HR departments in an organization have the most important responsibility placed on their shoulders — to manage and take care of employees and their work. Employees or human capital, as they are known in business jargon, are the assets on which any organization’s success depends.
When employees are satisfied with their working conditions, job roles, perks, relative compensation, and professional development opportunities, they ensure higher productivity for the organization. Employers can make more profits when the productivity is optimum, all while maintaining the standards set by the organization.
HR professionals are tasked with human capital management, and they are expected to bring their A-game to the table at all times. Human capital management has changed drastically since the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020. The compulsion of remote work in the wake of the local and national lockdowns didn’t make it easy for HR managers to adapt to the new work conditions.
As the tide has slowly started settling and some sense of normalcy is returning, HR managers need to be vigilant more than ever to better perform their job in response to everything new in human capital management for the upcoming year.
In this article, we will discuss the five latest trends in HCM that will matter the most in 2022.
- Advent of ‘New Work’ paradigm
Purpose, happiness, wellbeing, and fulfillment are slowly becoming the focus areas for employees under the ‘new work’ paradigm. According to this paradigm, material compensation against the labor provided by an employee should not be the only purpose of the work done. Instead, there needs to be an addition of the above qualities too.
Companies and HR departments need to be mindful of these aspirations and expectations of the workers and actively work towards delivering on them. A happy workforce is an indicator of the right practices being adopted in an organization, and yours should be on the right side of it.
- Increased focus on mental health of employees
Employee well being is finally getting its due in corporate work culture. Companies have started investing money in ensuring the happiness of employees, even if due to the pressure exerted by civil society or other reasons. Corporates are now focusing on building a climate of psychological safety, handling employee stress levels, and securing their mental peace.
The shift can also be attributed, in part, to the stress caused by the sudden shift to remote work because of the coronavirus pandemic. Whatever the real reason may be, employee satisfaction and their mental well being are now top agendas in the human capital management pedagogies.
- Inclusiveness and Diversity are gaining prominence
Social movements against workplace disparities and lack of representation of various communities for the longest time have prompted corporate culture to emphasize diversity and inclusion while hiring new employees.
Diversity and inclusiveness of people from different ethnic, religious, and social groups is not just a token move anymore, instead, it’s slowly becoming a prerequisite for ensuring that a business is progressive enough.
Human capital management now needs companies to communicate their agenda on ensuring diversity and representation at all levels of the organization, in addition to setting new industry standards to motivate other players in the field as well.
- People Analytics are here to stay
Analyzing the behavior of employees using various sets of data on them, from training to other internal and external assessments from time to time (including office surveys, etc.), is termed as people analytics. Lately, many industries have started using this method heavily for catering to the needs and expectations of employees.
The idea is to derive actionable insights to improve employee performance and the overall productivity of the organization. HCM tools such as the Paycom app come with very powerful resources for aiding the people analytics process and easing the work of the HR managers. Your organization must consider investing in the right HCM tool.
- Decentralisation of HR work
HR departments are some of the most overworked departments in any organization owing to the burden of a bunch of responsibilities bestowed upon them, from managing payroll to hiring, onboarding, and training employees, and everything in between when it comes to employee management. Therefore, it’s highly advisable to take some load off of them through decentralization of the HR work.
Dividing the stressful HR work between other experts also goes a long way in ensuring that a company manages its employees more efficiently. In addition to dividing the work, HR professionals need to be ably backed by the relevant tools and data to make their jobs easier.
Conclusion
All of these trends hold tremendous value for every organization if they want to stay up-to-date with their human capital management endeavors.
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