A company’s most important asset is its people, and it is the job of human resources to take care of and manage that asset. As companies continue to battle over skilled workers and applicants, an HR department that loses its edge can lead to serious problems for the rest of the business.
Here are seven current HR trends to help you attract and retain top talent:
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1. Strategic Approach
In order to compete for the best talent, companies now must look at their hiring decisions on a long-term, strategic level. HR departments need to be looking ahead to what their company’s hiring needs will be down the line and have a strategy ready to meet those needs.
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2. Data-backed Decisions
Virtually every aspect of business is being refined and reimagined using data, and HR is no different. Smart companies use the wealth of recruitment data available to them to make better business decisions and improve efficiency. But be careful — making decisions based on data without fully understanding what the data is saying or how to ask the right questions can lead to even more problems. Take some time to understand how recruitment data is gathered, what it means, and how to analyse it.
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3. Streamlining
With a heavier focus on big-picture strategic functions, today’s HR professional’s time is more valuable than ever. Automating, delegating or all-out removing time-wasting activities is crucial to staying competitive. Improve efficiency by consolidating the tools and services you use for various HR functions, particularly those that don’t communicate well with the others. Navigating through multiple tools and keeping track of vital information found across incompatible products is like navigating multiple paths simultaneously. Take a step back, look at your arrangement, and find ways to simplify it.
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4. Employee Investment
Historically, HR’s focus has been more on the front-end of the employee life cycle: recruiting, hiring and on-boarding. Talent is hugely important to a company’s overall success, but bringing in new highly skilled workers isn’t the only way to develop a strong talent base. Putting more emphasis on developing employees not only benefits the individual employees, but also the company overall.
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5. Diversity and Inclusion
As the population continues to grow more diverse, it’s increasingly important for your company to keep pace — and that doesn’t just mean hitting a hiring quota for diverse workers. Improving organisational diversity isn’t just a public relations move. There are legitimate business upsides as well, including increased creativity and ability to effectively communicate with different markets. Put a big-picture strategy in place to not only add diversity to your overall headcount, but also to include a more varied range of workers at every level of your organisation.
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6. Candidate Experience
As employers are looking to expand their business with highly skilled workers, jobseekers are finding that they can be more selective when it comes to where they apply. They’re in demand, and if you want to get their attention and recruit them to your organisation, you need to understand how they feel about applying to jobs, what their expectations are, and what’s important to them.
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7. Responsive HR
What HR does can have repercussions to the bottom line in ways you might not expect. In a recent survey, 58 per cent of U.S. jobseekers reported that they’d be less likely to buy from a company who they didn’t hear back from after submitting an application. In terms of things jobseekers hate, never hearing back from a potential employer is right at the top.
HR’s role will continue to grow as companies place more emphasis on acquiring and maintaining top talent. Being able to bring in the best workers is vital to creating a competitive business advantage. Stay ahead of the curve, or risk falling behind.
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