Six HR trends catch up in 2022 as workplace dynamics change

The way people work has changed completely in the past two years of the pandemic. The change in workspace dynamics, hybrid work, lack of personal engagement among employees, and their ability to stay productive remotely has necessitated human resource managers to innovate and stay on top of their game.

And the Great Resignation and the great hiring season the world of work has experienced in recent months have highlighted that the shortage of talent, at least key talents, is real and pinching organisations.

According to industry experts, and recruiters, 2022-23 is going to be a year in which HR managers will be expected to push the boundaries to attract and retain talent, and increasingly, add value to business growth.

Key HR trends include building a recruiter-employee relationship and agility in navigating the talent marketplace and managing the career experience of hires.

Moneycontrol has curated a list of six key trends by speaking to HR and industry experts, recruiters and taking into account the views shared by HR and talent platforms.

1 Nurturing relationships

Hiring is no more transactional. It is a relationship between hiring managers or recruiters, and possible employees. While at the lower end of the employee pyramid, transactional behaviour is still dominant, at the mid and senior levels,  HR managers and recruiters are building relationships.

So what if you don’t hire a person now or the person couldn’t join you for reasons including the right fit and unfulfilled compensation aspirations, the relationship remains.

“You are talking to them, understanding them, and making a good offer at the right time. It’s key to get the talent in. It’s a win-win for all – recruiters/HR managers, job seekers and the company. If you have spotted a good talent, it’s important to nurture it,” said Ankit Agarwala, managing director (India) of Page Group that owns recruitment firm Michael Page.

2  Talent marketplaces and allocation 

One of the biggest lessons learned from the pandemic is the fact that companies can no longer solely rely on recruiting talent externally. Instead, a competitive labour market has forced employers to make better use of the existing talent they have, says Academy to Innovate HR, a training platform in the HR space.

AIHR says talent marketplaces help connect employees within an organization or a sector to internal career opportunities and these include not only job openings, but also cross-departmental projects, temporary assignments and other initiatives.

“What has changed is that HR departments are increasingly conscious of the importance of (planned) skill development. As a consequence, more and more companies are looking into partnering up with their strategic partners to create common talent marketplaces,” AIHR added in a post on its website.

3  Learning agility

While hiring and recruitment of talent is one part of the story, employees are expected to be fast learners and be on the forefront in accepting and adopting change. Learning agility, means the ability to confront a situation you have never experienced and cope with it, says Ravi Venkatesan, a former chairman of Microsoft India and Bank of Baroda.

“This can be done by going out of the comfort zone and taking on new challenges. Similarly, the ability to work with other people. Typically, engineers find it tough. More and more work is becoming multi-disciplinary. So people or life skills are a must, which is not taught at any school. Third is entrepreneurship, and fourth, leadership. If any professional is good at these, you need not worry about AI (artificial intelligence), jobs or any crisis,” said Venkatesan, who recently published a book on career and life lessons titled What the Heck Do I Do with My Life.

4 Hybrid work as business driver 

The remote work culture of the past two years and evidence that it has not negatively impacted productivity has reinforced the view that hybrid work is here to stay, at least in part.

“A vast majority of HR leaders expect that at least some of their employees will work remotely after the pandemic. This shift to hybrid work will be a massive driver of transformation and …HR leaders must be prepared to support,” according to a workspace post by consulting firm Gartner.

Nimisha Pathak, director of HR at consulting and professional management firm Alvarez & Marsal, told Moneycontrol that many firms are projecting flexible working models as one of the key drivers in attracting and retaining talent.

While some companies have included these models permanently in their HR strategy, some are sitting on the fence and monitoring how things unfold.

5 Career experience 

Traditional life-long career development programs offered by companies earlier are outdated as voluntary attrition or job switching has picked up pace in recent times.

Workers are now less likely to dedicate their entire careers to one employer. In fact, on average, people now change jobs every four years, according to the Academy to Innovate HR.

“To adjust to this reality, organizations are increasingly investing in employees’ career experiences. The goal is for the organization to expand its capabilities while enriching the employee’s career with new learning opportunities,” the Academy said.  Companies have defined different experiences: lateral, vertical, rotational and so on, it said.

6 Upskilling   

Corporate learning and development have become a must-have in the workspace. Employee upskilling is being used as a tool to make staff feel valued, increase productivity, aid talent upgrades and support career growth.

The future of work is here; digitisation, remote work, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud-based systems and Learning Management Systems are no longer vanities or “good-to-have” mechanisms. Instead, they have assumed centre stage in the race to survive, said assessment firm Mercer|Mettl.

Despite the pandemic denting corporate learning in past two years, a survey by Mercer|Mettl has found that “nearly 55 percent of respondents reported a hike in their organisational L&D budgets, indicating that companies continue to stick to L&D interventions despite facing challenges.”

“Organisations believe that such programmes are crucial for them to become future-ready enterprises,”​ it added.