Human Resources is a field where rampant development is taking place, especially with the advances brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). However, with these advancements and the inclusion of technology, future HR challenges have started presenting themselves in front of the human resources teams.
Additionally, the role of HR has transformed from an enabler of company policies to an active partner in the development of business strategies. Through the deployment of these strategies, they are required to manage even the remote and hybrid work-force effectively. With these added responsibilities, the human resources team has become instrumental in ensuring organizational success.
With the increased importance of the HR department, it is imperative to understand the various future HR leaders’ challenges that could impair their performance. Here are some of the major future HR challenges:
1. Attracting the Best Talent
A major future HR departments’ challenge will be attracting the right candidates as talented employees often have multiple offers and various factors come into play when choosing the right organization. The talent shortage is currently a major concern for HR teams all over India. Hence, companies throughout the country are trying to find innovative ways to stand apart from the competition.
To tackle this issue, HRs need to start investing in developing a culture of better work and improving their employer branding for all employees. Modern employees, especially the younger generation of workers, are stressing more on additional perks (rather than compensation) and employee well-being initiatives, while evaluating their options.
As a result, HRs should invest in enhancing their work culture with employee well-being initiatives and more. Similarly, deploying an advanced recruitment management software will help the candidates have a better overall experience leading to better hiring rates and reduced hiring time.
2. Retaining Talented Employees
Similarly, retaining talented staff will also be one of the major future HR challenges as other companies will try to poach talented staff from their organization. To ensure employee loyalty and retention, the HR team should understand the factors that enable them to stay with their company. While having a good work environment and an engaging work culture is ideal, they should also invest their time and effort in developing effective employee retention strategies.
Employee retention strategies can range from providing better compensation to creating a positive work environment to developing growth opportunities. Hence, it is essential to have a multi-approach strategy in place, as different employees can find different aspects of your strategy appealing.
The HR managers should also take regular feedback from their employees to understand their challenges and resolve their issues to help them realize their value for their organization. Future HR software would also provide the HR managers with custom options to personalize the retention strategy for each employee, making the process simple and easy.
3. Developing Future Leadership
Planning for future leaders is an essential part of HR duties. However, with the increased involvement of HR personnel in strategic business development and the rising employee turnover rates, it has become increasingly challenging for HR managers to develop future leaders for their organization.
Hence, companies have started implementing ‘talent insourcing’ programs to nurture employees with the right potential, while also improving their talent retention programs to ensure that their employees are retained effectively. Recruiters are also utilizing effective talent-sourcing strategies to ensure that their hires have the required potential.
While it is already a challenge to plan for future leadership for the HRs, it will become more challenging in the future. HRs will have to ensure adequate employee retention along with robust employee development programs to counter the effects of attrition and employee turnover. Hence, utilizing modern technology will be an essential part of HR management in the future.
4. Cultivating Company Culture
Another one of the major future HR challenges would be cultivating company culture in the face of increasingly stressful jobs and the infusion of AI-based tools. While AI would be able to solve several problems with streamlined solutions, it will also lead to an increased load on the management to upskill the workforce for even better productivity.
With the changing power dynamics in the workplace due to the technologically advanced newer generation of employees and the legacy staff, it would become hard for the HR teams to resolve issues amicably, leading to a chaotic work environment. In a disorderly work environment, employee relations would be hampered too.
Hence, the HR teams need to cultivate a strong employer identity and a robust work culture. Having a well-established work environment with unwritten rules and regulations will go a long way in helping HR teams and employees to tackle the challenges of chaotic work environments.
5. Staying Transparent in Communications
As modern society stays connected 24/7 through the internet and social media, having transparent communication has become essential for all relationships. The same holds true for the employee-employer relationship too. However, transparent communication is rarely found in organizations. As a result, employees often feel left out of important decisions within the company and are not engaged completely with their company.
In the future, transparent communications will be a challenge due to the strategic approach of the HR department in employee management. However, since employees want transparent communication, the HR team needs to figure out ways to make their employees feel included in the workplace.
Developing a social circle and implementing HRMS software with social media features like group chat and public profiles will have a huge impact on organization communications and transparency. Combined with an ‘open leadership’ approach, this can be a game-changer for any organization.
6. Providing Growth Opportunities
Employees prefer staying in organizations where they are valued and appreciated for their work. While rewards and recognition do help in making them feel special, what truly establishes a company as the place to work are the various training and development opportunities provided by the organization. However, HR professionals often find it challenging to provide the right training and development opportunities to their staff due to several factors such as lack of management support or poor resource allocation.
With the integration of advanced technologies and targeted training approaches, HRs will have to use AI-based training tools to understand how their employees should be trained. They would also require AI to understand where their staff members are lacking and help their staff understand the same. With the help of a dedicated AI-based training management system, employees can also have a gamified training experience. It will make the training more engaging, resulting in enhanced knowledge retention and the development of a culture of continuous learning.
7. Improving Employee Experience
Job-hopping is a negative trend found among employees who are not satisfied with their companies. To counter its effects, the HR professionals are often required to strategize multiple programs, which require time and effort. Hence, it is necessary to improve the overall employee experience for the staff members.
The future human resource challenges in developing and maintaining employee experience arise from the increased flexibility of workplaces. Creating an effective employee experience for employees within a specific location is much easier than doing the same for a country-wide organization. Similarly, with the rise of remote work, HRs are required to handle a diverse workforce, which also includes individuals from different generations.
Hence, HRs should make use of all accessible technologies to ensure a great employee experience. For example, they can deploy HRMS with social media elements to help remote employees interact with each other. Similarly, they can have virtual parties along with on-site parties to ensure maximum participation.
8. Delivering Flexible Work Arrangements
On the same note, flexible work arrangements are the future of work, and hence, the HR teams should empower their staff to work in such environments. By transforming the work culture around the concept of ‘flexibility’, HRs can provide their staff with a better work experience.
The future human resource challenges in developing a culture of flexibility will arise from having to implement the tools and services required to ensure the smooth undertaking of company operations despite the differences in work timing and workplaces. They will have to manage the workforce effectively to ensure the required standard of efficiency and productivity.
Deploying the right software and tools that enable work collaboration and provide the means for interaction without hampering productivity is the solution to counter the effects of having a workforce spread across the country. Similarly, the HR teams should also help avoid unconscious bias towards remote employees by enforcing countermeasures.
9. Enhancing Employee Wellbeing
With the increasing significance of wellbeing among employees, companies have started spending time, money, and effort in developing and deploying wellbeing initiatives. However, most of these resources are being spent on improving the employee experience and wellbeing in a legacy work environment.
The recent changes in workforce dynamics such as the rise of remote work environments, as well as the increasing relevance of mental health have necessitated the implementation of robust employee wellbeing initiatives. These initiatives are vastly different from the traditional wellbeing methods, as they are required to tackle the unique challenges posed by a new kind of workforce.
Hence, HR teams should also concentrate on these challenges while also handling the traditional challenges in employee wellbeing management such as ensuring that everyone is aware of the mental and physical wellbeing programs within the organization. They may even have to draft new policies to ensure the wellbeing of all staff members, especially concerning their mental wellbeing.
10. Developing an Inclusive and Diverse Workforce
Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity, and Belonging, collectively referred to as DEIB are strong characteristics of a successful organization. Hence, HR teams are required to develop DEIB initiatives that enable the staff members to be comprised of diverse individuals who are included in the company with equitable opportunities and hence, feel a strong sense of belonging to their organization.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are especially relevant to India’s workforce as we have a highly diverse group of individuals in the workforce. The future human resource challenges associated with DEIB arise when creating an inclusive and warm working environment for everyone. Since the new workplace dynamic is extremely personal in nature, managers are required to utilize their Emotional Quotient (EQ) while dealing with their diverse team.
HR teams should develop and deploy DEIB awareness programs to the staff members to help them stay true to the DEIB initiatives in the organization. It should be accomplished by making DEIB a part of the work culture.
Conclusion
The future human resource challenges that we have discussed in this blog can be alleviated by implementing the right tools and empowering the HR teams to deploy effective strategies. However, true change can be brought about by transforming the organizational work culture to embrace the changes and make the work environment favourable for the employees.
While the use of HR software and related tools can improve the workforce dynamics within the company and help avoid most of these challenges, HR teams need to embrace change and transform their business practices to align with the change in workforce trends to stay relevant and become successful.
