Emma Phillips, division vice president of human resources, ADP, dives into the four workplace trends impacting organizations and how HR practitioners can meet those challenges with agility and empathy.
Time is of the essence in life and work – a notion the future of work will reflect with greater magnitude. In 2023, HR practitioners will lean heavily into tools that enable them to understand what is happening at work and why and when it’s happening – and then respond at that speed of change. They will use technology that will help them actively listen and act decisively because timing matters at the end of the day.Â
Adaptability remains more important in the current labor market as employee priorities shift and employers look for new ways to support the full employee experience. Technology can help employers adapt in real-time, getting relevant information to managers to encourage proactive conversations and connections when they matter most.
Here are four workplace trends impacting organizations in 2023:
1. Personalization and the Employee Experience
Through the pandemic, workers learned to be flexible and reexamined how work fits meaningfully into their lives. Driven by social and economic stressors, traditional workplace expectations evolved into new demands for flexibility, career choices, job roles, and purpose. Take, for instance, remote and hybrid workplace models – many employers continue to navigate employees’ sentiments toward the return to the workplace, looking for ways to balance business needs and feedback from their workforce.
This is just one scenario where the employee experience is taking center stage. Workers today are accustomed to personalization in other aspects of their lives, especially as consumers. Why should work be one-size-fits-all? In 2023, HR leaders will leverage technology to help them provide that personal attention more efficiently as part of their everyday workflow. For example, tailored career profiles, including insights into an individual from each point in their employee journey, can help provide leaders with a holistic view. From skills and achievements to up-to-date education and data from engagement surveys, managers can take personalized actions to help meet their employees where they each are along their respective career paths. This personalized approach provides an actionable foundation for discussing engagement and goals, including flexibility, purpose, and goals.
See More: What is Employee Experience and How to Improve It
2. Real-time Feedback Needs Real-time Response
In their daily lives, many employees are used to leveraging technology for real-time communication; whether for real-time package updates, they expect to chat functions online to resolve purchasing issues within minutes. As consumers, we’ve come to expect this speed. It’s an expectation that carries over into the workplace, as well.
Digitalization has raised employee expectations regarding real-time support from their employers. Experiencing an issue with a paycheck or benefits? Today’s workers expect prompt assistance, which has led some organizations to ramp up employee self-service technology, including – and most importantly – mobile solutions.
According to a recent survey Opens a new window of ADP, gathering and analyzing employee feedback to understand and improve the employee experience is one of HR practitioners’ top three priorities. Like consumers, employees expect a quick response when someone asks for their thoughts. Surveys are great, but they come with expectations that something will occur as a result. HR will need tools in 2023 to help them source and respond to team member feedback promptly and constructively.Â
The timing and specificity of surveys are also critical. A once-a-year engagement survey doesn’t suffice anymore in our rapidly changing environment. Leaders need this knowledge more frequently and focus on specific areas like onboarding, inclusion, benefits, and alignment between the employee and organizational values. If they don’t catch problems quickly, they risk losing talent.
People thrive when they know what they’re doing, love what they’re doing, and feel a sense of purpose in what they’re doing. Communicating how the purpose of employees’ work ties to the broader company strategy is critical. Effective communication requires two-way listening. Leaders need development to respond to employees constructively. HR must equip leaders with the tools and training to check in regularly with each team member, understand their unique strengths and what they love doing, and empower them with opportunities to do more of what they love.Â
See More: Why Real-Time Feedback Makes a Real Difference to Organizational Productivity
3. The Need for Transparency
With readily available data, companies have greater expectations to leverage it for good. With evolving legislation and compliance considerations around pay transparency and data privacy, employers must consider how data impacts their workforce. This includes a heightened focus on closing pay equity gaps and driving progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
People are generally more aware of data privacy issues and how their employers might use their data for decision-making. That’s why it’s so important to consider every use case. Research suggests that employees support both pay transparency and learning about fair pay.Â
In fact, many municipal and state governments have passed pay transparency legislation that requires employers to state a pay range in a job advertisement. To navigate this evolving landscape, HR needs tools to interpret payroll data in a useful way and ensure their employees are being paid fairly across the organization.
4. Innovative Solutions for a New Workforce
The pandemic has taught us that creative solutions can happen, do happen, and must happen to support people-first approaches to work and leadership. Employees expect innovative approaches to how work gets done. That means finding new ways to manage people and personalize their development wherever they are in their journey.
This labor environment also requires creativity, where HR looks for talent. Many employers are mining internal talent for career development opportunities and looking for ways to upskill and reskill employees. Some prioritize skills over credentials (e.g., does the job require a college degree?) and broaden talent pools to attract people from nontraditional backgrounds. To cultivate talent in a constantly evolving world of work, employers need to keep exercising their creativity and thinking toward the future.
How do you think the latest workplace trends will shape the world of work in the year ahead? Share your thoughts with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!
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