Five focus areas for HR leaders

In recent research Gartner’s Peter Aykens, Chief of Research, HR Practice, stated: “In 2024, HR will combat an unsettled employee-employer relationship and will face pressures and opportunities to transform HR’s performance through technology.”

Numerous new tools have emerged to assist HR leaders in their work. Despite this, spreadsheets continue to be the go-to choice for talent planning and forecasting in many organisations. Their ongoing popularity is understandable, they are cost-effective, serve as versatile ad-hoc reporting tools, and are familiar to most users, requiring only basic knowledge to operate effectively. But the limitations of spreadsheets remain true: restricted scalability, potential for manual entry mistakes, absence of real-time updates, limited analytical and forecasting capabilities, and the list continues. And, with the current challenges faced by HR professionals, as well as the pace of advancement in digital workplace technology, investing in innovations that promise to transform our working practices are the minimum requirement to stay competitive within the market.

Given that, here are the five key areas HR leaders should prioritise to transition from surviving to thriving:

1. Remote Work Optimisation: As remote and hybrid work arrangements become increasingly present within organisations, HR leaders must focus on optimising remote work processes, including optimising the work performance. They also need to enhance virtual collaboration tools, and maintain employee engagement, as well as well-being within distributed teams.
2. Talent Acquisition and Retention: With competition for top talent intensifying, HR leaders should focus on refining their talent acquisition strategies, leveraging technology for efficient sourcing, and hiring. Emphasis should be placed on employee retention initiatives, including career development opportunities and a positive workplace culture.
3. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Building diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces remains critical for organisational success. HR leaders should implement strategies to foster a culture of belonging, address unconscious biases in hiring and promotion processes, and promote diversity at all levels of the organisation.
4. Change Management: HR leaders must prioritise change management efforts to address rapid technological advancements, evolving workforce demographics, market volatility, remote work trends, and the emphasis on employee well-being.
5. Skills Development and Learning: Continuous learning and skills development are essential in an era of rapid technological advancement and evolving job roles. HR leaders should invest in training programs, upskilling, and reskilling initiatives to ensure employees possess the necessary competencies to thrive in their roles, contribute to organisational growth and are able to progress internally.

Arguably, all the above pivots around successful planning and with the rapid evolution of modern technologies, it is important that organisations reshape the skill sets required for the future. To succeed in the long term, companies must proactively anticipate and adapt to swiftly changing market dynamics by optimising their workforce plans.

Across the entire employee life cycle—from talent acquisition and learning to workforce planning, productivity, and performance management—HR must harness the spectrum of workforce technology solutions. Priorities should include analytics, virtual collaboration tools, and enhanced learning platforms. HR leaders are uniquely positioned to infuse talent decisions with data-driven insights, as well as collaborating closely with Finance to ensure that strategic goals are met.

Moving forward, organisations can no longer delay the implementation of people analytics, nor can they continue to work in siloed teams. While strides have been made, there remains significant work ahead to fully leverage critical tools to increase visibility, agility, and data analytics.

If you found this interesting and want to learn more, check out our HR workforce trends whitepaper here.