25 HR Trends for 2020

By Tanu Prabhakar

Looking towards the ever-changing future of work, we find that goal-oriented and people-focused approaches are the two key attributes that remain at the core of every successful organization. Over the course of the last decade, human resources have evolved alongside the integral functions and day-to-day challenges of the organizational management.

As we enter the new decade, HR stalwarts must focus their attention on the human element of human resources and people management in order to continue providing engaging and exceptional work experiences for their people. The following shall be the key HR trends that will dominate and transform the workforce and the workplace in 2020.

 

01. Data Analytics

Big data analytics has made remarkable strides in today’s world, be it IT, manufacturing or healthcare. Its wide-reaching potential is applicable to any sector of an organization. Data-driven analytics allow employers to discover valuable insights on individual employee performances and satisfaction and factors affecting their productivity and motivation.

02. Artificial Intelligence

A considerable part of the hiring process in corporate powerhouses has become automated. Other organizations are following suit. Search engines, candidate database systems and automated emails have considerably and successfully predicated the job search to a keyword match.

Chatbots are already being used in technical support, customer services and other areas. By 2020 there will be a greater reliance on chatbots in HR.   

03. Personal Accountability and Self-dependency

New employees will be expected to handle the workplace environment. Managers simply won’t have the time to micro-analyse their subordinates’ roles. Also, new joiners shall be expected to show personal initiative and drive the projects forward, and not waste the intellectual capital of their top organizational resources. Employees who make their mark and leave footprints behind in the 2020 economy shall exhibit a do-it-yourself attitude. As the revisionists theorize about the work done in 2020, on-demand contract-based specialists will emulate the conventional 9-to-5 work scenario.

04. Streamlining and easing the recruitment process

Streamlining the recruitment process is an indispensability in order to land the best talents for your organizational teams. In 2020, HR gurus will implement improved HR solutions to simplify and quicken their processes to reduce recruitment timelines.

05. Cultivating authentic workplace cultures

Unhealthy workplace environment and employee harassment have been unavoidable aspects of many organizations, owing to various reasons. In 2020, organizations will focus on fostering and maintaining healthy employee experiences through enforced policies on workplace conduct.

06. Upskilling

As the workplace methodologies continue to evolve with new innovations, the workforce is made to feel the pressure the rapid workplace changes bring about, and the expectations that follow thereafter. Organizations pave the way ahead and ensure that their people have the right amount of skills, included those required for future tasks. Thus, 2020 shall see huge investments made by organizations in upskilling their employees to enable them to become managers and leaders within their teams.

07. Work-life balance

People are often working more than what they should ethically, due to which their work-life balance gets distraught and discontinuous. As this balance is seen as a must towards which all organizations strive, this requires dedicated efforts and attention on part of the managers whose role is instrumental to maintain all related norms. Organizational managements will in 2020 work towards establishing healthy boundaries for their employees. This they will achieve by cementing stringent policies around work hours and thereafter conducting frequent feedback sit-ins with the management.

08. Flexible workplaces

It has been established that by allowing people to tailor and customize their work environments to best suit their work needs helps them to improve work efficiency and overall productivity. Hence, flexibility at work has long been a central idea in all large organizations. In 2020, the modern offices shall be evolving beyond mainstream work environments to incorporate flexible functionalities like work-from-home days and recruiting remote workers.

09. Millennial Managers

Millennials have been around since 2010s, taking over the management reigns from their older peers. This is hands-down one of the most profound generational shifts occurring in the workplace. Our older peers were much apprehensive about the challenges and idiosyncrasies this digital-savvy, individualistic member brings to the workplace. However, in 2020, we will see companies embrace the opportunities Millennials, armed with ideals of diversity, equality, and advancement, will provide.

10. Holistic approach

There has been a compelling, though gradual, shift towards large-scale holistic measures to achieve long-term growth in organizations. These measures range from being increasing human-centric in workplaces to staying focused on value addition towards all stakeholders, combining data analytics with manager’s intuition, maintaining a balance between long-term and short-term etc.

11. Kindness

HR has always been a flagbearer for kindness. This is reflected in many workplace gestures like celebrating an employee’s birthday, a nice welcome package on the first workday, occasional picnic trips etc. Kindness leads the way to lasting success!

12. Rethinking process improvement

Its almost always that HR focus has been on process improvement. The redesigned process changes seem modern, at least superficially, but in reality they’re only minor. The focus is always on the organization and scarcely on the employees. That’s the reality. Also, the benefits of these changes are hard to see from the perspective of employees and managers. So its time for HR to rethink its process-based methodologies and bring all stakeholders into consideration for greater good.

13. Equal opportunities

Though the opportunity lag owing to gender and racial inequalities has been reduced considerably, the picture is still grey. In many nations around the globe, sizable disparity exists in the opportunities provided to men and women, and those between people coming from different ethno-cultural backgrounds. The differences are narrowing down, but very slowly. Its imperative that 2020 be an year of stringent, impactful, tough approaches towards achieving equality for all.

14. Strategic Planning

There is a considerable shift happening in HR departments worldwide wherein the CXOs leverage the HR expertise to deal with some of the most complex organizational matters ranging from revenue generation to modifying operations. 2020 will only see this trend grow.

15. Productivity

Productivity has been a dormant trend in HR since long, though not anymore. Conventionally, productivity issues were addressed by hiring additional staff, which generally caused performance issues. This can be emulated by increasing the productivity of the existing employees, instead of hiring additional staff, and on improving the selection criteria.

16. Continuous learning

2020 shall be an year of continuous, inclusive, step-wise learning by employees on a daily or weekly basis. The subjects range from simple ones like making a calling experience better for a client to disciplinary things to succinct documentation practices.

17. Inclusive leadership

Even though the leadership expectations that employees have of senior management are often too high, employees need to become leaders themselves. Organizations will fare poorly if employees wait for instructions from their bosses every time. This calls for the highly desirable trait of inclusive leadership to be inculcated voluntarily amongst the workforce.

18. Corporate social responsibility

Organisations are generally focused inwardly. Business problems pertaining to the organization matter more than social issues in the country and elsewhere. By looking beyond, being altruistic and doing good on atleast one day per year, employees can harness a great deal of everlasting satisfaction. As there are enough issues to tackle, HR can channelise social activism in employees.

19. English

English continues to be the lingua franca in international business and all kinds of cooperation and trade agreements. In fact, it is now spoken natively in over 50 countries.

20. Permanent Flexibility

Permanent Flexibility is a term coined by Mercer in 2018. It refers to flexible work methodologies which comply with a modern digital lifestyle. Flexibility involves constant rethinking of work methodologies.

21. Gig economy

9-to-5 paradigm shall be replaced. A large majority of the workforce shall move away from full-time jobs to become free agents and independent contractors. These figures shall increase rapidly in the next few years.

22. Remote work shall become more remote

Increased globalization has paved the way for culmination of a diverse workforce, contracted on a per-project basis, oftentimes at a lower cost. Team mates working across geographically large regions spanning 7 or 8 times zones is no more unheard of.

23. Business upgradation

Tough times call for tough measures, and organizations which do not upgrade their business(es) at the right time become left behind. 2020 shall see not only large, established corporates but medium-sized companies struggling to get on recently established bandwagons to secure themselves.  

24. Continuous Performance Management

Performance Reviews used to be an annual occurrence to determine an employee’s annual raise. But not anymore. As roles have become more autonomous, one-on-one meetings between manager and employee speed up projects. Thus, most managers conduct meetings individually with their employees, give advice and help close the tasks at hand. 

25. Standardized on-the-job training

New employees in an organization used to spend the first  few days, sometimes even weeks, learning about their new company before actually performing tasks. Employees in 2020, irrespective of roles, will be expected to get hands-on as soon as possible, putting additional pressure on HR to get new hires onboarded asap.

 

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