As we all have seen, the modern world brings more daily challenges. Only COVID-19 forced companies to start thinking digital and turn all working processes into a remote mode. Alongside challenges, consumers are becoming more dedicated and digital as well. Therefore, organisations are looking for the best ways to satisfy their goals and customers in 2022.
And to be more specific, this task should be done by the HR department, which should always stay informed about the latest trends to keep employees engaged, loyal and bring more value to the business. However, the speed of this world is immense, so it could be hard to go along with market changes sometimes. We curated this guide to help the HR department find trends they can consider in 2022.
- Hybrid Work
A survey was conducted in June 2020 among 127 companies to find what are plans for post-COVID workplaces. This survey revealed that 47% of asked companies will still allow their employees to work remotely even when the pandemic is over. The other half ( 43% of companies) will provide flexible days, allowing workers to choose where they want to work and when.
That is how we entered the era of hybrid work. And this is one of the hottest trends in the HR field, as most modern employees find it highly convenient, and they don’t want to sit in the office all day long anymore.
For example, Hubspot, a worldwide known sales and marketing software vendor, offered their employees three options to their liking: @home, @office, and @flex. Now workers can choose when they want to go to the office, on which days they better stay at home or in the cafe or how they want to combine their workflow. This not only boosts employee loyalty but also improves their overall well-being.
- Upskilling
Upskilling courses and activities have entered the HR trends. Therefore, most companies started to use specialised products, like an employee management platform, for this purpose and other benefits these apps offer. A survey collected by Udemy found out that the upskilling demand grew to a whopping 38% two years ago and seemed not to stop in upcoming years.
This has become a hot HR trend as upskilling represents a sustainable and lean approach to developing the workforce. Upskilling activities allow HR teams to retain employees and boost morale while reducing the costs of recruiting and onboarding new candidates.
Last year was tricky for most companies. It brought us challenges like increased number of sick leaves, transition to remote work, a highly competitive market for employees and more. Implementing upskilling activities is the best way to stay strong and flexible in this market turbulence.
- Redefined Employee Experience
COVID-19 crisis changed the way companies think about their employee experience. Since restrictions brought lots of issues to every workflow, companies now consider adaptability and soft skills over hard skills in most cases. A recent study by McKinsey states that in 2022, organisations are going to focus on building strong leadership and a sense of trust in the job market. This is because people are now looking for a trusted working place with one mindset to guarantee their safety and work in cases like COVID.
Redefined employee experience is one of the hottest trends in 2022 and further. This also includes engagement methods and benefits packages. First, companies now focus on better employee well-being and benefits they can offer to boost their motivation and productivity. The Hartford’s Future of Benefits Study reported that modern employees are becoming more interested in perks like paid time off (52%), health insurance (48%), compensation for sport (44%), employee assistance programs (56%), as well as mental health services (51%).
In addition, one of the key factors that determine whether the candidate will get the job offer is his experience with online meetings. If the candidate isn’t ready to work in remote conditions and has low experience with this workflow, there is little or no chance he will get the job.
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Two years ago, the number of search queries on workforce diversity insights increased by 74% compared to 2019. Modern companies know the importance of diverse teams on innovations, profitability, customer retention rate and overall team well-being. To be more specific, organisations with a highly diverse workforce admitted up to 19% higher revenues than companies that have low diversity.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is also known as DEI. The key HR trends related to all three points are:
Redefined hiring strategy
Proper hiring is the main step to moving to a diverse workforce. Diversity sourcing, blind hiring processes, and data-driven decisions are several hiring techniques that’ll help recruiters build diversified teams.
NI calculator
Since more and more companies strive to create in-house teams rather than hire freelancers, they need to think about calculating employers NI. Luckily, there are some platforms that allow HRs to do it much easier than manually and ensure less time-consuming work.
Education initiatives
It is worth noting that modern employees, especially Gen Z workers, are more focused on their self-development than ever before. So if your HR team wants to hire driven and talented people, your company needs to provide various educational activities to their liking.
Analytics and accountability
Analytic tools will be an excellent choice to set SMART diversity goals, check the recruitment efforts, and ensure an inclusive workplace. HR teams can now use automated diversity tools to easily determine diversity ratios within the organisation and open up opportunities for improvement with valuable data.
Final Thoughts
Due to many changes that happen in the market, companies should always look for new trends to improve their internal and, thereby, external processes. Since the company’s foundation is the HR department, these teams are the first ones who should apply new methods to support other employees and their work. This article shows you the top hottest trends in 2022 and further that HRs can consider.
Source: Plato Data Intelligence: Platodata.ai
