7 HR Trends to Accelerate Workforce Transformation This Year

Happy employees stay. Here’s why you need to take employee well-being & professional growth seriously in 2022.
7 HR Trends to Accelerate Workforce Transformation This Year
By
Kelly Barcelos

Employees are a company’s biggest brand ambassadors. It becomes critical for human resources to stay on their toes and gauge different ways to increase their employee value proposition (EVP), for example, offering incentives and recognition, employee health and wellness benefits, remote employee engagement, etc.

This reduces a company’s costs to a great extent. According to a Center for American Progress study, the cost to replace an employee who makes $10 an hour is roughly $3,500!

The good news is that we have listed down the top 7 HR trends that can not only help you accelerate workforce transformation and employee retention this year, but also improve your company’s image if implemented well.

Happy employees stay.

1. Create a Positive Employer Brand

Employer branding depends on how you manage your reputation as an employer among job seekers, employees, and stakeholders. Just like corporate branding is important to satisfy customers, employer branding is important to attract and retain top talent.

According to Glassdoor’s report, 84% of job seekers feel that the reputation of a company as an employer is important to them.

To enhance employer branding, HR must focus on developing a positive EVP that depends on multiple factors such as work culture and environment, mission, values, compensation, benefits, and opportunities for upskilling staff.

2. Take Employee Recognition Seriously

Employee recognition is a powerful tool to motivate and encourage employees to perform better. When done thoughtfully, it can set a good example of how good work is appreciated in the company which can further drive the overall business value.

While internal recognition can be done by organising team meetings or internal award events, external recognition has its own place and feel-good factor.

An employee’s good work can be shared over professional social media platforms like LinkedIn. Doing this will also boost your employer branding.

Starbucks nails the external recognition aspect through its dedicated ‘StarbucksJobs’ Instagram and Twitter, where the company applauds its employees and interacts with prospective candidates proactively.

3. Execute Strategies for Upskilling Staff

Employees often start looking for another job when they see a lack of upskilling opportunities and career growth internally.

In 2019, Amazon’s Upskilling 2025, a $700 million initiative, sparked conversations around the importance of training and equipping employees with critical skills to facilitate moving into highly skilled and better-paying roles.

To remain competitive in the pandemic era, HR will have to focus on the digitisation of training and development.

With the online learning industry poised for a $325 billion growth by 2025, it is clear that E-learning is the future. Using AI, VR, and other such technologies are going to become the new norm at corporate L&D centres.

4. Make Employee Well-being a Top Priority

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant source of stress according to an American Psychological Association survey involving 3,409 adults.

With distorted work-life balance and worries over job security, workers have been feeling burned out.

There couldn’t be a better time to ramp up your employee health and wellness programmes — beyond physical well-being. Investing in employees’ mental health and social well-being is a must-have HR policy.

Consider a few innovative initiatives include facilitating COVID-19 vaccinations for employees as well as their families, organising meditation therapy classes, offering mental health counsellors and resources, etc.

5. Pace Yourself for Hybrid Office Culture

With most employees asking for WFH during the pandemic, it’s time to reimagine where and how work will get done.

In a PwC Remote Work Survey, 73 percent of employees said they want to work remotely at least twice a week, even once COVID-19 is no longer a concern.

Hybrid office culture is now trending with a balance of corporate office space, satellite offices or team hub rooms, and working from home, depending on the industry and the kind of commitment the job role demands.

This is making companies rethink their investment in commercial real estate and how to invest in remote employee engagement for the long term.

6. Run Continuous Performance Reviews

Annual performance reviews are often stressful as many employees find them inaccurate, biased, disrespectful, and unhelpful in improving performance.

The trend points to having less formal, continuous performance discussions to give employees more accurate and real-time feedback.

Creating a quicker turnaround on performance feedback also gives employees more chances to improve themselves.

7. Add a Bigger Purpose to Every Job

Employees today, especially Millennials and Gen Z, look forward to associating themselves with meaningful work that makes them feel like they are creating an impact through what they do. They like to be change-makers and want to live up to their full potential.

Even if you can’t create training opportunities for everyone in the company, consider running internal webinars, networking events, or lunch-and-learn events to allow employees to interact with others while sharing their skills and passion outside of their day-to-day work.

As we prepare for the new decade’s workplace, HR have to start thinking about how they can position themselves as strategic drivers of the business by innovating processes like employee health and wellness, rewards and recognition, employee engagement, and upskilling staff.

About the Author

Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager for Jobsoid — Applicant Tracking System. She is responsible for leading the content and social media teams at work. Her expertise and experience in the field of HR enable her to create value-driven content for her readers — both on Jobsoid’s blog and other guest blogs where she publishes content regularly.

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