7 Ways HR Will Look Different in 2023

In 2019, I closed the year in a Fast Company column with a look ahead for the field of HR, resulting in the first of what’s now become an annual series exploring how the world of work would change in 2020, 2021, and 2022. 

As I think about what’s ahead for 2023, I want to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve experienced since this series launched.

The past three years have been some of the most consequential and disruptive we’ve seen. It’s so much more than the pandemic. Remote work, social justice progress (and backlash), war, geopolitical conflict, booming hiring markets, inflation, layoffs, reproductive freedom, “the great [insert preferred euphemism],” and so much more. 

We entered 2022 in a white-hot HR job market we haven’t seen in years. Compensation packages ballooned as companies competed fiercely for talent across the spectrum, from chief people officers to recruiters and sourcers. LinkedIn feeds were flooded with new job announcements. After navigating the turmoil of the past several years, the field of HR had finally been elevated to a place of key strategic importance to the C-suite and the business. 

By Q2, cracks began appearing, as economic uncertainty loomed and companies began tightening their fiscal plans and budgets. 

In the tech sector, where the free flow of venture capital over the past several years fueled (over-) hiring bonanzas, companies began cutting headcount — starting a ripple that grew to almost 150,000 tech layoffs across more than 900 companies, according to Layoffs.fyi.

The flood of LinkedIn job announcement posts was replaced by layoff lists as more companies conducted RIFs. 

By Q4, change and volatility were the only constants we could safely rely upon. Burnout became commonplace as we carried the collective weight of these experiences. 

Despite the dire warnings of a recession and the layoffs across tech, the broader economic red lights are not flashing . . . yet. Recent jobs reports numbers in the U.S. showed payroll grew 263,000 in November, beating expectations and seeing notable increases in industries including healthcare, professional and technical services, and leisure and hospitality. 

Hiring still fell 4.9% from October, and was down 20.5% from a year earlier, according to the LinkedIn Workforce Report.

As we enter into another year of building this new world of work, the field of HR and people operations carries hard-earned lessons from the past several years that will shape our path forward. 

These are some of the ways the world of HR will look different in 2023: 

1. Prioritizing self-development

There are two critical determinants of success in the new world of work: learning agility and network equity. Your ability to prioritize both are essential. 

Learning agility is critical, as volatility will continue to define the new world of work. Our ability to quickly distill, learn, synthesize, and implement new ideas will shape our success as a function. This means we have to embed learning into our weekly workflows. Being “too busy” with the demands of our jobs won’t cut it. We need to be selfish — for our own growth and our ability to add value to our business. 

Network equity is also important, as your success in HR today is more than the knowledge and experience you directly possess; it’s the knowledge and experience you have access to. Your community has never been more important. Proactively building a robust network of experiences and abilities outside of your own will help you navigate the range of situations and experiences you’ll face in 2023. 

The layoffs of the past year have shown that no job is forever. We have to begin thinking of our career like entrepreneurs ensuring we’re investing in ourselves — not just our employers.

2. Rethinking total rewards in the age of pay transparency 

In January, California joined Colorado, New York, Washington, and other states requiring the disclosure of compensation ranges on job descriptions. Despite some companies clumsily trying to circumvent these laws with stipulations that certain states are excluded from remote work or listing pay “ranges” of, say, $140,000–$340,000 to be compliant, the addition of California and the clear momentum of pay equity warrants a rethink altogether. 

The shift toward pay transparency requires HR to think more broadly about compensation, equity, and how we define total rewards. The impact on our job descriptions should go deeper than a numerical range. We have to provide more context and depth about the range of benefits we provide. Career development, learning, PTO, culture, and recognition should be reflected on some level to paint a broader picture of what our applicants can expect beyond the salary range. 

3. Leaning into our DEI efforts

The long history in the fight for social justice and equity has been marked by progress and the seemingly inevitable backlash that follows as those in power cling to uphold the status quo.

The past several years have seen modest progress in HR. We’ve also seen some of the progress unwind as many diversity initiatives and teams were cut in recent layoffs, particularly in tech. 

In 2023, it’s essential we don’t let the economic uncertainty stall our efforts toward building a more equitable world of work.

4. Cross-pollination driving innovation

As the white-hot HR job market in tech became a cascading wave of layoff announcements, many of those who made their careers in tech began contemplating new industries. This migration of talent may serve as an accelerant on HR’s evolution as the “move fast” progressive practices often synonymous with Silicon Valley find their way into more traditional industries. 

We’ve seen this before in the years before the pandemic, as the once insular field of HR became a destination for data scientists, marketers, designers, and business leaders. The influx of new experiences and mindsets expanded our capability and impact. Will this migration of talent have a similar effect?

5. The skills to pay the bills

We’re in the early days of a fundamental shift in how we think about hiring and developing talent. A migration from role-based hiring to skills-based. It’s been a long time coming. 

Fundamentally, hiring hasn’t changed for over 20 years. Poorly written job descriptions are posted. Resumes are submitted. Human recruiters review those timelines of experiences and filter them for their view on fit. Hiring managers, often desperate for “fully baked” candidates who’ve already seen and done all the things they see and do in that role, then interview and make selections. 

We can do better. The shift toward skills-based hiring will only accelerate in the new year. The benefits are clear: deeper talent pools, better representation and reach, growth opportunities, internal mobility, and hiring velocity. 

6. “Hardcore” is not a sustainable talent strategy

As we navigated the Great Resignation, companies began thinking differently about how they attract and retain talent. The past several years have seen a shift in how companies think about supporting the needs of employees, from mental health benefits to remote and hybrid work to more flexibility on when/where/how work gets done. 

With the tightening economic conditions, Twitter 2.0 led the charge with “hardcore” ultimatums, public employee callouts, and a #SleepWhereYouWork ethos that hark back to the not-so-olden days of hustle and grind culture. While some in venture capital were quick to hail this as “a new playbook being written in real time,” the reality is more of a nostalgia for a world of work that no longer exists. 

Sure, there will be a subset of employees who dream of cutting their teeth on 60-to-70-hour workweeks for the privilege of association, but those who think that well is deep are in for a hardcore reality check. 

7. AI, now

“Write a job description for a product manager in the style of a sea shanty.”

“Design an interview process that focuses on values alignment.”

“Create a performance management system that identifies top performers.”

Spend 10 minutes with ChatGPT, an AI chat client built on OpenAI, and you’ll understand the hype. The queries above yield answers and ideas that go far beyond scrolling Google results. Is it perfect? No. However, it gets smarter with each query and will soon be a free assistant in HR’s toolbox. 

The key for HR is understanding the ideal use cases. Should you use this to write your compliance policy? Absolutely not. Should you use it to research and inform your compliance policy? Maybe. Should you use it as a tool to support rewriting your job descriptions so they aren’t as lousy? Absolutely. 

How about that? Developing AI queries will become a valuable HR skill in 2023. Now that’s pretty hardcore.

This post was originally published on Fast Company. 

Lars Schmidt is the founder of Amplify, a firm that helps companies and HR leaders navigate the new world of work through HR executive search and the Amplify Academy leadership development program.

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