Top 5 HR Challenges for 2022
Borrowing a famous line from Queen Elizabeth, who was talking about a particularly hard year for England’s royal family, HR isn’t harkening back on 2020-2021 with “undiluted pleasure.” No, the pandemic has taken us on a wild ride. Companies shifted to remote work on a dime, and HR was charged with everything from figuring out how to hire and onboard remotely, to making sure companies retained their culture when everyone was working from different places, to checking in on employees’ mental and physical health. HR was creating new best practices for human capital management on the fly.
During the storm that was 2020-2021, the right HRIS that could streamline and automate HCM functions like hiring, onboarding, and payroll wasn’t just nice to have; it was an HR lifejacket.
As 2022 hovers on the horizon, what’s ahead for HR? What are the trends, issues and challenges we’ll be focusing on? Let’s look at some areas of HR that people are talking about.
Top 5 HR issues for 2022
What are some of the top areas where HR will be focused next year (and beyond)? Here’s what we’re hearing from our customers.
Work-from-home strategies. While some companies will be headed back to the office eventually, many will be continuing the WFH model. Here’s an interesting stat from Global Workplace Analytics: In 2018, just 3.6% of the U.S. workforce worked from home. During the pandemic, 69% worked at home! If they can’t continue to work remotely, almost half of U.S. employees say they will look for another job. What does that mean for HR going forward? It means creating solid strategies for working at home, including streamlining and automating HR functions, focusing on culture, and doing all we can to make working from home work.
Hybrid strategies. In that same vein, HR in workplaces switching to hybrid work models will be focused on helping to create strategies to make that work. There are a lot of moving parts when you’re talking about employees coming into the office just a day or two each week. What’s happening with technology? Will they have computers for home and work? Are people coming in on the same days? Can they choose their days? Is it best for whole departments to be in the office on the same days? What about the desk situation? Will people who come in only, say, one day each week have a dedicated desk or will they find a spot wherever? Lots to figure out in this workplace model that’s brand new for most companies.
Hiring. Yes, it’s the Hiring Hunger Games out there right now. We haven’t seen such a competitive hiring market in decades. But, there are some positives to this epic quest to find and hire top talent. The ability to work from home has allowed HR to cast its hiring net very wide. If employees don’t have to be in the office, they don’t have to live within commuting distance. The tight hiring market has also allowed HR to reel that net in very close. Internal mobility, in other words. LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 report found that promoting from within is having a moment, with 81% of HR pros believing it improves retention (also a big issue for HR), and 63% saying it accelerates the hiring process.
Benefits overhaul. Beer fridges and ping pong tables just aren’t going to cut it anymore. The pandemic changed nearly everything about working life, and benefits are no exception. Simply put, people just don’t care about workplace perks now. With WFH and hybrid arrangements being the norm, it doesn’t matter if there’s pizza on Fridays in the break room. Employees and potential hires want benefits that are going to strongly impact their lives for the better, like child and elder care, solid health care that includes mental health services, unlimited PTO, and employer-matched retirement programs. It will be up to HR to advocate for benefits like these.
Culture enhancement. HR has long been called the heart of the company, and as such, nurturing company culture is front and center on HR’s to-do list. Not so easy when everyone is working at home. HR is now tasked to create new ways of employee bonding and engagement, and coming up with strategies to show employees how appreciated they are.
Bottom line, HR is becoming a whole new ballgame, with weighty issues on its collective plate. Going forward, HR needs an HRIS solution that will automate and streamline tasks so HR pros are free to focus on more important issues, like the ones outlined above. At Benetech, that’s our passion. If you’d like to find out more, please contact us today.
