With a finger on the pulse of current workplace culture, it’s impossible to ignore the Coronavirus pandemic. As we are all aware, this outbreak is forcing the world and average workplace to adapt to a changing environment daily.These changes, while oftentimes abrupt and unwelcome, offer unique opportunities to review trends and reassess your business and staffing needs.
To target both immediate needs in a response to current affairs and long-term trends in HR, we’re offering a brief list of the top HR Trends in 2020.
1. “[Prepare] Employees to Deal with Massive Change”
This one might feel like a huge understatement at the moment, but adaptability in today’s HR environments is crucial to long-term success. As we’ve seen, 2020 already has brought about massive changes for businesses daily, and an HR department who recognizes the value of adaptability is crucial.
The way we see it, there are two major pieces to this trend: 1) hiring those with the soft skill of adaptability and 2) operating your HR department in a way that is flexible and adaptable with change. Looking more closely at today’s COVID-19 climate, we can look at how working from home applies to both of these situations. Adaptable resources are willing (if not eager) to accommodate a flexible office/work from home schedule, and if the companies who hire them are also adaptable, you’re compounding the success of the remote approach. Looking beyond the current issue at hand, did you know work from home has been trending in 2020 since before the outbreak made headlines?
2. Worker Wellbeing
Worker wellbeing has many meanings, but this #1 2020 Trend in Forbes focuses on modernizing workplace culture to accommodate workers. This can include not only our first point’s work-from-home trend, but also factors like:
- A work/life balance (especially for millennials and Gen-Z)
- Equality and inclusivity (check out this Forbes article) and
- Modernized healthcare (including virtual visit options)
In our current, literally viral situation, these options are crucial for employees. Those with the option of modernized, virtual healthcare are already primed to deal with the pandemic in healthier, safer way than those with less, or more traditional, options.
3. Work Perks (lighting, etc.)
Also in Forbes, focusing on the physical environment of the workplace is of trending importance in 2020. In line with worker wellbeing, focusing on the layout and features of an office (including airflow and natural lighting, among others) is not only of significant importance to prospective employees, but can also be a major factor in employee productivity during the day.
In our current environment, these perks are not only popular, but also vital to employee health. Those unable to work remotely and still operating in-office are able to prevent illness better with fresh air and Vitamin D (in addition to the CDC’s hand-washing recommendations, which seems obvious yet bears repeating).
4. Adapting and Integrating Advanced Technology
Technology changes daily, and integrating and adapting to these changes is crucial, not only in HR, but companywide. Integrating new technologies, like AI recruiting (see our blog on the pros and cons for more of our take on this) can increase productivity and ease employee workloads (allowing them to prioritize those tasks that cannot be performed by AI), which means it often appeals to a wider variety of candidates too. Change is happening quickly, so it’s important your company is dynamic enough to keep up!
Staying cutting-edge in the wake of coronavirus encourages the flexibility of employees working remotely, and can keep businesses on track, so it’s important to stay in tune with these. For example, restaurants leveraging GrubHub, Postmates, and other carry-out and delivery services have a chance of staying in business during the mandatory closures.
5. Shifting Practices in Hiring (The New Ideal Candidate)
In direct relation to trend #4, technology’s increasing support, if not replacement of jobs, makes it vital that companies hire for soft skills as much as for technical skills. Adaptable, critical-thinking employees provide skills AI can’t, making them crucial to operations who largely rely on technology to operate.
Again, we focus on adaptability in our culture’s uncertain times. Hiring employees who are alert, metaphorically quick on their feet, and adaptable to rapid changes are going to provide better longevity in the market than those who are unable, or unwilling, to meet modern business needs.
As you assess your business needs and trends while we face this unprecedented Coronavirus situation, know that DMarie + Co. is here to not only maintain your HR staffing needs, but truly available for you for any questions you have in trying to navigate issues we’ve never had to before. Dana and the team at D Marie care about you, your business and your wellbeing.
Contact us today for anything you need, and be well!
