The world post covid has seen businesses fighting to adapt, and for the HR department, a lot has changed. A big movement towards personal development and skills training is going to be a leading trend in the new year. There are clear benefits to having an HR professional in your office who doesn’t see you as just a worker, but instead, as someone whom they can help to achieve personal & career goals.
Here are a few growing trends that will impact companies and HR departments:
Employee Growth & Retention
There is a big shift in focus towards employee growth & retention through professional development opportunities, such as training workshops and educational seminars. Companies are tasking HR professionals with the important goal of decreasing employee turnover rates. Training new staff is far more expensive than keeping your current talent happy and effective.
The pandemic has opened up opportunities for HR professionals to think outside the box and find creative solutions to problems surrounding remote working. The increased use of digital tools has enabled teams to communicate more effectively and efficiently with their staff. The hyper-connected nature of the modern workplace means that HR has to focus on how to keep employees focused and still keep a healthy work-life balance.
One such example is the introduction of wellness initiatives that help organisations build engaging employee experiences and foster collaborative work cultures.
Gamification
With the rise of gamification, the application of typical elements of game playing (point scoring/competition with others) has found its way into the corporate space. Gamification provides HR with the tools to encourage excitement in learning through established psychological motivational principles.
For example, the use of gamification by Marriot International is a hotel simulator game where employees are given their own virtual hotel where they have to secure inventory, serve guests & train employees. They are awarded points according to customer satisfaction rate and flagged on poor management points. Through this training effort, Marriot can easily distinguish employees who are better suited to management positions from others who are better suited to other areas.
It’s a great new way to increase your employee engagement and motivation in your company. Gamification can be used to reward employees for completing training, interviewing candidates, or achieving performance milestones.
This modern tool has converted the boring everyday tasks that you dread completing into something that can be enjoyed. This strategy allows for more productive training sessions where employees are able to fully grasp the concepts rather through game emersion rather than completing a theory test as an example.
A Changing Work Environment
The rapidly changing and globalised work environment has given HR departments the opportunity to emphasize the importance of workplace diversity and inclusion. By doing so, organizations are better equipped to respond to the ever-changing needs of their employees and create a more welcoming and supportive work environment.
Deloitte digitised and gamified its onboarding process. New recruits join teams and learn about privacy, compliance, ethics, and procedures online. They can launch pre-set questions into their team that everyone has to answer. Thereafter, the answers and possibilities are discussed with the team with the goal to come up with one answer. This approach combines learning functional elements with collaboration and creates a strong sense of belonging from the first day a new employee starts.
Positive working environments are proven motivators for all employees. When companies ensure their employees are well-developed, they have a talented pool of individuals ready to protect and grow the company to its fullest potential.
The space now exists for companies to step back and reassess where they can improve. Future success will be determined by how well a company can nurture balanced, happy, and versatile employees.
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