I’m sure you’ve read a couple dozen articles about what’s going to happen in 2016 in the wonderful world of HR. Head on over to Google and type, “Top HR Trends 2016” and you’ll get pages upon pages of content to peruse through. One of the top ones is from workplace/leadership expert (I thought he did personal branding… perhaps 3 careers ago he did!), Dan Schawbel titled, “10 Workplace Trends You’ll See in 2016“. It talks about everything from the “boomerang employee” (another newly coined term) to boomers leaving the workforce (we’ve been hearing this for a decade) to workplace flexibility (never heard of this one… right!!) to office design to wearable technology to maternity leave (in Canada we had this conversation in 1962) to the freelance economy, etc… Anything new in all of this? Not really.

What’s the Point?

The point, as I’ve made many times before, is that we need to stop trying to find something new, and instead just focus on doing things better. HR is about finding the best possible talent in the marketplace, recruiting them, giving them the best possible tools to do their jobs really well, providing them with the environment to succeed, engaging them in the organization and everything it stands for, helping them build meaningful careers that is filled with meaningful work, compensating them fairly and equitably, recognizing them for good work with new opportunities and everything else that goes into connecting the powerful relationship between employee engagement and business performance. If you already think your organization is kicking ass at everything I’ve mentioned then fine, go forth and find something new and shiny to play with. Go crazy and get Apple watches for everyone and ride the “flavour of the month” craze that we tend to get sucked into.

As I have jumped back into the corporate world with Security Compass, my focus for 2016 is relatively simple. It’s nothing earth shattering but I know it will reap huge rewards. The focus will be on providing employees with a better employee experience. I have a plan on how I will achieve this, along with specific metrics that I will measure. The reason I am focusing on this is because I know that if the employee experience improves, so will our business performance, and the influence HR will have on the company. HR is still a new business function, and it’s been an absolutely awesome and rewarding challenge to build credibility within the company, and demonstrate how HR can play a significant role in driving business success.

Call me boring… I really don’t care! I do know that focusing on the grassroots is what this company needs and will see as huge value. There is no room for looking at “flavour of the month” things when you’re working in a fast-paced, bootstrapped and highly entrepreneurial organization. If you are then you’re just wasting yours and your organizations’ time. Get to it.