Thoughts on HR challenges

This originally started off as yet another "What is going to happen in 2023" prediction article, until I quickly realised nobody can predict what is going to happen (who'd have guessed 2020...) so instead I've written a few words about what I see as some of the current challenges.

None of this will be rocket science or come as a surprise - but it's certainly helped me articulate my thinking and get everything into one place for my discussions.

This is intended to provoke thoughts and discussions from my connections so please comment if you agree, disagree or have other ideas. You feedback really helps ??

Supporting the workforce through the economic downturn

It's looking like at least the first half of 2023 is going to be even more gloomier than 2022, so supporting employees can no longer just be about helping them thrive at work - it'll be about helping them survive outside of work as best we can.

I've seen various initiatives companies are doing to trying to support, some of this is tech based... others are simply policy changes.

• Offering more flexible working arrangements - reducing time spent commuting can have a huge impact on monthly expenses, while letting employees swap & change shifts more freely to accommodate their family lives can have a huge positive impact and give people one less thing to worry about.
• Give access to pay earlier in the pay cycle by using a 3rd party provider, I won't list them all here as I'm bound to miss some! But I know some of our big UK retailers have seen great success with this.
• Support with individuals financial management by hosting talks and training on managing money, a lot of this might seem basic - but with so much advice out there it gives employees a sense of security that the information is sensible and not going to make things worse!
• Try to bring forward pay review where appropriate, or supplement pay with special 'one off payments' - I know this isn't always feasible, but it's worth exploring even if it's a small gesture.

On top of this, are you getting payroll right - every. single. month? Incorrect pay as we know can be a huge unwanted stress for employees, especially if they end up waiting a month for any owed money. Getting the right technology in place to ensure a 100% accurate payroll is a must.

These aren't the 'new' ways of working anymore

Creating the working models for the post-COVID world has been a huge drain for HR but I believe 2023 will cement the hybrid model as the de-facto standard for ‘office workers’. We should no longer refer to this as ‘the new world’ as we know employees expect (and demand) this level of flexibility when searching for new roles now.

• What's the reason for going into the office? Do employees feel they are being 'forced' in just to hit a quote (3 in 2 style) are they coming into the office just to sit on Zoom all day...?
• I've found that going into a shared workspace should be about face to face collaboration, to the point of even forcing myself to use pen & paper when in meetings, to avoid the distractions of emails etc...

Companies with a mixed employee base such as hospitality, retail and manufacturing - where it’s not always appropriate or possible for employees to work remotely, will face the biggest challenge. Creating a workforce based on equity with fairness at the centre should be our goal, and that might mean offering these workers other perks and benefits to balance things out.

Holding ground won't win the war on talent

We made all kinds of changes and gestures as part of the pandemic to attract and retain talent.... so what now?

I see the continued war on talent getting even more fierce, those who jumped ship over the last few years will now be settled into their new jobs - and either loving live, or starting to remember how easy it was to move...

• Talent teams can’t just be focusing on the attraction of new talent - they should be looking at ways of investing in the current workforce, and empowering them to want to stick around.
• We should be looking at capturing the skills employees have and using these to help them find their niche or discover Projects across the organisation where they might be interested in helping. It also helps HR discover who their leaders of the future might be.
• Have we got clear development plans mapped out for all employees, are they clear about what they need to do to get that promotion or sideways move?

Getting the most out of your data investment

Companies are also feeling the pressure of the economic downturn and the potential increases in costs related to people - to help manage their way through this they are looking to make better data driven HR decisions.

We've seen a lot of companies spend the money to move to a modern SaaS platform and then spend time to capture all this lovely data about people... but unless you're now doing something with that, it's sitting there a bit useless.

• What is your people analytics strategy? do you even have one...? Some organisations find they actually know more about their customers than they do about their own workforce - which is crazy!
• Maybe you can utilise the skills in your customer analytics team to help support build a story about your workforce to prove the business case for a true people analytics team.
• How are you encouraging your workforce to engage with their HR platform? Are you seeing people actively update their basic information... not knowing could be causing you major headaches elsewhere (see incorrect pay further up..)