In 1926, Ford Motor Company was one of the first organizations to implement the eight-hour workday. It was considered a huge innovation. Interestingly, this policy change was not made with the employees’ well-being in mind
. Henry Ford simply thought that you need more customers to drive sales. To have more customers, you need well-paid employees with the leisure to enjoy life.
Human resources (HR) and work in general have changed a lot since then. How will HR strategies continue to evolve in the post-pandemic world? Adapting to the changing times and needs entails reviewing present work culture, structure, and priorities. HR strategies now aim to do the following:
- Attract top talents
- “Upskill” their employees
- Use outcome-based performance management
- Enable data-driven resolutions and digital transformation initiatives
The 9-to-5 work model may soon be a relic of the past. The survival of companies with antiquated HR strategies is far from guaranteed. In this article, we elaborate on the points we’ve listed above. Let’s discover how HR strategies can capitalize on the “new normal” and embrace the future of work.
Redefining Culture
There will be a shift toward a people-centric workplace. HR will aim to redefine the culture while accommodating flexible work arrangements.
Jim Smitherman, a strategic leadership and management consultant, proclaims, “Too often HR is relegated to payroll and benefits. HR should be empowered with the tools and mission to screen, train, and develop employees and their leaders so that everyone can reach their full potential.”
Putting Employees’ Needs Front and Center
COVID-19 forced most workers to shift where they work. In fact, 70% of American workers are working remotely to protect themselves and others from the virus.
Gallup research shows that the figure is decreasing, with 58% doing remote work in the late summer. However, the trend is here to stay. Now, 26% of workers say they prefer to continue working remotely even after the pandemic.
This shift in the workforce requires careful consideration from business leaders. They must now manage a disrupted workforce and redefine the workplace culture. For example, they could look into hybrid work. This combines remote and office working.
Three key actions taken by employers were strongly associated with employee engagement during the pandemic include:
- Good communication
- Prioritizing well-being
- Creating a climate of trust
HR can achieve this through regular check-ins, more avenues for social engagement, and appropriate emotional support. These methods allow a remote workforce to function better and still maintain employee relationships.
It’s also recommended to establish open communication channels throughout the organization. This way, everyone can remain updated on employee concerns. A successful internal communication system is also vital to achieve transparency. This is a critical element in engaging employees, leading to:
- Enhanced job performance
- Greater staff loyalty
- Improved well-being
The importance of company culture for employee well-being cannot be overstated. Prioritizing employee well-being leads to better creativity, productivity, resilience, and decision-making. In turn, these lead to better business outcomes.
Likewise, reinforcing diversity, equality, and inclusion policies and programs can help create an optimistic culture that promotes trust, empathy, unity, and participation. As remote work becomes more widespread, it is necessary to adopt a people-first approach.
Do you want to maximize your company’s potential? Check out our article “Advancing Workplace Diversity: Putting Employees’ Needs First.”
Flexible and Quick Organizational Structures
The HR department must assist companies in adjusting their organizational structures and job positions. These adjustments are crucial to adapt to the new circumstances.
The focus should be on improving operational efficiency. Companies need a flexible structure that permits workers to be easily reassigned. This means developing companies that are scalable and capable of dealing with uncertainties.
Employees may end up in another department that has an immediate or projected need. Therefore, it is crucial that these employees have essential training. This prepares them for a smoother transition to their new positions.
This agile arrangement encourages employees to actively participate and add value to the company. It also enables good communication between management and staff. As a result, employees can:
- Stay connected with their workplace’s purpose and strategy
- Align themselves with organizational values
- Develop a greater sense of belonging
Besides promotions and reassignments, the shift in work arrangements also affects organizational structure. Flexible working schemes can be more difficult to implement than they appear. For instance, Yahoo! and HP Inc. ended their remote-working experiments. Both companies cited a need to become “one company” again.
The structure and norms we were once used to support work culture and performance. These norms include ways of working, standards of behavior and interaction, and shared trust that help create a common culture and generate social cohesion.
Neglecting them during a significant shift to virtual working arrangements can lead to an erosion of trust, cohesion, and shared culture over the long term. It can also create two organizational cultures, one dominated by in-person workers and managers who benefit from co-location and collaboration. Meanwhile, the virtual workforce suffers.
Remote workers can also feel isolated and unhappy, resulting in an unintentional breakdown in organizational behavior. Deteriorating organizational performance can result from a loss of:
- Belonging
- Common purpose
- Shared identity
When reshaping your organization after the pandemic, be mindful of how your decisions will impact the norms and culture within the company. Strengthen the connections between your people. Evaluate key traits of your leadership style and that of other managers. Likewise, take advantage of a hybrid virtual model if it fits your company. It can even give birth to a new shared culture for all your employees.
HR is crucial for social cohesion, identity, and belonging. HR strategies centered on culture matter, whether your employees are working remotely, in-office, or a combination of both.
Prioritizing Health and Safety
Workplace health and safety is important — that’s a given. Nonetheless, it’s still so easy to sacrifice in favor convenience or cost-cutting. Sometimes, there’s so much to do at work that health and safety come last.
Studies have shown a strong link between employee well-being and productivity, innovation, and commitment to their organization. Moreover, prioritizing employee well-being can also help companies reduce potentially costly disruptions like:
- Absenteeism
- Presenteeism
- Turnover
The COVID-19 pandemic has further emphasized its importance. It introduced many new stressors for employees, thus disrupting their work and personal lives. Therefore, HR must prioritize employee well-being to attract and retain top talent in a post-pandemic world.
HR strategies must support employees’ physical, mental, and emotional health. Aside from flexible working arrangements, they can also provide mental health support in the form of:
- Employee assistance programs
- Counseling services
Wellness programs that encourage healthy habits, such as exercise and healthy eating, are very much welcome. Likewise, training and development opportunities can make employees feel valued and supported in their career growth.
Policies that allow employees to take work breaks are also helpful. They may choose to walk around and have a quick exercise. This is incredibly beneficial for office workers who spend most of their day sitting.
For those who work in a physical office, the HR department may provide access to cool water and good ventilation. These simple steps can help employees who work in hot environments.
Adequate rest is crucial for employees’ wellness. Providing a reasonable holiday policy can help employees get the rest they need. This helps them be more alert, less prone to mistakes and accidents, and healthier and safer at work.
Even with these in place, some may still feel overworked and underappreciated. This can take a toll on employees’ mental health and lead to frustration and exhaustion.
Remember to promote open and honest communication between managers and employees. Take complaints about problematic managers seriously. Reactive and explosive managers can create a hostile work environment that negatively impacts employees’ mental health.
Ultimately, health and safety go beyond just following rules and regulations. They should be integral to a company’s culture.
Chief Human Resources Officer Sally Massey gives a call for action.
With the importance of taking care of our mental health front and center, we have an opportunity. As individuals—parents, teachers, friends, community members—we can take action to help those around us. Health and well-being—historically the domain of a company’s human resources department—is now a business imperative. We need to act now to take care of our people, making sure everyone has access to mental health resources, no one feels any stigma and we all have the flexibility, compassion and support needed to be healthy.
Are you ready to redefine your organizational culture? Read “Prioritizing Employee Safety and Mental Health in the Post-Pandemic Workplace“ and see if you can commit to it.
Enabling Growth
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on businesses. Companies had to juggle the safety of their workforce on top of keeping the business alive. The challenges from the pandemic resulted in:
- Weakened balance sheets
- Surging costs
- Reduced revenue
To cut costs, many organizations have had to defer or reduce employee compensation and benefits. However, in the long term, the pandemic has opened discussions about rethinking employee rewards and benefits. After all, they help attract and retain top talent for a successful post-COVID recovery.
Some organizations may choose to increase variable pay linked to employee performance and productivity. Some may offer flexible compensation and benefits packages. Others may consider personalized compensation structures that allow employees to design their own packages.
Let’s take a look at other factors that drive employee growth.
Fostering a Collaborative Work Environment
Collaboration is an essential aspect of modern business. In the post-pandemic future, HR professionals will need to focus on fostering a collaborative work environment to promote innovation and productivity. This can include creating cross-functional teams and providing team-building opportunities.
HR managers may also encourage knowledge-sharing and learning from one another, through:
- Catch-up meetings or check-ins
- Brainstorming sessions
- Workshops and webinars
The goal is to bring employees together from different areas of the company. By creating a culture of collaboration, HR can promote teamwork and improve organizational performance.
Are you curious whether HR can boost employee performance and satisfaction further? Check out “Workplace Flexibility and Job Satisfaction (Determining Job Satisfaction with a Flexible Employer).”
Connecting Job Performance with Output and Efficacy
HR must ensure that job performance is directly connected to output and efficacy. This is vital for driving organizational success. This entails:
- Setting clear goals and expectations
- Providing regular feedback and performance assessments
- Rewarding employees for their inputs
One strategy is to implement a performance-based compensation system. This can be in the form of bonuses, profit sharing, and other incentives that reward employees for meeting or exceeding performance targets.
It’s vital to note that employers should consider the learning curve employees may have experienced prior to an assessment. Moreover, HR may focus on succession planning efforts by identifying critical roles, establishing emergency plans, and ensuring the right people are in place for a smooth transition. Effective communication is key to ensure employee readiness for these changes.
By aligning compensation with performance, HR can create a culture of accountability and motivation that drives organizational success.
In contrast, Karen Campbell, a technology risk and cybersecurity strategist, suggests:
Performance management is not an efficacious way to manage employee performance. Rather, organizations should prioritize the creation of a supportive and collaborative work environment that fosters employee growth and development. This can be achieved through regular communication, feedback, and coaching, as well as offering employees opportunities for training and development.
By abandoning performance management, organizations can save both time and resources that can be allocated to more impactful initiatives. This could include investing in employee training and development programs, designing a more adaptable work environment that caters to the needs of employees, and creating a culture of open communication and meaningful dialogue.
The decision of which strategies to apply ultimately lies in the needs of your company.
Developing Capabilities for Upcoming Challenges
A collaborative effort between individuals and organizations is necessary to for professional development. This sets the stage for successful career trajectories.
Companies can empower employees by helping them learn new things and improve what they already know. Through this, workers get better skills (upskilling and reskilling).
The pandemic showed that investing in skills enhancement is now more crucial than ever before. Companies should take a proactive stance in promoting the upskilling and reskilling of their human capital. In this way, they can mitigate the impact of an unprecedented disruption like COVID-19.
Fortunately, HR professionals are uniquely positioned to lead this initiative. They can promote and implement relevant training and development programs. Hopefully, these are enough to empower employees to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of work.
Strategy consultant Joan Sanz says, “One thing is clear, automation, upskilling, and reskilling are here to stay. Reskilling and upskilling are two ‘new business techniques’ to promote talent management.”
Facilitating Changes
Throughout the past decade, we have witnessed a remarkable surge in the usage of data-driven decision-making. We’ve seen it across an array of industries and business sectors. The field of HR is no exception.
The urgency to take action is paramount, especially amid changes. The longer HR hesitates, the more time it will take for companies to adapt and thrive after the pandemic.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
HR can use data and analytics to capture insights that drive leadership and business decisions.
Using data science and certain applications, companies can automate the screening process for job applications. Likewise, big data and analytics can help identify top talent. These tools also make it possible to forecast workforce capabilities and requirements.
Data on employee performance and engagement can be collected for analysis. Insights gleaned from this allow HR teams to make informed decisions on revenue, talent acquisition, and development. In turn, these decisions support the workforce during and after the pandemic.
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to use technology for workplace improvements, our article may help you. We have written “The Changing Landscape of Work: How Technology Affects the Workplace.”
Better Talent Acquisition and Hiring Processes
The HR industry has been undergoing a significant transformation. It’s essential to continue adapting to changes beyond the pandemic. One critical area of focus is the need for digital transformation within HR, which can improve process efficiency and effectiveness in the following areas:
- Recruitment
- Internal communications
- Performance management
- People development
By embracing innovations, HR teams can stay competitive in a candidate-driven job market.
To achieve these changes, HR leaders must evaluate their current processes. This is vital to identify areas that require a digital makeover. Additionally, they should engage with employees of all levels to better understand their priorities and concerns.
There are several ways HR can embrace digital transformation, including:
- The adoption of video interviewing platforms to streamline hiring processes
- Performance management tools to facilitate feedback
- Employee self-service software to provide a one-stop-shop for employees to access company benefits and manage their details online
According to HR and Talent Leader Eric Wenzel, “Many talent acquisition teams are looking for silver bullets to solve their recruiting headaches. Solutions exist, but require thoughtful design, intelligent planning, and effective implementation. Improvements require identifying the right skills and competencies for each job, then using technology to help identify the people with those skills and competencies.”
HR leaders can leverage technology to make a meaningful impact on the business’s bottom line.
Digital Advancements Today, Not in the Future
Capitalizing on technology is no longer just a trend; it’s a necessity. As businesses adapt to a rapidly changing landscape, HR departments must keep up by embracing technology to improve the following:
- Processes
- Communication
- Employee engagement
The Timken Company is a great example of a company that has successfully implemented a cloud-based HR solution. It supports various processes, including recruitment, payroll, and succession planning.
By moving their HR operations to the cloud, Timken Company has reduced the time it takes to pull operational reports. Thus, business leaders had an improved access to business intelligence. Acting on insightful data allowed them to enhance employee engagement and satisfaction.
Businesses are still aiming to cut costs as they try to recover from the pandemic. The pressure is mounting for HR departments to provide more value while using fewer resources. In the UAE and Middle East, a substantial percentage of CFOs are seeking to hasten the implementation of automated processes. They want to introduce innovative working methods as they shift back to traditional work settings.
To accomplish this, HR is being urged to play a more critical part in firms. They need to eliminate unneeded operational and regulatory responsibilities through automation.
Finally, the emergence of new technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality has created many opportunities for HR. These advancements can improve various aspects of HR functions, such as:
- Hiring
- Welcoming new employees
- Training
- Employee management
- Time and performance tracking
Technology speeds up the work HR has to do. Some jobs still require human touch to be completed successfully. But delegating the mundane to efficient technologies should propel HR and its strategies to success.
Make sure the digital transformation is not a further cause of unnecessary stress for your employees. Read “What is Productivity Paranoia in a Hybrid Work Environment“ to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How has the role of HR changed in the post-pandemic world?
COVID-19 highlighted the need for HR to prioritize employee well-being. Putting the ‘human’ back in human resources led to happier, healthier, and more productive workers. This renewed focus calls for developing new skills and processes to promote an engaging workplace.
- What are the most affected aspects of work life in the post-pandemic era?
In a remote work scenario, commuting has become less of an issue. Boundaries between work and personal life have become blurred. Not being able to see colleagues in the flesh has changed the way workers communicate. Some people feel isolated while others are thriving.
FAQ’s Covered in this Article
Q: What is the main focus of the article on the future of work and evolving HR strategies in the post-pandemic world?
A: The article focuses on how the future of work will be shaped by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent changes in HR strategies to adapt to new workplace realities and expectations.
Q: What are some key factors shaping the future of work in the post-pandemic world?
A: The article discusses factors such as remote and hybrid work arrangements, employee wellbeing, the use of technology and automation, the importance of diversity and inclusion, and the need for continuous learning and skill development.
Q: How are remote and hybrid work arrangements expected to evolve in the future of work?
A: Remote and hybrid work arrangements are expected to become more prevalent as companies recognize their benefits, including cost savings, increased productivity, and greater flexibility for employees. Organizations will need to develop strategies to manage these arrangements effectively and ensure a positive employee experience.
Q: Why is employee wellbeing a crucial aspect of the future of work?
A: Employee wellbeing is essential in the future of work because it directly affects employee engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction. Companies will increasingly focus on mental health, work-life balance, and creating supportive work environments to prioritize employee wellbeing.
Q: How is technology expected to shape the future of work and HR strategies?
A: Technology will continue to play a crucial role in the future of work by streamlining HR processes, enabling remote work and collaboration, providing data-driven insights for decision-making, and automating repetitive tasks, thereby allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives.
Q: Why is diversity and inclusion important in the future of work?
A: Diversity and inclusion are essential in the future of work because they foster innovation, enhance problem-solving capabilities, and promote a more inclusive and supportive work environment. Companies will need to implement policies and practices that ensure diversity and inclusion are a priority.
Q: How can organizations promote continuous learning and skill development in the post-pandemic world?
A: Organizations can promote continuous learning and skill development by providing access to online learning platforms, offering personalized development plans, encouraging knowledge sharing, and creating opportunities for employees to develop new skills through job rotations, mentoring, and cross-functional projects.
Q: What role will HR professionals play in shaping the future of work?
A: HR professionals will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of work by developing and implementing strategic HR practices that address evolving workplace realities, such as remote and hybrid work, employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and continuous learning and skill development.
Q: How can HR professionals stay updated on trends and best practices related to the future of work?
A: HR professionals can stay updated on trends and best practices by attending webinars, conferences, and workshops, participating in industry-related forums and networks, subscribing to HR-related publications, and staying informed about technological advancements in the field.
Q: What are the potential benefits of adapting HR strategies to the future of work?
A: Adapting HR strategies to the future of work can lead to increased employee engagement and satisfaction, enhanced productivity, a more diverse and inclusive workforce, and better overall business performance and resilience.
