How the future of the job market will influence HR leaders across industries while drafting company policies

The pandemic has drastically affected the economy and forced a meaningful transformation of the employer-employee relationship.

Given the situation, it has become vital to keep a broader perspective while drafting policies, primarily with regard to three aspects: how we work, where we work, and the technologies we use.

It can get even more complex for Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) organisations and other blue-collar sectors where personnel drive on-ground operations.

How HR is functioning today

As new roles emerge, HR professionals have a massive responsibility in helping employees understand the skills and capabilities they will need to succeed over the next decade. Every job description needs to entail detailed responsibilities, SOPs, technical skill sets, and behaviour/attitude required for a successful career.

For HR professionals, this means the future of work involves looking at a holistic view of employee wellbeing - one that encompasses emotional and mental health as well. Currently, HRs are building capabilities to solve people challenges such as performance, inclusion, and more, but eventually, HR will be making more decisions based on data insights rather than intuition and emotion.

This would also allow businesses to provide accurate insights around everything from employee performance and retention. Policymaking with this regard would eventually create a work culture that drives sincerity and responsibility.

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Employee engagement is evolving within organisations

With a drastic transformation in the way organisations pursue their work modules, there is a certain ambiguity over the consistency of engagement with the employer. Given what the office space represents to the employer and employees, there is no doubt that the office setup is bound to stay. But with organisations seeing success with the hybrid models, HRs will also have to be flexible to pursue a culture based on trust and sincerity.

How effective these would be when competitors engage in conventional models is yet to be seen, and we may see some dispersion at such a time if it happens.

Regardless, a rising trend would be the work-from-anywhere option, although this would not be possible for sectors like IFM, retail, medical, etc., where being on-ground is the only way to sustain the business.

Policies that address this aspect will nurture a work culture based on trust and flexibility while keeping productivity intact.

Technology is key to simplify the role of HR teams

The rapid transformation caused by the pandemic has ensured an added focus on technology. With a remote work model driving business deliverables, recruitment and onboarding have also transcended to such methodologies.

Using technology for HR operations will enhance efficiency, helping to drive a deeper understanding of people behaviour and skills, ensuring more clarity in fitment and orientation. The conventional hiring and fitment methods are driven more by intuition and experience.

With new tools that deliver insights with data and analytics, there is a much broader and meaningful understanding of people to make these decisions. Eventually, this would also imply that employees would have to familiarise themselves with the new recruitment tools and showcase their profiles according to their fitment.

Unfortunately, HRs from blue-collar sectors would not be able to use such technologies to the fullest as the employees set for hiring are unfamiliar and lack the knowledge of sophisticated technology at large.

Whilst awareness and growth bolster our best practices and policymaking, we will evolve to become better employers and employees, giving more precedence to perception/relation rather than productivity alone.

Talent pools are growing with lesser demographical boundaries, and seeking opportunities has never been easier with the current remote and social landscape. Employers will drive this transformation through genuine and meaningful policies that engage and attract employees to bring about the best results for the organisation and economy at large.