Emerging Trends In The Landscape Of HR - 2022

In the ex-couple years have noticed a substantial change in how the HR sector functions. From becoming a sector at the forefront of corporations to adjusting to the latest technologies of the pre-Covid era, the HR landscape has been boosted by major advances.

It is safe to say that the new HR landscape can be labeled as a metamorphosis of HR as a whole. Experts suggest that these tremendous changes in the trend of HR would have taken another five to ten years if we hadn't been hit by the atrocities of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

However, we are lucky enough to witness some of the most innovative practices and policy changes of HR procedures, which in turn contribute to the excellence of the HR landscape.

While working out radical changes, it is incredibly profound to follow appropriate laws and compliance overheads as companies mainly focus on durability in the market and profit margins.

Pandemic and the 'Work From Home' culture have made some drastic changes in the working premises around the world. The majority of a given organisation's personnel face similar issues of working from home for the first time, which makes it challenging to operate full-running factories from the comfort of their homes.

Following is the list of recently emerging HR trends:

1. Employment Law And Statutory Compliance:

Ever since the pandemic, it has become highly imminent for employers to take responsibility for their employees' physical as well as mental health and safety, even though their employees might not be physically present in the office premises all the time.

It is crucial to ensure that physical comfort and security is always available for employees when they require it the most.

No specific law directly constitutes Work FromHome policy within its range. Although, 'Right to decent work' and 'Right to social protection' figure is given in the employer's Code of creating a safe job role for their employees. This 'code of social security' brings about social security for project workers, platform workers, unsystematic workers, and freelancers comprising consulting agents/advisors.

Ideal standing orders for the service sector have been updated, considering the effects of Work From Home policies. But they are mainly based on an agreement of terms of the employment between the employer and the employee.

The landscape of HR concerns in India is comprehensive. However, a deep understanding of the aforementioned areas would ensure a good start for the new-normal work environment across the globe.

2. Blended Work Model- Remote/Hybrid:

It is a proven fact that employers are getting progressively comfortable with the Work From Home policy mainly because several day-to-day expenses of a company including phones, internet services, restful seating arrangements, chairs and tables are borne by the employees themselves.

It is somehow evident that there might be a delay in setting up these facilities at homes that weren't previously equipped for becoming a home office.

There must be a common ground on this point and all such issues between the employer and the employee, so they remain on the same opinion for future working models.

Moreover, the pandemic has optimistically pushed companies to go digital worldwide. Many organisations have already implemented a hybrid working model. 

Experts estimate that 30-40% of a company's workforce can work remotely in the future. In addition to that, studies have proven that some organisations are also willing to expand that number to 50%.

3. Alteration In Leave Policies:

More and more employees are likely to demand paid sick leaves when contracted with the virus. Even though not medically labeled as a 'disability,' the after-effects of Covid 19 are excruciating for the family members and the company.

Employers should educate themselves with the paid sick leave provisions for the areas in which they execute business to update their policies accordingly and understand which laws apply when dealing with Covid-19 affiliated ill time.

Already existing leave policies of HR must be updated regularly with the new clauses to support their employees in the time of need. Procedures on such cases must be pre-planned before a matter introduces itself to HR operations. 

For example, employees must be granted paid leaves for 14 days if tested positive for Covid.

4. Shift From Permanent Staffing To Temporary Staffing:

Any vast recession such as the pandemic always induces companies to turn to Contracting Business or Staff Expansion, including offshoring. The offshoring trend was also witnessed during the financial downturn of 2008. 

There is an increased demand in several industries, including BFSI, IT, ITeS, Telecom, Infrastructure, Engineering, Pharmaceuticals, E-commerce and Logistics. 

HR executives are realising the benefit of hiring a contract workforce. Companies are departing their classic hiring techniques and are turning to HR solution providers to employ a contractual workforce. This gives them the flexibility to scale their crew as per specific project conditions without the compliance and cost risks of using a permanent workforce. 

Roles such as Product Management, Project Management, Brand Strategy, Go-to-Market, Financial Modelling, Talent Acquisition, UI/UX and more are delegated to external consultants and advisory firms, independent contractors and freelancers.

5. Harassment At Workplace And Professional Behaviour:

The POSH Law denotes the Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. It specifically shields Work From Home employees, temporary workers, daily wage labourers, trainees, and interns. 

The employer's responsibility is to ensure that all employees, whether they WFH, office or any other (documented) location, are conscious of social norms and ethics for phone calls and video meetings. A memento module, audio, video reporting the same is helpful to all workers.

6. Need For Upskilling:

In this age of digitalization, there is a growing need for manual workers (who specialize in a specific skill) for upskilling and reskilling because they won't be able to sustain themselves in the massively changing market trends. 

Workers are expected to stay up-to-date with new skills and stay in line with the trending technology, which withholds the power of changing their very own jobs. 

If they aspire to financial growth in their careers, workers will need to cultivate more social, emotional, and technological skills for progressive roles or functions in higher wage frames. 

Some manual workers may need to shift to new professions in e-commerce or other arising jobs, as demand for older vocations may subside over time.

7. Adopting The New-Age HR Tech ⟶ Priority:

Before the pandemic era, caused by Covid 19, some companies were already preferring using automated software for their most valuable functions of recruitment and onboarding processes.

But recent situations have successfully called for a more significant requirement for digitizing many HR processes like; payroll management, training & OD, etc. In fact, Covid has increased the adoption of HR technologies by 30 to 40% compared to the last 3 years' data. Some of the key HR software are as follows:

• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to automate the recruitment process, from demand management and sourcing to screening, interviews, selection, offer management and digital onboarding, and even vendor management, real-time analytics and reporting
• Integrating AI & ML into the ATS to help the system to learn from the recruiters' shortlisting pattern for each requirement and suggest candidate profiles from the internal database (and rate them for relevance) whenever a similar/exact condition is sourced for in future
• Chatbots with NLP for employee engagement & question resolution act as the immediate employee self-service platform and provide them with the prompt attention they seek.
• IVR-based interest screening of candidates for mass hiring
• Contact-free, mobile-enabled attendance management for in-office, remote or on-the-field workforce.

8. Added Focus on Employee Experience:

The Indian working population essentially comprises millennials and Gen Z-the young group of people. As a result, HR leaders have restored their focus on the employee experience.

Jobseekers have become highly conscious about choosing the proper vocation and find it challenging to retain their position in an organisation for too long. Hence, the employment market isn't like the way it used to be when people didn't think twice before taking a job, as long as it helped them put bread on their table.

It has become favorably viable for HR leaders worldwide to be considerate and infuse a powerful sense of belonging and trust into their employees from the very first day of their job.

Conclusion:

It is evident that the entire work culture has been transformed to what we now call the 'new-normal.' Remote work or 'Work From Home' culture have optimistically pushed the HR leaders across the globe to carefully plan the entire employee journey-from the screening of their CV to their daily HR operations.

This will help employees always be ready to face new challenges that a hybrid work model will bring. In the new normal, the HR unit is entrusted with ensuring proper facilitation and arrangement of teams meanwhile also preparing for some tough decisions. 

These tough decisions include the transformation of recruitment practices, rewards and recognition policies, learning endeavours and inner growth opportunities, employee productivity, employee engagement and performance management, exit procedures and everything in the middle.

Sources:

1. Corpelserve.com
2. Peoplematters.in
3. Indiaemployerforum.org
4. Businessnewsdaily.com
5. Blog.empuls.io
6. Zimyo.com