Human resources (HR) departments are given more responsibility each year, often with budgets that don’t match these changes. As a result, HR teams must constantly innovate and stay on top of trends to remain competitive in today’s labor market.
This article highlights five HR trends for employers to follow in 2022.
1. Hybrid Workplace Sustainability
At this point in the pandemic, it appears the hybrid workplace is here to stay for many employers. According to a Gartner survey, 90% of HR leaders expect that at least some of their employees will work remotely after the pandemic. As such, many employers are shifting their perspective of hybrid work from a novelty to the new standard in 2022. This means adapting and tailoring policies and processes to support hybrid work and equally accommodating all employees. For example, employee communications could be available on a digital destination that everyone can access, or video meetings could become the new standard regardless of location.
2020 and 2021 focused on companies’ agility and adaptability to remote and hybrid workplaces. Now, organizations are shifting their focus toward creating a sustainable work model that meets the needs of both their business and employees in 2022 and beyond.
2. Attraction and Retention Amid Labor Shortages
Employee attraction and retention have become major obstacles for most employers and will likely continue through 2022. In fact, 67% of employers today consider attraction and retention somewhat of a challenge, according to Zywave’s 2021 Human Resources Benchmarking Overview. And that isn’t going to simply disappear.
Employers face several unique employment challenges in the current employment market, including the following:
- Workers fear contracting a severe case of COVID-19 on the job.
- Workers have built up comfortable savings to hold out for a desirable job.
- Workers reprioritized their job desires, such as scheduling flexibility, telework options, access to employee benefits, greater compensation and job fulfillment.
- Workers face continued caregiving duties, which require them to remain at home.
Industry research predicts that as the pandemic progresses, many employees will voluntarily leave their jobs for better compensation, benefits and workplace environment factors—such as work-life balance and remote or hybrid arrangements.
The Zywave survey revealed that employers are already planning to meet these employee needs and hold on to talent as the pandemic evolves. Employers are exploring the following strategies:
- 62%—Evaluating compensation
- 45%—Offering greater workplace flexibility
- 40%—Offering more upskilling and development opportunities
- 38%—Expanding benefits offerings
Many employers have leveraged these strategies to meet the current needs of employees. If organizations haven’t already started exploring strategies to do so, they will likely have to play catch-up quickly in 2022.
3. Increased Investment in HR Technology
Many employers are leveraging HR technology to automate their processes and create efficiencies. Technology doesn’t remove the human aspect from HR but rather enhances it. When HR departments use technology to create efficiencies, they can shift their focus from administrative tasks to the actual employees. Here are some of the latest trending HR technologies for 2022:
- Cloud-based workplace management
- Employee benefits administration
- Employee self-service portals
- HR automation
- Learning and development
- Onboarding and offboarding
- Virtual recruitment
Especially in today’s competitive market for top talent, employers could benefit from using technology to make the recruiting and hiring processes more efficient. Recruiters can use automation software and artificial intelligence to source, screen and schedule candidates. Additionally, chatbots are a popular tool to help employers better qualify candidates before any human interaction—and that trend will likely continue this year.