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10 HR Trends For The Next Normal Of Work
LEADERSHIP STRATEGY
10 HR Trends For The Next
Normal Of Work
Jeanne Meister Contributor
I write about Trends Shaping The Future of Work
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Jan 14, 2021, 04:54pm EST
Listen to article 19 minutes
SHUTTERSTOCK
The coronavirus has become one of the greatest accelerators for
workplace transformation of our lifetime. When I wrote The Impact
of the Coronavirus on HR and the New Normal of Work, I started to
see how the coronavirus pandemic was going to impact how we
work, learn, exercise, shop, and communicate. It’s clear now, the
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10 HR Trends For The Next Normal Of Work
pandemic has forced the type of workplace experimentation that
would have taken years if not decades to happen: working remotely,
re-thinking business travel and moving in-person training to
virtual.
As we head into the 2021 workplace, how we work, where we work,
and the technologies we use to stay connected to team members
and customers will change forever. The New Normal of Work has
become the Next Normal of working remotely, learning, working,
and collaborating online, and building resilience and inclusiveness
in the workplace.
Just as I have done in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020,
here is my countdown of what you should include on your
HR agenda for 2021.
#1. Make Employee Wellbeing a Top Business Mandate
Prior to the pandemic, the news headlines about what makes a
great employee experience were dominated by fads — think
treadmill desks, nap pods, and “bring your dog to work day” for
starters.
This has all changed in 2020. Seventy-eight percent of participants
in an American Psychological Association survey of 3,409 adults
said the pandemic was a significant source of stress. Workers are
feeling burned out, and cite multiple stressors, including the lack of
separation between work and home, unmanageable workloads, and
worries over job security.
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Marriott stands apart having started to focus on employee
wellbeing in 2010. This focus has now grown into TakeCare, a
global commitment to provide Marriott associates with the
opportunity to build skills, develop meaningful
relationships and make a positive and sustainable impact on
the world. TakeCare offers holistic wellbeing programs beyond just
physical wellbeing to include mental and emotional health, career
development, financial planning, teambuilding, recognition,
sustainability social impact, and access to meQuilibrium, a
resilience training platform that helps Marriott associates deal with
disruption and become more empathic.
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David Rodriquez, EVP and Chief Human Resource Officer of
Marriott, reminds us that “choosing an employer is a lifestyle
choice, just as where you live; your employer should add to the
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quality of your personal and professional life and employers need to
design well-being into the work itself.” That is what TakeCare does
says Rodriquez, “It uses technology to promote connectivity,
identify resources to develop heathy habits, and provide ways to
nurture mental health.”
#2. Use the Coronavirus Pandemic to Accelerate Your
Workplace Transformation
Future Workplace conducted a survey of 450 HR, IT Real Estate
Leaders plus 150 employees to understand The Organizational
Impact of the Coronavirus in the Workplace. This was an
update to our survey, The Impact of the Coronavirus in the
Workplace, featured in my Forbes column in March, 2020.
Three key findings emerged in how HR leaders were developing
strategies for returning to the office, responding to employee needs
and using the pandemic to accelerate workplace transformation.
FUTURE WORKPLACE
Marriot, as mentioned above, is clearly a leading outlier in its
response to nurturing and investing in employee wellbeing.
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FUTURE WORKPLACE
Ingredion SVP and CHRO Elizabeth Adefioye, says “I saw the
need early on to begin partnering with our key executives from the
technology, finance, communications, and real estate departments
to develop a phased, safe global approach to returning to the
workplace.” And this is much needed as SHRM research finds 34%
of organizations did not have an emergency cross functional
preparedness plan prior to Covid-19 pandemic.
FUTURE WORKPLACE
A growing number of Future Workplace member companies have
started to train and certify their entire global learning team in how
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to design and facilitate virtual training sessions. Virtual training
will increasingly be the top modality for all types of training that
was primarily conducted in a classroom from customer service to
negotiations.
#3. Invest in Mental Health as a Must Have Rather Than a
Nice-to-Have Benefit
In addition to Future Workplace’s research, Conference Board of
Canada research found that four out of ten respondents reported
more mental health problems in their organizations since the
coronavirus. (Even before the virus, Gallup reported two-thirds of
full-time workers experienced burnout on the job.)
Many large companies, such as Marriot, have a robust integrated
employee wellbeing platform like TakeCare. Mid-size organizations,
such as Uipath, are funding a range of apps employees can use to
enhance their wellbeing, including the mediation app, Headspace,
the physical fitness app, Aaptiv, and the physical therapy app,
Physera, used to treat and prevent pain. In fact, Uipath has
committed to invest up to 1% of all employee salaries in employee
wellbeing. I believe we will see more companies make a
public commitment to invest in employee wellbeing and
mental health and use this as an advantage in recruiting
and retaining talent.
In my HBR article, 21 HR Jobs of the Future, a new HR job role was
identified: Director of Wellbeing, responsible for strategic
management of employee wellness practices to nurture the
emotional, physical, mental, financial, social, and career wellbeing
of all employees. We are already seeing some companies hiring for
the Director of Wellbeing role, and expect to see more within the
next few years as the future of work will increasingly be focused on
the future of worker wellbeing.
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#4. Re-engineer and Transform Corporate Learning, The
Time is Now
The next normal of work will accelerate new ways to learn online.
Research and Markets has forecast the e-learning market to triple
by 2025 to reach $325 billion. And that was before the pandemic!
This estimate will only increase as companies see transforming
corporate learning as a requirement to operate in the next normal
of work. In an online survey of 300 learning leaders in US,
conducted by Future Workplace and Mursion, 72% report they will
use virtual reality simulations for training by 2022 to help
employees navigate challenging customer service experiences,
resolve peer conflicts, and develop soft skills. This is more than
double the 35% of respondents who are currently deploying VR for
training today.
As I noted in my article, How Companies are Using VR to Develop
Soft Skills, HPE Financial Services (HPEFS) is using virtual reality
for sales training where they are immersed in real life scenarios to
practice making a sales presentation to a customer avatar and then
receive feedback on areas for improvement. With remote working
taking hold, more companies will be looking for innovative ways to
deliver learnings solutions.
Another development in 2020 was the massive growth among
organizations integrating MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
into their learning curriculum. Lee Rubenstein VP of edX says,
“edX For Business saw huge growth in 2020 as companies
expedited their investment in providing training for pandemic
proof careers in IT and Healthcare to name just two. We are
working with companies to integrate the edX For Business catalog
into their LMS/LXP systems.”
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#5. Provide Internal Talent Mobility to Attract, Engage,
and Retain Employees
Artificial Intelligence is not only being used to source new hires, as
we profile in the Future Workplace online course Using AI4HR, but
also to match the supply and demand of talent internally. Schneider
Electric, with more than 135,000 employees across 100 countries,
reviewed exit interviews and found that nearly 50% of employees
who left the organization stated their reason was a lack of visibility
into their career growth, according to Tina Kao Mylon, Chief
Talent and Diversity Officer.
To address this business need, the team at Schneider Electric, led
by Mylon, created the Open Talent Market (OTM) - an internal
talent mobility platform powered by Gloat, matching employees to
new part time and full-time roles as well as stretch assignments and
mentoring engagements.
“The process of matching talent to opportunity took 3-4
weeks when a manager or HR was involved in this process, and now
it takes just 30-60 seconds after an employee creates a profile on
the OTM” says Mylon.
The OTM launch was accelerated due to the coronavirus and went
live globally in the spring of 2020. The OTM now has over 45,000
employees actively engaged as well as over 4,000 mentoring
engagements, with nearly one-half of these between Schneider
Electric employees who connect across geographies to engage in
mentoring relationships or internal gig assignments.
And finally, according to Mylon, another benefit of the OTM during
the coronavirus pandemic is the ability to quickly deploy employees
from low demand areas of the business to those which are in high
demand. The Predictive Index’s 2019 Annual CEO Benchmarking
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Report finds that talent optimization has moved into the top spot
for CEOs when asked about their primary concerns about their
company. This is leading to growth in AI powered solutions as more
companies such as Fuel50, Edcast, Degreed, Hitch, Phenom, and
Paddle HR enter with talent experience marketplace with talent
mobility offerings.
#6. Solving Business Problems Using People Analytics
People analytics is one of the hottest in demand skills for HR
professionals. Future Workplace’s course, Solving Business
Problems Using People Analytics and companion eBook, Explore
the Power of People Analytics identify a range of use cases where
HR leaders are using data to solve business problems—for example,
identifying high potential employees, understanding benefit
selections, and recommending how to personalize learning
solutions.
In 2020, a new application for using people analytics emerged
among learners in the Solving Business Problems Using People
Analytics course: using data to analyze the attrition of a diverse
employee population and understand why some employees are
exiting the company at a higher rate than others. Using data
analytics helps ask the right questions, such as: who owns the high
potential and promotion process, what are the criteria for
qualifying for these programs, and is unconscious bias evident in
the process? Applying people analytics to DEI allows companies to
understand multiple underlying causes, develop a hypothesis,
identify evidence-based actions, and use data storying to
recommend solutions to the business problem.
#7. Prepare for the Hybrid Office of the Future
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The coronavirus will not kill the physical office, but the office and
its footprint will be changed forever. In a PwC Remote Work
Survey, 73 percent of employees indicated they want to work
remotely at least two days a week, even once COVID-19 is no longer
a concern. Similarly, 55 percent of executives surveyed are prepared
to expand remote working in 2021.
What is emerging is a hybrid office, one that combines a corporate
headquarters, with home and satellite offices so workers can decide
where to work based on the activity they are doing; focused work,
online collaboration, team brainstorming, or in person employee
briefings.
Julie Whelan, Global Head of Occupier Thought Leadership of
CBRE, sees the “hybrid office” evolving over time with the exact
balance of corporate headquarters space, satellite space, and team
hub rooms depending on the industry and city. In places with easy
commutes more workers will go to the office, but in cities with long
commutes, satellite offices and home offices will be the preferred
way to work. Whelan points out that younger workers, in particular,
miss the social aspect of a physical office. In a Harris Poll and CBRE
survey of 1,000 office workers, 33 percent miss in-person meetings
and collaboration.
Over the next five years, there is no doubt the office will be
transformed, and the amount of physical space will likely decrease.
What remains to be seen, is how many more companies will be like
Pinterest, which canceled plans for a 490,000 office space in
August 2020 after an increase in remote working.
But the larger question is how fast will HR, IT, and Real Estate
come together to re-imagine the office and develop flexible hybrid
office solutions.
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#8. Expand Employee Experience and Wellbeing
Resources to the Entire Family Unit
As work from home becomes the next normal, employee experience
is more important than ever as companies realize the physical,
cultural, and technological aspects of working need to change.
As Covid-19 ripples across the globe, there has been one notable
change to the focus on employee experience: companies are rethinking employee experience to include the employee and the
entire family unit.
Future Workplace’s survey, The Organizational Impact of
Coronavirus, found that one in three employees said their
wellbeing has decreased because of the pandemic. This has
contributed to employers’ creating new wellbeing benefits for
workers and taking a broader view of employee experience &
wellbeing to include the family unit, not just the employee.
FUTURE WORKPLACE
A number of companies added new employee wellbeing benefits in
2020 and made these available to the family including, back up
childcare, on-demand assistance with home schooling, resources
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for aging parents, and access to mental health benefits offered by
companies such as Lyra Health, Headspace and Modern Health.
Companies are starting to invest in a range of employee wellbeing
benefits for the entire family unit and suing this as a way to attract
and retain talent.
#9. Be Holistic in Creating A Diverse, Equitable, and
Inclusive Workforce
The coronavirus has put a new focus on diversity, equity, and
inclusion as the societal role of employers has grown. Companies
are speaking out against racism and creating opportunities for
discussion and education to influence future change.
The business case for diversity and inclusion is stronger than ever
as McKinsey research shows the most diverse companies are more
likely to outperform less diverse peers on profitability.
But some companies are doing more than developing DEI training
programs, they are creating a new pipeline of talent. One example is
the Visa Black Scholars and Jobs Program, created in partnership
with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), for collegebound Black and African American students. Kelly Mahon Tullier,
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal, and Administrative Officer,
Visa, confirms, “Visa is investing $10 million over the next five
years to fund Black and African American students enrolled in
technology and business programs to receive a needs-based
scholarship grant. The program includes mentoring,
apprenticeships, and if they maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA,
students are eligible for a guaranteed a full-time job at Visa after
graduation.” More companies need to follow the leadership of Visa
to create holistic DEI programs.
#10. Anticipate New HR Jobs of the Future
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The Coronavirus has drastically reshaped the economy and the
labor force, creating massive changes in how we work and where we
work. Such massive change is escalating the importance of HR’s
role within organizations. Workers are turning to their managers
and their HR leaders, in particular, for guidance on how to navigate
their “new normal.” In fact, research indicates that 73% of workers
depend on their employer for support in preparing for the future of
work.
Future Workplace partnered with the Cognizant Center for the
Future of Work to examine what the future of HR will look like in
2030.
In our HBR article entitled 21 HR Jobs of the Future, we brought
together Future Workplace members of CHROs, CLOs, and VPs of
talent and workforce transformation to envision how HR’s role
might evolve over the next 10 years. This brainstorm considered
economic, political, demographic, societal, cultural, business, and
technology trends. The result: 21 New HR Jobs of the Future were
plotted on a 2x2 grid. The X-axis depicts time and the order in
which we expect them to appear over the next ten years. The y-axis
shows the “technology centricity” of each job.
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FUTURE WORKPLACE
Two new HR Jobs have already come into existence in 2020:
The Future of Work Leader: responsible for analyzing what
skills will be most essential as the workforce continues to evolve.
This role focuses both on setting the organization’s strategy for the
future of work, as well as proposing reskilling and upskilling efforts
for current employees.
(WFH) Work from Home Facilitator: ensures the
organization’s processes, policies, technologies, and training are
optimal for remote workers. A key metric of success for this role is
to focus on nurturing the company culture and build remote
workers’ sense of belonging within the organization, ensuring that
they know their purpose and feel deeply cared for.
As we prepare for the 2021 workplace, I am reminded of the quote
by Ruth Bader Ginsberg who said in a speech to young women,
“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will
lead others to join you.” The same can be said for HR leaders. Now
is the time to inspire your team, cultivate relationships inside and
outside of HR, and position HR as a strategic driver of the business.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.
Jeanne Meister
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