THE EVOLUTION IN THE ROLE OF HR IN INDIA

THE EVOLUTION IN THE ROLE OF HR IN INDIA

By- Student Advisory Board, RDIAS

A lot of us might not know what HR actually does! —everyone knows they’re important, but very few people know why. So, let us first appreciate the roles and duties of HR.

Duties and responsibilities of an HR manager: The HR department manages the employee lifecycle. This features hiring new employees, onboarding and training them, managing the employee-employer relationship (including compensation, benefits, and promotions), and firing or laying off employees.??HR managers have a more hands-on role and are responsible for the day-to-day planning and execution of the high-level strategies of the HR department, planning and developing new recruitment strategies, overseeing staff benefits, and more.?

HRM and their evolution

As we know that evolution is not an overnight process, similarly the role of a human resource professional has started revolutionizing in India in the past two years. The covid 19 pandemic made everyone realize the value of HR, whether we talk about hiring, training and development or even compensation etc. When the Covid-19 came into force, the entire economy, as well as the organizations, got disrupted heavily, then the HR teams came into the picture, it was time to make everyone ready for the next era that is shifting everything online no matter what the role an employee plays everyone needed the motivation, training and rearranging the priorities.

Covid-19 before and after

Before a pandemic, one could have lunch with a mentor and discuss various topics. Due to the pandemic, when work from home started then there was a huge communication gap between the employer and employee and to fill this gap the role of HR evolved. The HR had to make sure everyone in the company is able to adapt to the online shift but due to the generation gap, they had to provide each and everyone at their home while keeping in mind the personal needs of training of every generation. During the pandemic, HR had to make sure that every employee in the organization is self-motivated and has satisfied their five essential needs as given by Abraham Maslow’s need hierarchy theory (1943) which are:

1)?????Physiological Needs: can be fulfilled by a good place to work, monthly salaries on time, comfortable working environment with all essential facilities.

2)?????Safety Needs: this can include formal contracts for the benefit of employees.

3)?????Social Needs: can be done through promoting group working of different departments, teamwork for some social cause and many more

4)?????Self-Esteem Needs: this can be accomplished by providing 360- degree feedback and an appraisal system.

5)?????Self-Actualization Needs: this can be attained by the highest level personal development plans, training, mentoring and opportunity for promotion.

From the past 2-3 years there is a huge change in the hiring pattern. Everything became online, it’s the system of one-touch only through which we can have meetings, share ideas, discuss things and many more by sitting in front of a screen. It was just the comfort of a click that a person can easily give his/her interview to be selected in the particular company; similarly, companies are also using one click to hire the candidates.

Earlier HR professionals were not practical enough towards employees’ physical and mental health, but now they have been more proactive about it. It requires HR to demonstrate more emotional intelligence; it also requires renewed attention on the employee experience, which remote work has changed dramatically. Handling the grievances of workers online and detecting the lack of intimacy & body language has become common nowadays, due to this complete digitalization, employees are facing various issues that are:

1.?Increase in remote working

A recent Gartner poll showed that 48% of employees will likely work remotely at least part of the time after COVID -19 versus 30% before the pandemic. As organizations shift to more remote work operations, explore the critical competencies employees will need to collaborate digitally, and be prepared to adjust employee experience strategies.

2.?Managing Remote Teams

They had to learn how to manage remote workers when the infrastructure and the support systems weren’t there to ensure a smooth transition. And with 80% of employers planning to allow employees to work remotely at least part of the time after the pandemic, the ability to manage those employees is a skill HR professional will need to perfect.

3.???Expanded employer role as a social safety net

The pandemic has increased the trend of employers playing an expanded role in their employees’ financial, physical and mental well-being. Support includes enhanced sick leave, financial assistance, adjusted hours of operation and child care provisions.

4.?Learning and Implementing New Technologies

Human resource departments have largely been tasked with selecting, learning, and implementing those new technology systems, which means they have had to become IT specialists and/or align themselves more closely with IT departments.

5.?Separation of critical skills and roles

To build the workforce you’ll need post-pandemic, focus less on roles — which group unrelated skills — than on the skills needed to drive the organization’s competitive advantage and the workflows that fuel that advantage. ?However, due to this complete digitalization, there have been some positive changes as well:

a.??????Technology enhancement: Organizations are increasingly turning to technology and data analytics to assist them in making personnel decisions. New tools and systems for recruitment, performance management, learning, wellness, and engagement must be integrated into HR technology.

b.?????Feedback Becomes fluid: Companies are taking a more informal and adaptable approach. Managers began utilizing a procedure called Connects, in which workers receive real-time feedback without scheduled assessments when Microsoft moved away from stacked ranking in 2013.

c.??????Technology moves work beyond the office: Companies can collaborate with people all across the world. Flexible working hours and schedules have indeed led to a shift in how work is evaluated.

d.?????Analytics change the game slowly: ?While the use of data to examine and enhance everything from recruiting to health and safety to succession strategies has gotten off to a sluggish start, it will be the hottest and most game-changing trend in HR.

But the COVID-19 has grandly shaken all organizations, creating a complex and challenging environment for managers and human resource management (HRM) practitioners, who need to find ingenious solutions to ensure the continuity of their companies and to help their employees to cope with this extraordinary crisis. Studies addressing the impact of this crisis on HRM are sparse.

Leading to,

●??????Reduced facing financial difficulties

●??????Recruitment of high-skill jobs more than low-skill jobs

The main challenge of HRM practitioners, in this case, is to support managers and employees during this process and to offer proper information. However, it might not be easy in the context of uncertainty.

On the contrary, organizations that have expanded their business during the pandemic have more flexible employment relationships and subcontracted work like:

●??????Temporary agency work

●??????Freelancers, and

●??????The gig economy

At times companies send employees for various training programs outside the organization to train in technical know-how or a course that would be relevant to their job profile.

There are many aspects when managers are identifying training needs of their team members, i.e.

●??????Firstly, the manager needs to identify what skill set is required to complete the job or the process.

●??????The second is to assess the existing skill levels of the team members, and lastly, determines the training gap.

The next phase for Human Resources is to predict changes in future; here are 5 trends HR heads must consider:

1. Personalized Review System: By 2025 HR will be having a hyper-personalized performance review system. This consists of scrapping out the outdated yearly reviews for real-time performance reports and personalized coaching. Additional, employees will become the focus of consideration and their ‘uniqueness’ will have to be recognized.

●??????Future-forward HR leadership: Businesses will be required to have the following to boost their work - Digital Expertise, Strengthening Human Capital and Playing to Win

2. AI for creating a diverse workforce: Using AI and ML to make spontaneous and better decisions will help them to reduce the burden of employees and will help them to work on some other work effectively and efficiently. Also, AI & ML will help to match the skill set of people who are better suited for specific work.

3. Gamification: It is often being used to grab the attention of job candidates and raise interest in job openings. Activities like:

●??????Business Game, where the candidates are asked to build, design, purchase, sales, advertise etc., it virtually pretends the whole experience to run a business. Points are being given as per the performance of the candidate.

●??????Virtual Office tour, making candidates, employees who are or will be working remotely virtually able to view how the office looks like.

●??????Onboarding to office culture, where candidates in selecting the place and take flight virtually to that branch and able to contact the employees of that branch of the company to know the environment of the particular branch.

4. Storytelling learning: It is a great way to pile the brand into the culture and help candidates get a well understanding of what their experience would be like, should they join the firm or not. This is done by showcasing wins, highlighting community involvement, engaging the audience with a reliable message and character across all social media platforms.

HR has evolved quite strangely over the last decade. Instead of being fearful of what the deviations mean for the HR department or the professionals working in it, firms would be wise to hold the modern tools and technologies that empower them to shape even stronger companies for the future.

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