Traditional approaches have to take a backseat: Sriharsha Achar

From more empowerment to moon lighting, Sriharsha Achar, executive director & chief people officer, Apollo Munich Health Insurance shares eight major trends for HR to look forward to this year.

1.HR taking seats at the Board

To help companies move to a more human and holistic HR Understanding the wishes, needs and capabilities of employees is getting more important, and this employee intimacy is required to design a memorable employee journey. And for this to be able to get appropriate airtime, a board member who himself believes can push the envelope that much more. With millennials entering the board rooms, reverse mentoring will soon play a vital role in the culture branding of any organisation.

2.Focus on productivity – to make the organisation more agile
HR analytics will uncover gaps in employee productivity, highlight ways to improve engagement, uncover what motivates employees and map the overall employment experience. Algorithms will apply analytics to enrich the insights delivered through various sources, providing HR professionals with a precise reflection of employee sentiment, engagement and productivity in real time. HR professionals will have the tools to be able to better make data-driven workforce decisions.

3.More empowerment

Tapping into devices, surveys, non-official channels, such as WhatsApp, Survey tools, and so on, for quick dip sticks – anytime, anywhere, by any one.
The latest generation prefers to be included, be it a survey, strategy designing exercise or leading a passion-driven project. Empowerment means giving power to the employee. When employee ownership comes in, you get passion-driven results.

4.The concept of moon lighting

Be so good that they can’t ignore you! And so the consultants’ genre was born. Be it IT, HR, Strategy – you name it. Our BAU activities gobble our time so much that we hardly step up to the courage zone. The millennials will prefer you hire their skill sets and not the person having those skill sets. No wonder there are so many startups, Apps and what not to help you with whatever comes to your mind.

5.Micro learning

Just in time learning, through gamification and virtual reality modes. In the era where our fingers are engaged with smart gadgets – tools that explore every possible approach to focus on creating a culture of self / departmental development, especially if employers want to be prepared for the continued transformations occurring in the way people work.

6.Focus of HR operations

To create that positive experience – including use of chatbot and service analytics. The whole employee value proposition is becoming important in that, how do you portray that to a candidate? AI isn’t going away. If you haven’t already, it’s time to start exploring applications of AI and educating the business on its value. The beauty of AI is that it shows the mirror what works and what not with data. AI will bring customer centricity to internal folks in the long run in any organisation.

7.Shrinking HR teams

With automation increasing and digitisation in place, core HR processes or functions will be in focus as they create value for the company.

8.Tsunami – Gen Z

The post millennial generation will start joining the workforce this year. Are we ready to manage them? As millennials become the key demographic in the workforce, businesses can no longer rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to talent management if they want to attract and retain top talent.

As a leader, the time has come where all traditional approaches will take a backseat in order to cope with this new and unique challenge.