Top 17 HR Trends in 2021 You Can’t Ignore

Top HR Trends in 2021 and a Bonus

In 2020, all the organizations, businesses, and companies throughout the world were badly affected due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. 

However, the companies or organizations that transformed to adjust to this situation are now at the top of their business. One of the significant transformations that brought a lot of success to many businesses is expanding the use of digital marketing and technology. 

Understanding the latest trends in hr and using them at the right moment is vital for expanding and growing your company or business.   

Therefore in this section, we’ll look at  some of the top human resource trends in 2021, so that you can also make decisions that can bring success to your company. 

 

1. Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity can help the employees to stay motivated and build a better work environment. It also refers to the psychological, physical, and even social differences among individual employees. 

However, inclusion is a term that refers to how employees with different identities and personalities feel about being a part of a larger group or team. 

Moreover, inclusion does not result from diversity. For instance, even if you have a team of talented employees, not everyone would feel valued or welcomed. 

It’s essential that you have equal behavior with all of your employees and try to make them feel valued and create a friendly working environment. 

 

2. Further Integration with Technology

Integrated technology enables leaders, managers, and HRs to gain a deeper understanding of the business data by centralizing related and relevant information in one place, making it easy to see patterns and anomalies in data. Moreover, they can identify bottlenecks in the business and even growth opportunities.

 

3. Boom in use of Productivity Tools

Due to the pandemic situation, many employees had to work from home. As it was sudden news, no one had the chance to set up a working environment at their home. 

It has been estimated that within the first nine months of the CoronaVirus outbreak around 42% of the entire American workforce was shifted remotely. 

In such cases, to keep the business flowing, HRs were needed to come up with different productivity tools to ensure that the employees could maintain their professionalism even when they are working remotely. 

Therefore, productivity tools like Time Doctor, StayFocused, Freedom, and many other tools were introduced to maintain the productivity and professionalism of the employees. 

 

4. Remote Employee Management

Due to Covid, remote employee management has aroused HR all over the world in human resources management at the top of their interest.

Managers and HRs went through a lot of challenges due to this pandemic crisis, especially while managing employees who work remotely. 

However, to help these managers and HRs, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) brought some research studies that will guide these team leaders to manage their remote employees. 

Below are some of the points that HRs should apply to conduct better remote employee management:

• Set remote employee expectations and goals
• Stay flexible and organized
• Manage the online meeting lengths properly 
• Track the progress of your remote employees
• Build better internal communication
• Always listen to what employees want to suggest
• Build a good connection and try to be available for your remote employees
• Have a media for personal communication (Not emailing)
• Stop doing micromanagement
• Recognize the achievement of your employees

5. Synchronous Reporting

Synchronous reports are brief reports that must be delivered quickly. When the DCM reporting platform receives a request to run a synchronous report, it immediately begins processing it for you. 

These kinds of reports are best used in instances where a little amount of data is required fast, such as when displaying metrics in a graphical user interface.

 

6. Time Trackers

Time trackers have indeed made the jobs of the HRs and managers pretty simple as they can have proper reports of their employees. 

It’s also very beneficial for the employees since they can keep track of the time being wasted due to web surfing, sifting through folders and documents, and many more. 

According to a Harvard Business Review analysis on timesheets, the US economy loses an estimated $7.4 billion in productivity per day due to employees who do not record their hours.

There are many advantages that time trackers can provide to businesses. Below are some of the following:

• Transparency in organizational procedures
• Increased staff accountability 
• An understanding of the areas with the highest resource demand
• Keeping track of how the budget is used

7. HR Gets Personal

There are times when the performance of an employee might not be up to the mark. In such cases, as an HR, you can’t get personal with the employees or even say something that might be a personal attack on your employees. 

Instead, always be motivational towards your employees and try to figure out the issues that your staff might be facing. In this way, you’ll become an effective team manager and can bring out the best from your employees. 

8. Upskilling and Reskilling the Shifting Workplace

Upskilling and reskilling both are pretty effective strategies to train your employees. Upskilling means to train your employee’s new skills and reskilling means training them for a different job or position. 

Moreover, you also have to develop a proper working environment for your employees so that they have the right place to execute their skills and also stay motivated with their work. 

9. Analytics-Based HR Reporting

HR analytics is a field of business analytics that focuses on the application of analytic procedures to the human resources department of a company. 

These analytics are used to help organizations in improving employee performance and maximize the payoff in personnel decisions and activities.

10. Self-management HR practice

Human resource practices are concerned with the business plan of human resources. 

They lay the groundwork and provide direction for managing the company’s staff, and also help them to be consistent with the business strategies. 

These HR self-management practices also help HR to develop the departments even more.

11. Fighting Fatigue and Burnout

Long hours of work can indeed make the employees burn out and suffer from fatigue. In such cases, as an HR or manager, you have to bring yourself forward to help your employees get back to their motivated and productive state. 

You can always talk to your employees and see whether you can help them out or not. Try to encourage them to drink lots of water and also engage them to exercise and work out. 

In this way, your employees can recover from burnout and stay more productive at work. 

12. Cloud-Based HRIS

A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) enables HR teams to work more effectively and efficiently with only simple access to employee data.

In other words, an HRIS is a powerful human resource management system that streamlines daily human resource tasks by centralizing accounts, payroll, and administration.

Since employees are the most valuable asset for the growth of a business or organization. So HR management is essential to carry out seamless operation of hiring, performance reviews, payroll, and even training services.  

Below are some of the advantages of using a cloud-based HRIS:

• Provides you with worldwide reach
• Increased adaptability
• Cost-effectiveness
• Empowering employees
• Accessible from a central location
• Consistency and compliance

13. Normalization of Equality

Equality in the working environment ensures that each employee has an equal opportunity to perform and get recognized. Irrespective to the way they were born, their origins, their beliefs, or even their disabilities.

HRs should always have equal treatment with all the employees and try to be as motivative and supportive as possible. This will build a sense of equality among employees. 

14. Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity refers to differences and similarities among employees in terms of culture, age, race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. 

All the employees are unique not only in terms of culture, gender, race, and psychological features but also in terms of their perspectives. For centuries, society discriminated against on these grounds. 

Therefore, HRs and managers need to have this quality to treat all the employees with equal treatment, regardless of their cultural differences. 

15. Increase Importance of Frontliners

Frontliners are those employees who directly interact with clients and customers. So, training and giving them more importance is essential to grow your business. 

The reasons HRs and managers should increase the importance of front liners are:

• Satisfied frontline employees are capable of creating satisfied customers
• They are the face of your company
• Frontliners know what the customers want
• Empowering your front liners produces fewer turnover rates and more job satisfaction

16. Human Resource Development and Training

When it comes to the career opportunities available in HR Specialties, one area that requires additional attention is employee development and training. 

Development and training of employees are essential to employee retention. As a development and training professional, you will be responsible for polishing the talents of other employees and making them better in their fields.

17. Additional Confidentiality and GDPR policy implementation

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. The GDPR provides employees with the right to obtain information about themselves. 

Moreover, the responsibilities of HR here are to create improved data management and a penalty scheme.

Managing Remote Workers

To effectively lead a remote team, managers and HRs need to come up with ideas and the most effective ways to keep their teams productive and effective. 

Even without the chance to physically monitor their remote employees, they can still succeed in managing them by using productivity software and technology.

However, one thing that HRs and managers require for a successful virtual team leading is to be responsive and carry a leadership attitude even with remote employees

They also need to become familiar with telecommuting and also be able to anticipate trial and error.

Here are four fundamental principles for business executives and HRs to successfully manage remote workers:

• Have knowledge and understanding of common telecommunication and teleworking challenges 
• Set clear and productive remote work standards 
• Provide the right and necessary tools to your remote employees 
• Take regular work reports from your remote employees

Remote Employee Recognition

64% of the employees believe that recognition and gratitude are more essential for productive remote work.

Meanwhile, only one in five employees reported that their companies have come up with new ways to praise or recognize them. 

Recognizing and appreciating the remote employees also allow them to be more productive and perform their best. 

Below are some of the remote employee recognition ideas: 

• Share the appreciation you received from your customers 
• Award for employee of the month 
• Recognize the personal achievements of your remote employees 
• Bring out a gathering day for your remote employees 
• Appreciate the milestones of your remote employees 

These are some of the recognition ideas that managers and HRs should implement to motivate their remote employees.

Bottom Line

HRs and managers are the leaders who can guide a company to grow and develop. Therefore, it’s essential that they take the right practices to groom their employees and bring the best out of them. So, by following these top 17 current HR trends in 2021, business leaders can make a difference and take their departments and their respective companies to the top.