Organizations around the world are settling into a new normal. The pandemic shed new light on human resources and the future of work. Now that your organization is preparing for the return to work, pulling off both, resuming pre-pandemic HR best practices, and revisiting the ways of managing employee learning and wellness will be paramount. One way to do this is by taking advantage of technologies that emerged as all-essential in these times.
In addition, with much of your workforce preferring staying at home, balancing employee safety and cultivating a culture of trust and accountability will need you to reimagine HR and the technologies you use.
As your organization navigates this transition, here are the most exciting and promising new trends in HR management that you should keep an eye out for in 2022.
Making remote work mainstream
Gone are the days when office work was the primary workplace policy. The most significant change for human resource leaders has been leading the transition to remote work. It highlighted the lack of remote-work readiness and remains the number one goal for HR strategy in 2022.
All over the world, organizations are discovering the advantages and pitfalls of a virtual workforce. Unfortunately, plugging the gap in managing remote employees and leveraging the benefits it offers has become an overnight HR challenge.
While not every organization must go fully remote as the big “return to work” begins, it is an opportunity to develop the hybrid workplace model. Tech giants like Twitter, Shopify, Quora, Basecamp and many more have plans to become remote permanently while allowing employees to come to the office. This is a testimony to the fact that working from home is here to stay for longer.
Empowering employees with employee engagement and experience
Employee experience followed by solid engagement has been forced to go virtual. Gone are the days when interviewing, recruiting, and onboarding employees used to be an in-person experience. The challenge is to integrate new employees virtually while also providing them more than just a peek into the company culture.
Employee engagement needs an overhaul as opportunities for social interaction and partnerships are isolated to online systems. HR will need to find new ways to nurture collaboration and team building.
Aspects such as mental health, work-life balance and peer recognition are crucial for all employees’ optimum engagement. As a result, organizations will continue ideating new ways to normalize and incentivize official interactions online.
Integrating data analytics into HR tech
Data has been an integral HR technology trend for years now. However, leveraging people analytics to drive decision-making remains an important action item on the list of HR leaders worldwide.
From recruiting the right talent to employee turnover, people analytic tools help organizations track crucial data throughout the employee journey. It has enabled organizations to ask the right questions and apply the insights to create actionable policies and guide decisions.
Analytics has also helped organizations uncover a number of issues with current HR processes and allowed them to refine their recruitment practices.
Making recruitment future-ready
Real-world recruitment journeys are no longer the norm. If organizations must keep up with the pace of new developments, HR leaders must reimagine new ways of recruitment.
Recruitment technologies must encompass a complete virtual workflow, from scouting for talent to accepting applications, from onboarding employees to training and retaining them.
Emphasis on learning and training
Upskilling has been a substantial piece in the puzzle of employee training and development. With the demand for upskilling growing from 14% in 2019 to 38% in 2020, its importance cannot be understated, especially now.
New technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are being adopted to rise to the challenge of training remotely. Creating engaging training programs that quickly orient and onboard employees will require a renewed focus. For instance. AR is extensively used to safely train employees in the retail industry, leveraging both cost and time.
Cultivating egalitarian work-places
Diversity and inclusion are known drivers of business revenues. A diverse workforce leads to innovation and improves employee engagement. Inclusion also boosts employee morale and with wellness and employee safety being at the heart of the new work landscape, inclusion and diversity insights have become all the more important.
In a
recent interview, Rashim Mogha, Founder, eWow and a passionate women in tech evangelist, said, regarding women in workplaces,
It’s important that an organization builds a culture of inclusion where the ideas presented by the women leaders are encouraged and their achievements are acknowledged. It is also critical that organizations focus on building a pipeline of women leaders at entry and middle management level so that we can create role models for the future.
Recognizing the need for inclusion during these times is a significant HR best practice that cannot be ignored if you want to create a truly ready workplace to take on the future.
Shaping your HR strategy for 2022
To summarize, HR management trends signal the cusp of massive transformation for businesses all over the world. Elements such as mental health, inclusion, diversity, HR tech, engagement are at the forefront of new challenges. Make data and technology your primary vehicles to navigate this change today and in the future.
Frequently Asked Questions
What training technologies are the forerunners in the post-pandemic HR training ecosystem?
Learning Management Systems (LMS) integrated with the rest of your system’s training and workshop modules are your best bet. Platforms like GoSkills, Absorb, Bridge, etc. Help you train talent and manage their learning journeys better.
How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) help in the recruitment process?
AI can be beneficial in training applicant software systems to aid HR in recruiting faster. AI tools can also help organize core HR practices like employee data management, payroll and performance management.