The world is constantly changing, affecting the world of work and business and how we live our day-to-day lives. But the pandemic has taken that to another level, speeding up workplace evolution and enticing leaders to experiment and abandon proven approaches.
Remote and hybrid work exploded, expanding flexibility and encouraging job seekers to demand schedules that allow a greater work-life balance. Companies started relying more on technology and video conferencing for team meetings and candidate interviews. That habit will persist as new platforms and systems will continue to emerge.
According to Pew Research, the ''new normal'' in 2025 will be more tech-driven, as technology will evolve more rapidly, starting new trends and priorities. But some might say we already live in the future, as the world looks and feels drastically different than it did a few years ago.
Human resources have also transformed, coming up with new practices and expectations. Today, many HR professionals leverage AI to streamline their duties and improve decision-making.
They also prioritize candidate experience and employee journey, which was less significant than business profit and revenues in the past. The year ahead of us, 2023, will be just as disruptive and transformative as the last three were.
Here's what that means for human resources and recruitment trends.
How do Global Events and Workplace Changes Affect HR and Recruitment Trends and Priorities?
Trends play a significant role in reaping profits and being relevant in the current moment. They also allow businesses and marketers to attract and interact with younger audiences, ensuring their companies' continuity and success.
However, new trends often emerge in times of disruption, economic crises, and radical changes. The moment when they appear also influences how eager and ready people will be to adapt.
For instance, optimistic and affluent eras typically encourage the world to be more open to transformations and to embrace novelties with curiosity and enthusiasm. On the other hand, challenging periods may slowly accumulate depression and anxiety in people, making them apprehensive and discouraging them from taking risks.
The COVID-19 crisis is among the best examples of the latter. Even though business leaders and HR professionals had to rapidly switch to remote work and new work policies, many weren't happy about that and wanted to return to the old ways.
Working from home has been highly beneficial for employees, and they were much more thrilled to abandon offices. Despite the apparent advantages, over 50 percent of companies wanted workers back in the office five days a week.
Leaders and managers had a challenging time trusting their remote employees, wondering whether they'll be productive and committed to work. Therefore, they weren't comfortable about embracing the changes the pandemic brought and believed that traditional approaches were more reliable and efficient.
But global illnesses and epidemics aren't the only triggers for change. According to Investopedia, the four major factors shaping trends are government, international transactions, speculation and expectation, and supply and demand.
Disruptive global events and changes typically impact the economy, currency, trade, investments, and overall financial system stability. They also affect people's everyday lives, how they shop, entertainment, and well-being.
Since transformative events impact our external and internal lives, we're forced to adapt to new circumstances, introduce changes, and find better ways of doing things. That's what leads to the rise of novel trends and practices.
They are our response to a disrupted routine, an eagerness to improve current reality, shake things up, or demolish the status quo. Only some trends will persevere or end up being meaningful and better than what came before, but it's crucial to understand them.
Why is Keeping Up with the Latest Recruitment Trends and Practices Important for HR Professionals?
Technological and market changes affect every individual and industry. We might not notice it in our everyday interactions with the world and people around us, but these transformations are present and impact our lives.
Human resources are no exception. They can't avoid inevitable changes that will influence their sector and force them to adopt new practices, behaviours, and tools.
Overlooking or ignoring the latest recruitment trends and technological changes could result in outmoded policies and staying behind the competition. These transformations will affect the work environment and job seekers' behaviours and expectations.
For instance, the pandemic stimulated accelerated tech growth, remote work, and increased demand for equity and inclusion. Those who don't pay attention to these occurrences will fail to implement novelties in their recruitment and adapt to the current moment.
Moreover, HR professionals must track and keep an eye on the latest industry development because it will help them respond to challenges and stay ahead of their competition. That can also help them identify helpful platforms and technologies to streamline their jobs and provide better candidate and employee experiences.
Keeping up with recruitment trends is essential for making relevant and accurate decisions, understanding how to approach stakeholders and job applicants, and recognizing stellar business opportunities. By practicing trend scouting, HR professionals can detect new working models and implement them promptly.
These actions are crucial for a productivity boost, employee retention, and higher employee engagement. Besides, identifying recruitment trends is necessary to understand the skills and capabilities talents will need in the future.
That way, HR professionals can provide relevant training and upskilling, maintaining their employees' competencies sharp and up-to-date. Trend scouting gives an advantage in spotting skill gaps and fostering more effective and accurate internal mobility.
Finally, knowing what's relevant and trending in the HR industry allows recruitment teams to craft more data-driven strategies and reinforce their effort. Companies can also develop their own HR technology if they understand recruitment trends and what the labour market and their business partners need.
Hence, always keep in touch with the world around you and the latest industry changes, as that can guarantee your business longevity. It will also help you remain relevant, create up-to-date solutions, and attract top talents.
Most job seekers hope to work with tech-savvy companies and adopt competitive skills and competencies. Thus, knowing recruitment trends is necessary for understanding the needs and issues of a younger audience and using their language to convey messages targeted at them.
Top 5 HR and Recruitment Trends in 2023 You Should Keep an Eye on
The latest Gartner report on HR trends for 2023 has explored what recruitment teams should pay attention to in the coming year and what will be HR priorities. They surveyed 800 leaders across 60 countries to identify the themes that will prevail in the last year of the early 2020s and challenges you should prepare to address.
But the report also explains what's driving these recruitment trends. According to Gartner, business and HR leaders are confronting a triple-squeeze of complex pressures: rising inflation, global supply constraint, and scarce and expensive talent. That means the talent war will go beyond 2022, but companies will also face shortages and supply chain volatility.
As a result, HR professionals will have to nurture a positive employee experience and company culture, investments in tech, and people while making their operations more digitalized and automated. Therefore, they must balance cost savings and talent investments and employee needs and business requirements.
New and increased employee expectations are among the most influential recruitment trends and retention factors. Workers expect greater flexibility and better well-being programs.
But they also want companies to take action on causes they care about and foster a shared purpose. Finally, employees want their organizations to see them as persons first, not just workers.
Here are the top five HR and recruitment trends that will mark 2023 and that your hiring team should know and implement.
Leader and Manager Effectiveness
Over 60 percent of HR leaders highlighted leader and manager effectiveness as one of the most critical recruitment trends. They believe this factor should be a priority because the current leadership development approach doesn't prepare leaders for the future of work.
But how does leadership and manager effectiveness intertwine, and what do these concepts mean? The former focuses on people-centric activities and strategies of a business, while the latter resembles a craft and is about ensuring the operational system runs smoothly.
Moreover, leaders should inspire people to believe in the company's goals and missions, which typically encompasses relationship building and motivating employees to act in ways that benefit the business. Managers must have stellar strategizing and organizational skills.
Therefore, managers must be goal-oriented and focus on successfully completing tasks and ensuring employees do the same. But the way companies develop and nurture leaders and managers today no longer applies to the post-pandemic world of 2023.
The work environment has changed due to the work-life, political, and social turbulence, and flexible working arrangements are transforming the employee-leader dynamic into a human-to-human connection. Because of that, companies must focus on developing human-centric leaders and managers.
They must be more empathetic, authentic, and adaptive, as these traits are no longer nice-to-have only. Employees demand compassionate and understanding leadership with a humane approach and respectful treatment of others.
Organizational Design and Change Management
The past few years have been anything but peaceful and non-eventful. It's safe to say everyone needs a break and to live more slowly and without surprise.
Employees are no exception. They're tired of changes, and that's inspiring recruitment trends. Many companies will prioritize organizational design and change management to handle and navigate constant disruption.
Political tensions, digital transformations, and economic uncertainty have taken a toll on people, and workers are losing the willingness and ability to cooperate with continuous changes. Thus, the more exhausted they get and experience work friction, the more likely they will quit.
Therefore, companies must implement organizational design and change management, which will help them guide people through organizational changes and reach successful outcomes. Moreover, they must prepare people for transformations and show them how to keep meeting their objectives and ambitions.
But companies shouldn't have a rigid approach. Instead, they should practice an open-source change strategy to ensure they involve workers in the process and not only let them know what's about to happen.
Moreover, employees should participate in decision-making and planning. That way, they will talk more openly and positively about changes and develop better adaptive mechanisms.
Employee Experience
Over 44 percent of HR leaders believe their companies don't have clear career paths, which is critical for retention. That means many employees are unsure about their future in a company, forcing them to look for opportunities elsewhere.
As a result, stellar employee experience will stay among the most significant HR and recruitment trends in 2023. Companies must provide better compensation, professional development opportunities, and career trajectories to foster employees' happiness and address their needs.
AI and Recruitment Software
Technology goes hand in hand with HR and recruitment trends. It is among the best ways to improve the hiring process and make recruiters' jobs easier.
Thus, advanced tech platforms help stay ahead of the competition and improve candidate and employee experience. But what software will companies prioritize in 2023?
Most HR leaders and recruitment teams will use ATS and CRM, as they can integrate these platforms with a SaaS. ATS is ideal for streamlining candidate sourcing and screening, while CRM helps manage relationships and communication with the team and clients.
However, companies will choose cloud-based solutions, as these are easier to implement, navigate, and maintain. For example, they can use SaaS from anywhere without worrying about privacy and data security.
Future of Work
The future of work is among the crucial recruitment trends in 2023, and HR professionals must focus on better workforce planning. After all, the way it operated so far no longer applies to the post-COVID world.
That means companies must align workforce planning with today's context and stop assuming they can predict future skills. Instead, they should assess workflows and tasks to estimate near-term changes in essential work.
HR professionals should also redeploy assignments flexibly across their company to add resilience and slack. Finally, they should test novel sourcing models and empower employers and employees to accomplish preferred ways of working.
Every successful company aims for longevity and staying relevant, as that helps attract top talents and be among the industry leaders. Because of that, they must keep up with HR and recruitment trends, especially in the technological aspect.
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