, the opposite is most often the case: people work more hours today than in the past and employees’ efficiency is not only measured by the number of hours they spend in the office.
Today, the trend is twofold: on the one hand, many workers carry their tasks out from home. On the other hand, they want their respective workplaces to know how to separate their private time from their work hours and not require them to be available around the clock. In other words, your employees should be motivated to do their tasks, but not necessarily full of motivation to have coffee every morning in the office kitchen.
- Personalizing Learning Processes
One of the important processes over recent years has been changing the perception of employee training. If in the past, it was acceptable to gather everyone into a classroom together, it is now clear that each employee operates differently and each one has a different preferred learning method. Completion-focused training is the name of the game. An employee who is involved in his own learning and development process not only makes the process effective, but becomes more emotionally invested and therefore his motivation to succeed increases.
Many employers buy their employees online courses, but the completion of these courses is particularly low, marking in at only 4%-8%. According to Elevation, the percentage of the trainings it runs in the field which are completed (opening a classroom in the workplace, for example) is over 90%. This is a significant increase that greatly improves employee effectiveness after training is completed and helps turn employees into talents.
Upgrading employees’ original skills (Upskill) and acquiring new skills (Reskill) – enables these employees to become experts in the field that the organization needs. The talent’s skillset is best optimised this way. Fostering their expertise and providing opportunities to develop management and leadership skills enables employees to contribute more to their own career maps and while simultaneously adding a great deal of value to the organization.
- Data, Data and More Data
In recent years, the HR field has begun using technology tools that enable it to gather and analyze a great deal of employee information and reach meaningful insights. Big data and human capital analytics (People Analytics), combined with artificial intelligence technologies, are areas that will only continue to grow and evolve with time.
Big Data also allows HR people to show effectiveness and meet their goals (KPIs) better: track hiring and gauge the recruitment and implementation process success rate rather than only measuring just employee efficiency.
- Recruit? Sometimes it’s Better to Upskill
Upskilling or Reskilling employees instead of hiring new ones is a known trend that is only gaining momentum in 2020. This happens due to the understanding that the organization’s growth does not have to solely be based on recruitment – rather, it is possible to produce a flexible mechanism within the organization that enables high employee mobility. Why buy talent when you can build it?
With big data, existing employees whose skills are currently being unused can be found and provided with targeted training. Combined with on-the-job learning, this type of talent acquisition provides for a typically cheaper and more efficient solution than hiring new employees.
- Generation Z Takes Control
Young Generation Z workers already make up 36% of the workforce in 2020. Passing the wand from generation to generation requires many companies to embrace values that characterize the new generation, such as diversity, equality, innovation and more. These changes have been taking place in the job market for a decade, but now Generation Z is now beginning to fully take on the reins – which means the changes will happen more quickly. It’s in employers’ best interest to make their talents last.
- 6. Two-Way Communication
Traditionally, organizations are structured hierarchically and it is customary for decisions to be made at the top of the pyramid and before being carried out down below. In 2020, communication is also important in the opposite direction: listening to employees who are at the forefront is vital in encouraging company growth. This contributes to employees’ sense of value and also helps to identify issues that may develop in the future in a negative way. There are quite a few tactics to get feedback from employees: anonymous surveys, recruitment experience surveys (at the end of the process), “red emails” for standard reports, feedback conversations about the company and its managers, personal cross-sectional calls, personal check-ins, reviews of group events at the end of a project and more.
- Employer Branding
The job market is as competitive as ever and every organization wants to recruit the biggest talents. To meet this challenge, organizations need to boast a five-star reputation. In order to stand out to potential employees, companies must emphasize what differentiates the organization’s work environment from the competitors. A company must also communicate to potential candidates exactly how it will employ ROI-driven training to upgrade them and why this particular company is an attractive workplace.
Global companies like Salesforce, Siemens, PWC, Accenture, SAP, Adidas, Google, Facebook, Heineken, IKEA and even New Zealand (the country!) have undergone employer branding.
Methods for branding a company are varied: commitment to social and environmental responsibility, flexible working hours, constant career upgrading, etc. The goal is to turn employees into recruiting agents so they recommend the job to their friends. Without effective employer branding, reputations can be damaged, severely impairing the company’s ability to recruit new employees.