Oceanic Pharmachem Private Limited (OPPL) believes that being abreast of the latest trends in HR helps shape and optimize a fruitful work culture.
Reach, conversion, and loyalty - which are essentially marketing terms – are now being applied to internal customers, the employees. HR professionals don’t have to choose between focusing their time on building individual relationships with each employee versus finishing up paperwork. People & processes are fast coming together and technology lets candidates & employees take control of their own journey.
The current strategies and trends which are helping leverage HR goals across the industry are:
Continuous feedback for more personal growth
Feedback reviews are changing as more employees report being uninterested in performance reviews.
Employees can receive feedback twice a week, with more corrective reviews, which is far more desirable and constructive than any form. It is important that they know what specifically went right and what could be improved for next time. Professionals want career advancement, with proper direction.
Bringing learning online and across the organization
Continuous learning is going to a hot trend as HR leaders increasingly recognize the need to overhaul learning and development opportunities for their employees. Digital training through learning management software (LMS) is an attractive option because it gives HR teams the ability to measure employee productivity through data. It also makes for a more collaborative experience since various departments across the organization supply learning content.
Unique benefits to stand out in the job market
Employers are steadily offering unique benefits to attract new talent. Insurance, Medical Assistance, Loans, Child Education are some of the benefits that are included. Once considered as extravagant expense, this is slowly being standardized.
Focusing on wellness beyond the office
HR departments are recognizing the value of work-life balance. Specifically, many companies are putting policies in place that limit checking email while out of the office and working while on paid time-off (PTO). They are trying to be proactive about encouraging people to use more PTO and to actually stay offline during the period.
Alleviating work stress
HR departments are also looking at ways to mitigate stress in the office. Personal and financial stresses have always crept into the workplace, hence companies are now taking the initiative to help employees manage them. Salaries can’t just keep on increasing, and health benefits costs are hurting those budgets, so more and more companies are working financial and mental health into their regular wellness programs.
Teaming up with automation
Companies are now using automation software to manage resumes and other HR documents. Talent acquisition is already a primary user of process automation, due to a large volume of resumes and other paperwork from past applicants, and the time-consuming task of managing the same. HR documents have to be organized by candidate, saved with appropriate security and consistent naming conventions so that they can be easily retrieved in the future.
Turning hiring into a science
New technologies such as data science and collection techniques are being used to transform the traditional interview process, which not only make it more candidate friendly, but more predictive as well. Organizations are also using gamification and video interviews. Questions specifically designed to elicit responses predictive of job success & right behaviours, are created. The candidate video responses are collected, analyzed, and scored against an ideal response model - providing a validated prediction of job success.
More flexible working arrangements
To accommodate employees with longer commutes, many companies are now adopting ‘Work from Home’ weekdays. Employees have the option to work from home or their preferred location of choice to create more flexible working environments, which research shows helps to increase employee morale, engagement, and commitment to the organization. The trend has seen strong adoption and improved performance efficiencies, along with appreciation for companies. It also helps to break up the work week, and enables employees to more easily tend to personal needs & appointments outside of the office.
The student is the new teacher
Many remote locations are being staffed with college students or freshers, which not only gives them money and experience, but also a rapid exposure to the industry. Since the younger generation is on the front lines of eCommerce and tech trends, the importance of having students employed in today’s IT-enabled companies is profound and there can no better business window to the world.
Making optimum use of technology
Today, technology has made the HR focus more granular, helping track the way candidates are discovering the company, their view of the brand, their level of interest in joining and the reason for their staying back. Through automation, predictive technology, new platforms and AI technologies, the HR department can see the entire employee experience from end-to-end and can build a more streamlined employee journey that keeps teams happy, growing, and as efficient as possible.