Talent tango: Fresh faces, sharp skills, or tech triumph? HR’s 2024 balancing act
All of these and their interconnectedness will be key HR priorities for the coming year. However, even more fundamental and a prerequisite to executing on these agenda items will be leadership and culture. Both must remain a key priority in every organisation across sectors. The new age, especially the New Year, will need more agile and anticipatory leadership to be more comfortable making bolder bets. This will mean creating an enabling culture that will alter the other HR priorities.
Work reimagined: Office redux, remote reign, or hybrid harmony in 2024?
The hybrid model is here to stay. While companies continue to want to get back to the older office-based norms, they must stay flexible, possibly with some guardrails. Some jobs cannot be done from home. Therefore, we will see less flexibility there. However, many jobs can be done from home, and those will be in demand. This is because, there will be talent wishing to avoid wasting time on meaningless commutes. Smart HR thinking will be to make prudent decisions rather than issue compliance fatwas.
Smart HR thinking will be to make prudent decisions rather than issue compliance fatwas
Payday revolution: Flex, on-demand and commuting costs—2024’s compensation conundrum
This is not a new area. Over the years, we have seen, and mercifully so, greater flexibility and choice in pay design. It is healthy. The ability of companies to make off-cycle decisions will be largely linked to industry business cycles and related talent-retention challenges. However, flexibility, choice and greater variable pay in the total rewards mix are what I see happening more.
Career cartography chaos: Can HR map the modern maze in 2024?
How HR will step up is yet to be seen. However, my counsel would be to shift the ownership of career management to individuals rather than retain it as a company prerogative. Create more openended possibilities that individuals can explore. It will help improve the quality of career conversations, and the company will become an enabler of people’s choices. Time-bound, batch-based, in situ promotions must stop, as that clearly has bred a culture of mediocrity.
HR 2.0: From paper pusher to strategic brain trust?
I have maintained for a long time that HR needs to shrink its size and move from doing to ‘getting it done’. It must transform itself into a leaner but more strategic function for organisational effectiveness. This will be a journey, though, and as long as 2024 can see clear steps forward, I think it would be a welcome start.
This article is sponsored by Thomas Assessments
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