For most businesses, the last few years have been an exercise in reacting to circumstances none of us has ever experienced. From the pandemic to The Great Resignation, inflation, and recession, the word “pivot” has been used so much that I know I would be happy never to hear it again! But the fact is, we were all required to make significant changes to how we run our businesses as quickly as possible to survive. Those who were not nimble and decisive suffered. So, what does next year look like? What challenges will we continue to face and what new ones are cropping up? Let’s look at trends for 2023 and how they will impact HR leaders across the country.
The Talent Crunch Continues
According to a recent Gartner webinar, we will continue to experience uncertainty as the combination of rising inflation, global supply constraints, and scarce, expensive talent create challenges for all of us. As HR leaders, we are acutely aware of labor shortages and the need to do more to attract and retain quality employees. Gartner’s research shows that 50% of HR leaders expect increased talent competition over the next six months, and 46% of HR leaders anticipate attrition will remain high for in-demand roles in 2023.
Top Focus Areas for HR Leadership in 2023 according to the Gartner study:
- Leader and Manager effectiveness
- Change management
- Employee experience
Challenges Today
Research shows that there are quite a few issues that contribute to HR pain points today. Examples include:
- Leader and Manager Effectiveness – Mid-level and front-line leaders are not receiving the development they need – especially when it comes to coaching and building high-performing teams in a hybrid work environment.
- Change Management – another common issue involves change fatigue. Gartner’s survey shows that a significant number of employees are burned out from all the changes they have been through in the past three years. Furthermore, leaders aren’t equipped to lead change, and there is no defined, effective change management approach/process.
- Employee Experience – With only one in four employees feeling confident about their career at their current employer and with three of four people who are looking for a new role seeking those roles outside of their current organization, HR teams face even greater retention hurdles than ever before.
Solutions To Consider
There are several paths you can take to improve methods for attracting and retaining talent at your organization.
First, leadership and management need to take a step back to understand how their roles affect their teams. Understanding the need to engage employees in decision-making, change and feedback might be a newer concept to some, and understanding the impact the last few years have had on employee perspectives and experiences is critical.
Second, it is important to look at career path models laid out for employees. Do you have compelling career paths? If not, this could be your biggest opportunity to help improve retention. A career path model doesn’t have to be overly complex – it can be as simple as showing employees how they can move up to the next role in their current organization.
Third, is your employment value proposition (EVP) effective at attracting and retaining talent? If you do not measure the employee experience, these may be difficult questions to answer.
Understanding the makeup of high-performing employees and teams within your organization will help you hire the right fit every time. It will also help you promote and measure the performance of employees which will, in turn, help you identify a clear career path to help them develop as they progress in the company.
If you are looking to build an organization of great leaders, enable those leaders to successfully lead their teams in today’s work environment, and deliver world-class HR in today’s climate, we, at Agilitas Human Resources Consulting, can help your HR team capitalize on opportunities to improve business impact.