What are the HR trends for 2020?

1. The employee experience is at the centre of everything

In our article linked to employee centricity, we already discussed the importance of employee centricity. In short, it is safe to assume that you can only become a customer-centric company if you start by putting your employee front and centre. The employee experience is becoming more important every year. Especially because companies need to take an innovative approach to keep their employees on board as long as possible.

Easier said than done? A strong employee experience starts as soon as a new employee joins the team. Welcome him or her and explain your organisation’s modus operandi. If you don’t have the time to do this yourself, then why not appoint a mentor for every newcomer. He or she can help the new employee navigate the intricacies of the new company. You should also plan regular feedback opportunities during the employee’s career. This enables you to keep up with everything and respond very efficiently when something goes wrong. Is one of your employees leaving the company? Try to schedule an exit interview, and ask him or her about potential difficulties or possibilities for improvement. It’s a great way to learn from your errors as an employer.

2. Digitisation is picking up speed

How can employees do their job even better? Which processes can we accelerate? How can teams work together even better? Efficiency is very important on the work floor. Which is where digitisation comes in.

There are so many digital tools to optimise the company’s operations. Below are some examples:

• Internal communication: Slack of Skype, to quickly exchange documents and information with others.
• Feedback and compensation: one app that comes to mind is Intuo, which prevents and tackles employee discontent.
• Project management: including Asana or Trello, to measure project progress.
• HR administration: Beeple and Officient, to centralise and manage all HR-related information and documentation.

All these software solutions can take part of the HR job off your hands. The outcome? Every employee and you as a manager can focus on the core tasks of your job.

3. increased attention to a healthy culture

The notion of ‘culture’ covers quite a lot on the corporate level. A good salary is no longer sufficient to attract a potential candidate. These days, applicants are also searching for a company that matches their personal values. So there has to be a match in terms of company culture.

But what does this mean? A lot of companies swear by a culture that is supremely transparent. This manifest itself in honesty, regular feedback and access to most company information. In other organisations a flat organisational structure is synonymous of a good company culture. In other words, employees are given an opportunity to have their say and even have the same decision-making rights as their managers.

But a healthy culture involves so much more than this. Several companies have already studied the need for a good work-life balance. It soon became clear that Belgian employees have lost control of their work-life balance. At European level, some organisations have started to experiment with banning staff from access their work emails after hours. Other employers implement small-scale initiative, such as the weekly fruit baskets or stopping one hour earlier on Fridays. So as you can see, little changes can make a huge difference.

Looking for other ways to assure the future of your (HR) organisation? Discover our other articles!