Traditionally, the role of an HR professional has been limited to recruitment, payroll processing, maintaining employee records, and other bureaucratic processes that, while crucial to the company’s continuity, remain monotonous and uneventful. As organizations explore new avenues and growth opportunities, different departments have been empowered to take on new responsibilities.
IT managers are encouraged to pursue security training, expert cybersecurity executives are being promoted to CISOs, and HR leaders are expected to deliver value beyond talent scouting and compensation.
Today, as technology progresses, many tools have surfaced to lessen the struggle of HR professionals, automating time-consuming tasks and saving companies time and resources.
Investing in HR tech stack
HR has been recognized for its potential value for organizations, and how their leadership initiatives could further shape the company’s growth. This recognition has awarded the HR department with a bigger seat at the table, and in turn, a bigger budget.
With more resources, the HR department can invest in revolutionizing tools that help with the processes of recruitment and hiring, payroll, perks, and benefits. An HR tech stack could be single-task tools like recognition software or employee engagement surveys, or robust HR information systems.
However, before building an HR tech stack, organizations should design a roadmap to select an optimal tool, as opposed to procuring the market’s latest solution and winding up with a software that’s causing more headaches than it’s supposed to cure.
HR leaders should identify specific needs and areas of improvement, determine priorities, and stay within the constraints of their budget. This article will help you ask the right questions before committing to an HR tech stack.
Taking on new roles
In addition to easing complicated processes, the HR department is expected to encourage the business’ most vital asset: human resources. By leading change, fostering effective methods of goal setting, and empowering employees to build employee ownership of the organization, the HR professional can help establish the organizational culture and climate.
Change is inevitable within any organization. Allowing for that change to become an obstacle isn’t a viable option: that’s where HR steps in. By championing change, HR professionals can promote the overall success of the organization.
HR leaders can also drive growth by keeping a close eye on employee satisfaction and measuring the results of organization initiatives.
HR as a strategic partner
HR leaders today are encouraged to offer recommendations, make business decisions, and carry out the organization’s goals. This will only guarantee their viability and ability to contribute to greater business achievements. Successful HR strategic partners think like business people, are familiar with finance and accounting fundamentals, and are responsible for cost reductions.
This provides the organization with another weapon in their administrative arsenal, with an aim at the company’s overarching goals. Being business savvy will surely award HR professionals the opportunity to grab a bigger seat at the executive table.
HR as an employee advocate
The HR manager is expected to be a people’s person; knowledge about and advocacy of people are requirements for a stellar HR professional. That’s why HR managers should create a work environment in which people find it easy to become—and remain—motivated, happy, and productive. Whether it is through effective goal setting, empowerment through responsibility, or cultivating communications, encouraging employees to find their purpose within an organization has become a business imperative for HR professionals.
According to the PwC US Pulse Survey: Next in work, 36% of executives say the loss of corporate culture is the biggest challenge to hybrid work. The challenge of maintaining the work culture falls in the hands of the HR department, and thanks to rising expectations, business leaders rely on HR managers to address emerging trends affecting business processes.
The Bottom Line
Due to unexpected events during the last two years, organizations, as they should, have entered the new year with a premonition.
Today, HR professionals face one of the biggest hiring and retention crises of their career—meeting their employees’ demands: schedule flexibility, expanded benefits, and compensation changes.
In addition to aligning with their employees’ demands, HR executives should focus on new, critical workforce trends and key priorities to tackle 2022’s challenges with success. PwC’s HR Technology Leader, Dan Staley, stresses the importance of flexibility, optimization, and the need for employees to become tech-literate in order to successfully face modern challenges.
