Eight HR trends that we saw throughout 2022

Eight HR trends

that we saw throughout 2022

As companies manage their workforces in a dynamic era, HR departments have continually adapted and adjusted, and never more than this year as digital acceleration and workplace evolutions came together By Samriddhi Srivastava & Mint Kang

HR's work is everevolving. With the advent of technology and digitalisation in HR, we witnessed how rapid changes developed into cutting-edge trends. When the pandemic drove an overhaul of the workplace, we saw once-niche practices blossom into a sweeping new normal.

Being proactive and understanding these shifts is critical. Their impact is not just today, as even now they are not fully integrated into the world of work. We will continue to see changes, challenges, friction, and opportunities in the upcoming year and beyond, as organisations come to grips with these trends and incorporate them into the workplace and working culture.

Here, we highlight eight significant trends that have shaped HR's work throughout 2022 and will continue to do so in the coming year.

1. The hybrid model of working

Most bosses hated it at first, and wanted everyone back in the office. But over the course of 2022, a successful balance emerged between working from home and returning to the office. Leaders and managers grew to understand the value of a flexible working model, whether in terms of time and location; employees began to accept the benefits of being in the office every so often.

And HR departments, of course, became more wellversed in the creation and implementation of hybrid strategies that could meet the needs of all employees, including potential hires. From the purely administrative details, to awareness of the legal and regulatory requirements, and most importantly the culture that would enable a productive and engaging working model.

2. DEI as a top priority

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is becoming increasingly significant for organisational executives as a strategic economic gain and an organising element of workplace culture. The way organisations view DEI has become increasingly sophisticated, growing from token gestures to involve

every aspect of work: education of the workforce on diversity, implementation of equitable hiring, restructuring of compensation and benefits, changes to organisational policies to incentivise inclusiveness, active adjustments of workplace culture.

Today, almost every organisation makes an effort to at least formally recognise the importance of DEI, whether through something as simple as a mention on their careers page, or by publicly reporting their initiatives to boost diversity and encourage a more inclusive workplace.

In terms of recruitment, candidate experience took on renewed importance, with the recruitment process pushed to become more candidate-friendly: simplifying communications, improving candidate touchpoints, even training hiring managers to present a more engaging image. This trend has persisted even through the swelling number of tech layoffs in the latter half of the year.

4. Gig culture

Moonlighting made the headlines not too long ago, with some companies outright firing employeasier scalability of their own workforce. However, this trend is nascent, and the corporate response to it may not take a solid shape until well into 2023 at least.

WE WILL CONTINUE TO SEE CHANGES, CHALLENGES, FRICTION, AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE UPCOMING YEAR AND BEYOND, AS ORGANISATIONS COME TO GRIPS WITH THESE TRENDS

3. Employee and candidate experience

The Great Resignation phenomenon pushed many employers to look more closely at how they are engaging current and potential talent. This played into the popularisation of the hybrid working model, and also put the spotlight on identifying and implementing approaches to employee engagement that could go beyond the superficial. Often, this moved into the area of analytics and hyperpersonalisation. ees who were caught moonlighting and others openly encouraging employees to do it as long as their work for their primary employer was not affected.

With economic recession looming, the original justification for moonlighting – that the pandemic had threatened sources of income and pushed workers to find backups and alternatives – is regaining traction. Companies are slowly realising that gig culture and moonlighting benefits them as well, by enabling 5. The rise of data-driven culture

More and more companies are realising that the data they have about their workforce is extremely valuable. This data-driven culture is directly tied to the rise of automation in HR: the digitalisation of documentation and processes that has allowed HR practitioners to manage data more effectively than ever.

In particular, the great remote working experiment of 2020 and 2021 generated reams of workforce data on performance, productivity, team culture, team and individual behaviour, and more. Some of this data is so detailed and granular that organisations are able to even measure the optimal time employees spend at various desk-bound tasks, something once confined to the manufacturing industry. Throughout 2022, organisations have been leaning in on leveraging this data, with HR teams upskilling to become more proficient in data science and data analytics. 6. Ongoing popularity of cloud-based HR software

The last few years saw a boom in the digital industries, and cloud-based HR

software is no exception. It's hardly a new thing, but it has certain major advantages over on-premise systems, most notably speed and scalability at a low cost – something which proved extremely valuable during the pandemic, when some organisations shed huge numbers of jobs in very short times and others, particularly in the tech industry, expanded just as quickly.

In the second half of this year, as multiple tech companies quickly reversed their expansion, scalable systems continued to be the best way of handling the significant changes in staffing. Some irony can perhaps be seen in the fact that technology has been the solution to its own problems.

7. Virtual reality in recruiting and training

Virtual reality has been growing in popularity in a variety of industries over the past few years, and lately it has entered the HR arena, where it can be used for several applications. For example, it can be used to host virtual job fairs, interviews, employee onboarding, and much more. Some organisations have already experimented with conducting interviews or meetings in a virtual office environment.

For now, though, one of the most effective applications of VR has been to host virtual training sessions for employees, especially in fields that require highly specific on-site training such as aerospace and other technical, engineering-related work where workers have to be completely familiarised with their physical surroundings.

VIRTUAL REALITY HAS BEEN GROWING IN POPULARITY IN A VARIETY OF INDUSTRIES OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, AND LATELY IT HAS ENTERED THE HR ARENA, WHERE IT CAN BE USED FOR SEVERAL APPLICATIONS

8. AI-powered HR analytics

Data-driven culture was just the beginning. 2022 saw a boom in the applications of artificial intelligence for HR use, particularly in recruitment and retention. The early stages of adoption that many companies entered during the pandemic have matured into more comprehensive and integrated usage.

This particular trend has fuelled, or at least contributed to, many of the others. AI has supported diversity in hiring, for example, by reducing bias. It has enabled better use of people analytics. It is increasingly embedded in HR platforms and software, and is used to automate some of the most time-consuming parts of HR processes – such as the shortlisting and assessment segments of recruitment.

And AI in particular will only continue to grow over the coming year. IBM research predicts that the adoption of AI integration will increase from 40% to 80% over the next three years, with applications across almost every HR process.