While 2021 was a year of reinventing HR and solidifying its new role, 2022 is all about pushing the boundaries of how HR can add value. Nothing has changed more in the past two years than the way we work and how companies operate. And no other business department has been under more pressure to keep up with this fast pace of change than human resources.
From the initial shift toward the full remote work environment, numerous lockdowns and health concerns, to the Great Reopening (only to be swiftly followed by the Great Resignation and talent shortages), the disruption to our economies and to every organization has been ongoing and challenging. Hybrid work is the new normal. A survey by Accenture found that 83 percent of workers prefer a hybrid work model and that 63 percent of high-growth companies have already adopted a “productivity anywhere” workforce model.
These changes to work environments over the last two years is why it’s crucial to stay on top of HR trends and understand how to leverage them to drive change and add more value to your business and the employee experience in 2022.
Top 5 HR Trends in 2022
1. Hybrid Office Space
A hybrid office is one of the hottest HR trends in 2022 that offers a versatile approach to organizing a workplace. The essential pillars of a hybrid workplace are flexibility and support. For many companies, it’s an agreement between employer and employee that implements both office work and a remote work schedule:
- Partially remote: Part of the workforce is working remotely and another portion works on-site. It’s a typical scenario for companies that can’t move some of their processes to a completely remote setting due to security or hardware limitations.
- Flex: Workflows are managed both on and off-site with employees splitting their time between home and office.
- Coworking: Outside work spaces available to employees that don’t have a dedicated desk or workplace. Coworking spaces can be booked in advance and serve as an office-like setting.
It’s important to offer a productive and healthy workforce to employees no matter their physical location. Offering an abundance of resources at both the individual and organizational level nurtures employee wellness and growth.
2. Employee Wellness
It’s important for employers to support employees in all aspects of their personal and work lives. Workplace wellness programs are a win-win for both employers and employees. Employees who participate in wellness programs tend to be more fit, more productive and have better morale than employees who do not otherwise treat or address their health conditions.
The employee wellness benefits that are in high demand include financial well-being and emotional/mental health well-being. Financial education and training are growing in importance for workers across generations. A Forbes article indicates that 62 percent of employees identified workplace wellness benefits as a key factor in deciding whether to apply for a new job. Human capital management is vital to organizations when it comes to transforming traditional administrative functions of HR departments like recruiting, training, payroll, compensation and performance management into opportunities to drive engagement, productivity and business value.
3. Upskilling
The ever-evolving landscape of technology and artificial intelligence is digitally transforming the labor market, automating certain jobs and creating entirely new jobs that require new in-demand skills. Employee upskilling has become a key HR trend because it’s a sustainable and lean approach to workforce development. Upskilling initiatives help HR professionals retain employees, boost morale and cut costs on recruiting and onboarding.
Skills-based hiring expands the prospective talent pool but also affords existing employees keen insight into upward career mobility. Retaining staff is far more likely when providing employees with educational pathways for specific industries and additional job functions.
4. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
Companies with a highly diverse workforce reported up to 19 percent higher revenues than companies with low diversity according to a 2017 BCG study. Increasing the diversity of leadership teams drives innovation and improves financial performance for organizations. People with different backgrounds and experiences often see the same problem in different ways and come up with different solutions, increasing the odds that one of those solutions will be a hit. In a fast-changing business environment, such responsiveness leaves companies better positioned to adapt.
DEI related HR trends to expect in 2022:
- Redefined hiring strategy: Hiring is the first step to ensuring a diverse workforce. Diversity sourcing, blind hiring processes and AI-powered candidate screening are common recruitment techniques that will help HR executives build diversified teams.
- Education initiatives: Financial, mental health and industry/ job related training are just some examples of education initiatives that companies can offer to all employees to boost DEI efforts.
- Analytics and accountability: People analytics will come in handy to set informed diversity goals, measure HR efforts and create an inclusive workplace. With automated diversity tools, HR executives will be able to determine diversity ratios across the company and find opportunities for improvement with actionable data at hand.
5. People Strategy
To stay competitive within an organization, HR executives need to adopt a data-driven mindset to assess current and future workforce demand, skill gaps, diversity in the workplace and more.
In the early days of Covid-19, organizations thought they were dealing with a health care issue, then a real estate issue. Soon it became clear that it was a people issue and the role of chief human resources officer (CHRO) took a pivotal turn. The list of issues facing CHROs today range from leading with empathy to understanding what is important to various segments of workers, proposing flexible work options, creating healthy workplace environments to support employee well-being and developing a fair and equitable workplace for all employees (regardless of where they work).
A data-driven approach toward people strategy utilizes technologies like AI-powered chatbots, screening tools and recruitment automation tools to make the candidate experience more engaging and dynamic.
Quanta Understands the Importance of HR in Business
If you’re struggling to stay on top of the latest HR trends and HCM technologies for your business, book a 5-minute fit call for a personalized demo of our HCM platform.
Our platform’s talent management capabilities help you optimize employee satisfaction, engagement, effectiveness with simplified benefits administration, streamlined performance management and accuracy with compensation management. With our all-in-one solution, you can store and track employee data from a single location and create customizable reports that provide valuable information to executive teams for more informed decision making.
Contact us today for a better way to run your small business.
