4 Biggest Challenges of HR

HR leaders have significant human resource challenges ahead of them, but they also have opportunities for redefining the HR function. Finding innovative solutions to HR challenges encourages collaboration with other business leaders. HR challenges are not in isolation, they are linked with greater changes to the business model and operations.

Top 4 Challenges of HR

Challenges are sure to arise in every organisation and every job role. It is well illustrated in HR’s challenges, making it one of the most demanding corporate positions. However, it is also essential since it provides the opportunity to collaborate, and the motivation to learn more and hone abilities.
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The hurdles that HR personnel will face will differ every day and will help them be better professionals. These will range from company norms, transformational change, high employee turnover, etc. However, amidst these numerous obstacles, some HR challenges will be more distinct. Here’s a look at the 4 biggest challenges that will be at play in 2023 and how to address them.

1. Managing Remote Work
The transition to hybrid work culture is not as seamless as it seems. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, a fraction of companies had a remote work program. In addition, banks, regulated industries, and many financial services companies did not encourage remote working. Now almost all of them are rushing to build remote work strategies.
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This has led to many undiscovered problems. HR managers are trying to build seamless routes and strategies to overcome the challenges that it brings. Strategies are no more designed periodically or in advance but in real-time. The focus on employee productivity and engagement has shifted to immediate responses and diagnosis. To provide employees with the right tools and gather real-time updates from them from time to time to untangle the intricacies and offer support.

Approach: Develop business and people plans that can accommodate this pace of change. In a fast-paced work environment, you must be able to flex with change without breaking. In business planning meetings, consider a variety of scenarios that could affect your business model and work processes. Develop alternative or contingent plans for addressing these scenarios as they arise so that you aren’t caught off-guard.

2. Employee Engagement
Employee engagement has been a sensitive ongoing matter of concern for HR professionals for decades. In today’s modern workplace, engaging employees is critical for breaking down silos, retaining top talent, improving business productivity and delivering higher profits.
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Disengaged employees prove to be detrimental in the workplace. These individuals have low productivity and can be a poor cultural fit, especially when working with high performers. Leaders should recognise the signs of employee disengagement and ways to handle them as early as possible.
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Approach: Create a strong DEI agenda and invest in intentional, deliberate communications to help team members see what role they play in driving the business forward and in achieving the company’s mission, vision, and values. Connecting daily work to the business strategy helps employees feel more invested, accomplished, and engaged in their work. 

3. Employee Retention
Employees have more options for employment than they have in decades, so every HR professional must take care to retain the current workforce — or risk losing them to an extremely competitive talent market. 

It’s not surprising, then, that retention is always a major focus for HR teams and business leaders. Besides the disruption of losing a good worker and the hard costs to recruit, hire and train a replacement, when a longtime employee leaves, institutional and customer knowledge walk out the door as well.

Approach: Find out why employees are leaving in the first place. Exit interviews can provide insight into what employees liked best about working at your organisation – and what they found lacking. Armed with this knowledge, HR professionals can develop plans to address the factors that are driving employee turnover.

Consider when employees are leaving, too, which can offer insights into why they’re leaving. Are there common stages of tenure when people leave more often, and what factors might be at play?

If turnover occurs frequently in the first few months of the employee life cycle, for example, that could indicate new employees didn’t feel prepared to perform the full scope of their duties. HR managers could mitigate this through better communication during the hiring process and more effective, engaging onboarding processes.

Employees leaving at later stages can be more challenging to address. They may be leaving because they feel like they’ve reached the limit of their potential at your company, for instance. To address that challenge requires reworking internal mobility and career paths to give employees more options for growth.

4. Employee Training and Development
The last one on our list is employee training and development. Over the past few years, the world of work has been disrupted, initially and gradually, by the onset of the 4th Industrial Revolution and this disruption was accelerated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rapid up-skilling and re-skilling is becoming the norm in the new economy. However, the world of work is evolving more quickly than static learning management systems can keep up. Employee training and development programs are a big part of workforce grooming. Training is vital as it helps cut the cost - helps improve employee motivation.

Approach: Identify new solutions for training programs and continuing professional development. An effective training and development strategy must account for rapidly changing technical skills and long-term transferable skills. One of the easiest ways to get around this HR challenge is by implementing a mentorship program for seniors and juniors. It works by having your senior executives coach the junior, and this has a twofold advantage.

Overcoming HR Challenges

If you are an HR professional or manager dealing with these challenges, we would be glad to hear from you. You can contact us and give us more insights into the HR challenges and measures you are taking to overcome them. We would love to update our article with the valuable information you would have and keep the communication thread going for all.

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