Top 3 HR Trends: How do You Measure Up vs. the Competition?

As our readership goes up, we are starting to get inquiries about specific HR topics – digitalization of certain people services is one!

Not only we want to respond to our readers’ areas of interest, we want to highlight those businesses that share our passion of championing humanity into the workplace.

Today, we have our first guest post from MyHub, an intranet software company offering customized solutions to do just that!

Make sure to pay attention to statistics as well as trends included! These are indeed the top trends we are seeing in our consulting work also and they may just give you another creative idea for offering a human solution at work….

It’s time for some all-important reflection, people. Let’s take a look at which key trends should be included in your HR strategy, and examine how businesses have been responding.

1. Employee Experience

We’ve heard so much about the customer experience in recent years, and now it’s employees’ turn. Singled out by Deloitte in their 2017 survey Global Human Capital Trends, the employee experience as a key trend is likely to continue beyond this calendar year. In fact, in Deloitte’s survey nearly 80 percent of executives rated employee experience very important or important.

Employee experience has a very broad definition and is much more than just an annual survey of staff members, or a vague notion of improving employee engagement or organizational culture. It’s more about building a positive and productive total employee experience that encompasses such things as work-life balance, flexible working, employee wellness initiatives, and opportunities to promote diversity and inclusion.

In the modern global workplace, companies are realizing that you need to focus more on the holistic employee experience if you want to attract and retain the best people. What’s more, a positive employee experience will in turn impact on a better customer experience. So it’s win-win…provided you get it right.

Think creatively about how you can improve the employee experience in your own organization. The possibilities don’t have to be mega expensive either. View the workplace through the eyes of your employees. Use the company intranet to involve staff in identifying priorities through an online survey or blog. It could be something as small as improving the office décor, providing a range of workspace options within the business, or facilitating a lunchtime walking group. Just make sure that the employee experience is as central to your operations as the customer experience.

2. Digital HR

It almost goes without saying that the digital HR trend will continue unabated as technology drives innovation, and the development of cloud technologies in particular is changing the way that we work. And just as customers are demanding personalized, interactive online experiences, so your employees are, too. From employee self-service options to automated workflow processes, there’s no doubt that new technologies and platforms are changing the way that HR works to provide more unique and tailored user experiences. And the increasing use of cloud computing, as well as being environmentally friendly, has also provided more flexibility and accessibility in the workplace.

So how are your competitors responding to the digital IT trend? Not surprisingly, companies such as IBM are leading the way when it comes to digital HR. They’ve developed their own HR version of Apple’s Siri in CHIP – an intelligent chatbot which recognizes frequently asked employee questions. Currently available through computer and text messaging, it will soon also be available in voice.

Other organizations, such as University of California, Berkley, and Oklahoma State Bank have gone the route of using cloud intranets to provide employees with an integrated range of tools and business modules. From content management systems and document sharing to streamlined business processes and shared work spaces, the cloud intranet has the advantage of providing all these tools in a single platform. Every department – not just HR – can therefore take advantage of the cloud intranet’s offering, reducing the potential for the proliferation of incompatible software within an organization.

3. Flexible Workers Expect Flexible Working Practices

The traditional 9 to 5, desk-bound office worker is now becoming little more than a relic of the past. The reality is that the average company’s workforce consists of a range of employees working alongside the traditional full-time ones, including contingent workers – freelancers, interns, and contractors – as well as telecommuters and part-time workers. Today’s workers are demanding more flexibility from employers, and given the increasingly globalized nature of the workforce, as well as the paucity of talent out there, employers that are not meeting this demand for flexible working practices are missing a trick.

How are businesses responding to this challenge? Virtual teams, project working, increased opportunities for cross-departmental collaborations, as well as teams of geographically dispersed remote workers and telecommuters, have become the norm in organizations across the globe. This has implications for HR both in terms of performance management, which increasingly is moving towards peer feedback, and in relation to employee self-steered learning and development.

Domestic and international companies such as AT&T, Dell, and Xerox have led the way in offering their staff flexible work arrangements, including some full-time, part-time, and freelance positions. However, the development of cloud computing, particularly in the shape of intranets, has opened up the possibility of flexible working practices to small and medium-sized enterprises, too. With the number of contingent workers predicted to grow by 25% over the next 12 months, cloud intranets are a cost-effective option for many businesses, although others have gone down the route of utilizing various HR or collaborative software options. The fact is, HR departments need to develop innovative ways to integrate and engage with this new style of workforce.

So how does your HR strategy measure up against the competition?