HR trends may not be radically changing year after year, but they are becoming more intense and more critical to organization success. Every year the HR professional should consider what the current success driver for HR is in their industry. You never want to be the dinosaur asking, “does anyone else feel it’s getting colder here?” To avoid becoming obsolete in your profession you need to stay on top of what is happening in the external business world, and reflect on industry trends.
- Here is a 2017 survey that sums up some of the current HR trends:
- Less transaction, more strategy
- Less formal but more frequent feedback
- Less manual process, more data
Click here to read about the Paycor HR trends survey.
These are not radical trends, nor are they particularly disruptive, but they are important changes in HR. Each one should be reflected upon by the HR professional. All HR professionals should ask themselves the following big questions every year:
- Which transactional activity does HR do that is obsolete?
- What is the most important area of business strategy I should focus on this year?
- How can HR improve the employee performance management system this year?
- What HR data should we keep tracking? What data should we stop tracking? What data should we start tracking?
Doing this on a regular basis will keep you and your organization current, and will enable your organization to be proactive instead of reactive. This is what Jim Collins calls the flywheel effect in his book “Good to Great”.
Combine the flywheel concept with a reflective HR practice and there is business success in the forecast.
Discussion questions:
Read the Paycor HR trends and survey. Pick the HR trend you feel is the most important, explaining your decision. In addition, research a company that is a leader with respect to that trend.
Click on this link. Pick one of Jim Collins’ articles and create a 3-minute presentation summary of the topic.