HR trends 2020: What to expect
As we mark the beginning of this year, it’s time to watch out for emerging HR trends in 2020.
Each year, global HR leaders come up with forecasts on emerging HR trends. Their predictions are based on an entire year’s study and analysis on human resource systems and evolving technology. Since last few years there is a flood of change to the HR industry and HR software. The rise of artificial intelligence, the increased push towards greater diversity and many other headline disruptors. As we move into 2020 and a new decade, it’s only appropriate to look ahead for a glimpse of which HR trends will maintain to drive transformation and which new trends will emerge to shape the future of employment.
Technology is advancing by leaps and bounds and it is a fact that companies must be aware of the changes that come with being technologically capable. With these changes, the Human Resource department will have an enormous weightage on business strategy, concerning the application of new processes and the elaboration of plans for a successful absorption.
Automation in the recruitment processes and certain HR tasks
Automation will no longer only be a system present in production tasks within the industry but will reach the recruitment processes to speed up the filling of vacant positions, as well as some tasks that take time away from the teams. Questions such as “when is my pay day?” or “how many holidays do I have?” can be answered automatically by a machine. But is this a threat to the HR position? Not at all. Automating this type of tasks will allow adding time to other tasks of greater weight and strengthen strategies aimed at valuing talent and motivating the employees.
Many vendors are already incorporating chatbots into their HR systems to provide answers to employee inquiries, and Chatbot News Daily predicts that HR chatbots will be implemented at more than 50% of companies by 2022.
Gamification
The human resources area will design their training plans and / or internal communication not only focused on making something known but in doing so in a motivating, simple and successful way. By doing this, the gamification will be key in the business strategy contributing to the success of the recruiting processes, onboarding and training. Many companies will employ gaming techniques in 2020 to reinforce their communication plans. Solutions such as Atrivity seek to turn rough and complex training content into a fresh and fun game of questions and answers in which employees are simply involved and engaged to the content allowing the company to assess in real time what knowledge they have.
For example, McDonald’s has bet on the use of an innovative solution like Atrivity in its training strategy and has made its employees feel more motivated and committed. And they also improved their knowledge about training plans.
Employer Branding: the big challenge
The concept of Employer Branding is not current, it goes back to the 60’s in the United States. It is the impression that an organization has towards its clients, its own employees and, above all, the image perceived by its potential candidates. More and more companies are focusing their efforts on creating a value proposition through this concept. A happy employee will be a natural advocate of the brand. The emergence of new players in the HR landscape such as Glassdoor, which give a public voice to discontented employees through reviews, will strengthen companies’ dedication to this concept and develop motivational plans.
Workforce diversification
In general, this trend comes from previous years and will increase in the next 2020. In the same environment, from scholarship holders to external consultants, with telework days to intensive afternoon-morning trend would be there The focus will be the achievement of the business objective caring for human value, leaving behind more traditional environments that do not encourage this “falling in love” with the workplace.
And an EY study says that companies that are in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have above-average financial yields, and those for gender diversity are 15% more likely. Similarly, according to a Glassdoor survey, 67% of candidates preferred to join a diverse team.
HR transformation by data analytics
Data analytics will continue to be implemented rapidly in the year ahead. Using analytics, data driven judgments can be made by HR professionals in identifying trends and patterns on employee absenteeism, leave frequency, employee turnover rate, engagement level, workforce productivity and engagement etc.
In a recent survey, two-thirds of business leaders told us that if their company does not digitalize more by 2020, it will no longer be competitive
Employee Experience Platforms: Today, employees require a lot more than just good pay and an ideal work environment. Employees do not hesitate to share views and rate their company culture, work policies, growth opportunities, compensation and more on employment review websites like Glassdoor, Indeed, etc. Employees who share their experiences on these platforms publicly can impact the reputation of their company. Thus, enhancing employee experience is the need of the hour and hence, Global HR experts suggest taking help of advanced HR technology solutions to enhance employee experience.
As per Josh Bersin, the EXP is a single location to design, manage, and measure all employee interactions across the company. These platforms would significantly reduce the cost and time spent on developing custom employee portals, integrating back-end systems, validating security, and measuring service interactions across multiple backend systems.
Though trends may come and go, it is advisable not to make an uninformed decision to follow these blindly. Experts suggest that HR should study yearly predictions, analyze what works best for their organization, and then implement these in a wise manner.
Written by: Dr Ritika Srivastava (NamanHR)
