AT the start of the pandemic, organizations scrambled to respond to the need for safety and security of their work force while ensuring business continuity and profitability. And while some sacrificed one for the other, there is no denying that the core of all these decisions comes from the recommendations from human resources (HR) which serves as the primary guide for people management and development.
This year, with the availability of a Covid-19 vaccine and the events that transpired last year, HR will be hard pressed to address issues relative to employee experience, working arrangements, and professional development as organizations face an unprecedented working condition this year. Organizations need to think in terms of the overall experience of employees and not just the sporadic activities spread throughout the year. They need to focus on the entire employee experience, which is the life cycle of an employee from recruitment to retirement. A good understanding of what attracts an employee, why they stay, and what makes them leave will help organizations understand how they can create experiences to retain the best talents.
Working from home will become an alternative working arrangement especially for organizations whose products and services do not rely heavily on the physical presence of their work force. Even before the pandemic, there have been organizations that have adopted a hybrid workplace where they allow employees to report to work only three times a week, or only when their physical presence was needed.
Other organizations have even allowed flexibility of where to work and when to work. Last year, I noticed the expansion and proliferation of shared office spaces where you can rent a workspace on a daily or monthly basis. Other organizations have allowed for flexibility in schedules to give employees the option to work when they were most productive in the day, or to commute to work when traffic is not too congested. These working conditions help employees schedule and plan their day to maximize their productivity, although this could pose a problem in monitoring employee’s output.
With the increasing reliance on technology and flexibility in working arrangements, organizations will need to develop a system of monitoring productivity and efficiency without violating employee’s data privacy and minimize the feeling of someone looking over their shoulder. In a previous organization, we were once asked to install an app which automatically ran in the background while we worked. Since I had a team under me, I was given access to my team’s information on how much time they spent on work and non-work applications. They knew I could see what applications they ran and how much time they spent on certain websites. It can be particularly intrusive for employees, so organizations need to be judicious in the way they monitor productivity.
There will also be an increase in digitizing HR processes like recruitment, onboarding, and even people development. I used to work in an organization which used a chatbot to screen possible candidates for available job postings. This helped HR sift through the job applications faster and avoid unnecessarily interviewing candidates who cannot meet the minimum job requirements. There is also an increase in using video call services for interviews and team meetings. Onboarding will also likely turn to a digitized format with the use of videos and gamified learning materials which can be made available every time there is a new employee.
There will also be a need for the work force to develop learning agility, which is the ability to use past experiences to adapt and assimilate new skills needed to resolve new and emerging issues. As the pandemic has shown, people need to acquire new skills quickly to address an ever-changing environment. HR needs to implement programs and initiatives to drive skills development especially in areas of data literacy or analytics, development of the entrepreneurial mentality, and the adoption of a digital mindset.
You can also expect an increase in the need and adoption of a Learning Management System (LMS), which can monitor an employee’s professional development and makes it easier for HR to recommend a learning path suitable for an employee’s strengths and areas of improvement. This customized learning path has started in some organizations but will increase this year as more organizations are narrowing down skills necessary for specific roles in their organization. More employees will need to be cross-skilled to ensure there are enough team members who know enough of what others are doing to ensure coverage for work processes and smooth operations despite lack of manpower.
There is also an increasing trend in automating processes like the one I mentioned above—chatbots used for recruitment, and the use of an LMS for professional development. While these are efficient and useful, there will be displaced employees. HR needs to consider how they can re-skill and help these employees find new work in the organization rather than just letting them go. They have invaluable experiences and transferable skills which can be developed for use in another team.
As a result, people development will be geared toward ensuring the resilience and adaptability of the work force for new and emerging threats which might develop over the new year. This does not just entail learning and development solutions, but also significant investments in new tools and processes to ensure the work force remains connected to the organization and employees can communicate easily with people they work with.
And while organizations are deep in discussion on how to address millennials, boomers, and the Gen Xs and Zs in the workplace, there is a growing need to focus on developing the Perennials. The term was first coined by Gina Pell in 2016 to describe not an age group but the mindset of passionate individuals who transcend age, are curious, push boundaries, and have a deep sense of inclusion, creativity, and work well with others of all ages, cultures and social classes. Think of Justin Trudeau, Elon Musk and Madonna—timeless, relevant, and can work well with all generations. So instead of focusing on a segment of the work force, HR needs to work on developing a holistic and collaborative team.
What is apparent in all these is that HR will play a pivotal role in ascertaining operational continuity for organizations this new year. The challenge is to ensure that their organization has the right people in place to do what is required, and that HR can provide the tools and training needed for employees to succeed in their roles. In the end, the success of the organization depends on how much they have invested in their people.