Ten key HR trends to keep an eye on

Victoria Brown

As we emerge into a growth phase and businesses start to hire again, how can recruiters keep up with their partners in HR? Victoria Brown looks at ten key trends in staffing and HR.

Millennials are on the march

A generation of employees who were pampered by their baby boomer parents has taken the workplace by storm. Not only is your workplace trying to absorb these offspring, but also deal with helping three generations of workers happily co-exist and work as a team.  The economic downturn has made the three generation situation worse with boomers who planned retirement, to make way for up and coming employees, unable to retire – and not happy about it. 

For the employer, managing millennials is a skill that needs to be developed.  The millennial quest for work-life balance and for having a life outside of work is legendary.  Employers must accommodate these talented young people and develop their strengths and ability to contribute, or they will lose them to an employer who will.

Economic turbulence 

The economic downturn has resulted in most being affected.  Not many employees have received a salary increase without a promotion.  The rise in redundancies has led to increased workloads and feelings of anxiety and fear of those employees left.  Business leaders are left wondering if the economy has been re-set forever or if we in a down-turn that will recover. 

Online recruitment and social media

This decade has brought the transformation of the employee recruiting, social media interaction and networking.  Recruitment will never be the same again.  Sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are new ways of interacting and communicating in recruitment.

Social media networking is the new way to find employees, find jobs, get answers to questions, build a wide spread, mutually supportive network of contacts, and keep track of colleagues and friends.  Social media and recruiting bring the employer new challenges.  Some are developing social media and blogging policies.  Others are deciding whether to monitor employee time online and most have started to check candidate backgrounds online.

‘Made to order’ employment relationships

Perhaps it’s the push from the millennials, and it’s definitely the availability of technology that facilitates the customisation, but the made to order work relationship has become a dominant force in the past decade. Teleworking is not the only component of the new made to order working arrangements. Flexible anything has become the new norm. Flexible working hours, flexible four-day working weeks, flexible time off for appointments.  However, this is also a benefit for Employees, as you can say goodbye to the ‘personnel police’.  Employers need to make work communication more transparent and measurable so that flexibility yields results.  Employees are more motivated, engaged and less stressed about family and life issues because they have the time necessary to address work life balance issues.

The big ‘blur’

Being online all the time, and being available via technology has blurred the line between work and home.  No generation has ever been this connected, and for good and bad, some employees never stop working. This interferes with down time, relaxing time and work life balance, but most employees just see it as a way of life. 

Technology on the rise

Technology has transformed the way in which HR manages and communicates information.  Paper-based personnel files and horrendous Excel spreadsheets to manage leave are becoming a thing of the past and most sensible employers are investing in software.

Employee training and development

This decade has seen the rise of technology-enabled opportunities for training, employee development, and training meetings and seminars. Podcasts, teleseminars, online learning and webinars all provide employee development opportunities. 

Too much bureaucracy?

Have the government gone too far over the last decade?  Are employers now expected to have a degree in employment law as well as run their own business? The past 10 years have provided copious amounts of changes to the law.  On the whole, most have been more favourable to the employee.

The rise and fall of no-win, no fee lawyers

Unfortunately the increase in tribunal compensation claim limits led to abuse of the process and a ridiculous increase in vexatious claims.  Genuine claims became questionable to the employer and businesses were being held to commercial ransom by such firms.  The introduction of tribunal fees in 2013 and the continued tightening of the tribunal system is slowly starting to see a demise in such vexatious claims and employers having more confidence to dismiss employees that underperform or conduct themselves inappropriately.

Reward systems and wellbeing initiatives

We’ve already discussed how employers have struggled to increase salaries or enhance packages.  Businesses are now starting to think ‘outside the box’ and look for innovative ways to engage and retain talent.  Many are striving to promote health and wellbeing within the workplace.  This has been well received by most employees who genuinely feel valued by the business that they work for.

Victoria Brown is managing director of High Performance Consultancy, a provider of outsourced human resources