As 2016 completes its halfway stage, it is time to take stock of the trends and patterns of many industries. For the field of human resources, the year has been along expected lines. The trends that were forecasted in the previous years seem to be getting more or less fulfilled, if one were to go by what has happened in the first half of the year.
According to some assessments, these were some of the trends observed in the field of HR that seem to be playing out during the year:
Time to welcome Millennials into the workforce: With the Baby Boomers generation nearing or having already reached the end of their work life; the American workplace will likely have to prepare itself for welcoming the Millennials. This new workforce will be young and is different from the Baby Boomers generation in a number of ways. The most important of these is the familiarity, nay, dependence on technology that this generation’s workforce brings. Most of them were born at a time when the US was going through what are perhaps the most dramatic changes into technology since the mechanical changes heralded by the Industrial Revolution over two centuries ago. The start of the digital age seems to almost neatly coincide with the birth of the Millennials. This is a generation that is more accustomed to the visual than to the textual medium, if their love of and attraction towards mobile games is any indication. Any organization’s HR has to adapt itself to seeing the corporate world through the eyes of this generation, which is seen as brash and generally has a devil-may-care attitude with very short attention spans towards almost any topic, whether at work or at home.
Employee engagement is a high priority for HR: Employee engagement is a major factor for most organizations. Today’s employees are smart and demanding. While they are held to high standards and expectations, they expect a lot from the employer, too. Employee engagement is the undisputed number one factor for employers to retain employees. It is clearly shown in many real life examples as well as in studies that the employee who is shown to be wanted is more likely to be more involved, creative and productive than the employee who is being simply well paid.
Pay is an important factor no doubt, but there are other stimuli that educated employees look to. Employee engagement, where employees are consulted for a number of decisions by management, is a great motivating factor for employees. They like to be part of an organization that grows. They want to take pride in their actions that could impact the organization in a number of ways. HR has to arm itself with the skills needed for fostering employee engagement, the simplest and most effective tool towards employee retention and performance.
Big data makes inroads into HR: Big data is big, and it is everywhere. HR is one of those disciplines that have been impacted by big data in a big manner. Big data help managers take crucial decisions with its analytics and data-driven acumen into the business. These could be used for analyzing a number of parameters that are important to HR, such as work performance, goal setting, recruitment, pay and other factors. All these factors have been at play all these years, but what big data does is to provide the tools that help HR focus better on these areas. The result is an improvement in the exercise of HR-related techniques, all of which lead to better performance overall from the organization.
Rules governing working hours are likely to change: The increase in the minimum salary level for a number of skilled employees is likely to have a major effect on recruitment. One of the major factors behind recruitment is the industry pay standard. HR is likely to introduce more tasks for employees that are going to be paid more. The suggested changes in the minimum wage structure are also likely to have a repercussion on employee productivity, with employers possibly expecting more from the employees. At the same time, there is going to be a major change in tax collections, as many employees –at least a few million –are likely to move beyond the exempt category as their pay goes up.
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