HR Trends: Manage
What’s crucial for HR leaders and decision-makers in today’s rapidly evolving job market? Staying ahead in recruitment requires more than just keeping up with trends – it demands strategic adaptation.
The rise of automation, AI-driven processes, and shifting candidate expectations present both opportunities and risks. Trends that are introduced too fast and/or by the wrong department will backfire by e.g. generating additional costs, negative employer branding, losing valuable candidates, longer recruitment processes, low(er) candidate experience, etc.
To help companies avoid these mistakes, we put together a summary of the most important trends along an employee’s life cycle – with their accompanying threats and – where possible – adding relatively simple quick wins – everything backed up with stats and real cases.
This week, we are sharing one trend and threats related to Phase #4 out of 5: Managing.
HR Trend #1: Remote work
According to the data from Harvard Business Review:
- 60% of employees say the cost of going to the office outweighs the benefits.
- 67% feel that going to the office requires more effort than it did in the pre-pandemic times.
- 73% say it feels more expensive.
- 48% say RTO mandates prioritize what leaders want over what employees need to do good work.
Moreover, Gartner’s HR Toolkit suggests the following as good incentives:
- Housing subsidies: Helping the employees to afford nearby housing or acquiring company-owned apartments near the office that could make the cost of short-term trips to headquarters more manageable.
- Caregiver benefits: Leading organization are beginning to include benefits such as on-site or shared drop-in childcare for employees, pre-vetted pet care provider recommendations, and on-call access to skilled care providers to address gaps in eldercare support.
- Financial well-being programs: In 2023, Gartner’s research found that only 24% of employees rated their financial well-being favorably, down from 27% two years prior. They claim that more organizations will begin offering personal financial planning and education services to help employees make the most of their finances.
Additionally, KPMG’s Future of Work report found that 50% of their staff are fully office-based, but only 30% want to be.
What are the potential threats and solutions?
Too rigorous monitoring of employees via IT tools or micro-management which is a serious threat for employees who need more freedom and rebel if somebody controls them too much.
According to Microsoft data, even after a year of working from home, 42% of employees say they lack essential office supplies at home, and 1 in 10 don’t have an adequate internet connection to do their job. Yet, over 46 percent say their employer does not help them with remote work expenses.
Also, as Accenture Research reminds us, hybrid work isn’t possible for everyone – approx. 25% of their sample worked fully onsite throughout the pandemic and are likely to remain onsite for the foreseeable future.
Solution?
→ Make sure all necessary regulations and/or internal procedures are in place for remote workers.
→ Instead of asking the question “Where do you want to work?”, try with “What enables my workers to be healthy and productive, regardless of where they work?”.
HR Trend #2: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I)
According to Gartner’s HR Toolkit:
- The past couple of years have seen a growing sense of disillusionment with DEI.
- 2 in 5 employees report feeling alienated by their organization’s DEI strategy.
- Companies will begin to pivot from DEI existing in a silo to having it embedded throughout the organization.
- DEI is shifting from a dedicated function to a shared way of working as leaders leverage DEI principles to pursue their top strategic goals as a matter of course, because of the clear and personally relevant business value more diverse, equitable and inclusive organizations produce.
As data from Monster 2022 Global Report says:
- 37% of employers say that nowadays, more than ever, candidates expect to learn about a company’s DEI efforts.
- Nearly 4 in 10 employers cite the need to build a diverse workforce as their top DEI priority.
What are the potential threats?
Improper implementation of DE&I strategy, without proper preparation of teams and managers, can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings and, as a result, to lower performance.
Solutions?
→ Nearly 3 in 10 Millennials say publicizing inclusive HR policies is a top method for recruiting diverse talent, more so than other generations.
→ Good leaders know that what gets measured gets managed. Try to introduce proper KPIs and use data and analytics. And, of course…
→ Educate, educate, educate. (Btw, we are happy to help with that! :))
HR Trend #3: Upskilling / Reskilling
Upskilling / Reskilling: Managers
A 2023 Gartner survey found that 57% of managers say they are fully responsible for managing and resolving team conflicts. Managers who can effectively navigate and manage interpersonal conflict among employees will have an outsize positive impact on their organizations.
According to Gartner’s Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2025:
- 75% of HR leaders report that managers are overwhelmed with the expanding scope of their responsibilities.
- 70% of respondents believe that current leaders and managers are not adequately equipped to effectively develop mid-level leaders.
Moreover, according to KPMG’s Future of Work report:
- The middle manager may or will likely be indispensable as you pursue AI, re-shape your workforce, and make learning in the flow of work a reality. Often overlooked, undervalued, and typically seen as a blocker to change, middle managers have the potential to turbocharge efforts toward the future of work.
- Middle management is often described as the ‘frozen middle’ – a term to describe their resistance to change – and are typically the first port of call when organizations are cost-cutting.
- 77% of employees say support from their manager is more important than ever.
The data from Talent Acquisition Trends report says:
- 99% of professionals surveyed by Korn Ferry at its peak said their company’s leaders displayed empathy for them.
- An early 2023 survey of 3,000 HR professionals found that 32% don’t find their CEO to be empathetic – 16 points higher than in 2022.
- We also know from our research on emotional intelligence that empathy makes leaders more effective, and empathetic leaders are more likely to have engaged employees.
- One Korn Ferry study found that 92% of leaders strong in emotional self-awareness had teams with high energy and high performance.
Upskilling / Reskilling: Employees
According to KPMG’s Future of Work report:
- 31% of employees believe that new technologies, like AI, will render their jobs obsolete.
- Continuously evolving technologies are outpacing employers’ ability to apply them in the workplace, let alone reskill and upskill their people to make the most of them.
- Instead of introducing separate training sessions, employees should learn the specific skills or knowledge at the time they need to do their jobs.
What are the potential threats?
The reskilling / upskilling process might be moving forward too slowly, leaving many employees not fitting to the current and upcoming job market requirements and needs.
Solutions?
→ Instead of “training extensively”, select the most relevant skills to train and/or develop.
→ Teach others how to learn and lead by example. Show that everyone learns and introduce a “learning culture” that recognizes empathy as an important factor.
→ Effective learning needs to happen on the job.
HR Trend #4: 4-Day Week
Although it might be considered a radical departure from the traditional schedule, a 4-day workweek has been raised in union negotiations and become the preference of many workers. According to the 2023 Gartner survey, 63% of candidates rated “4-day workweek for the same pay” as the top new and innovative benefit that would attract them to a job. Recent pilots of a 4-day workweek have suggested benefits for productivity and employee well-being.
Gartner’s HR Toolkit found that the organizations that have implemented a 4-day workweek are experiencing business benefits – in addition to improving well-being, it can also increase
employee performance and engagement.
What are the potential threats?
Reduced coverage or availability. Companies with client-facing or support roles might struggle with ensuring continuous service, especially if clients of customers expect a 5-day week access.
Compressed workload stress. If the 4-day week means cramming 40 hours into fewer days, it can lead to burnout or fatigue.
Uneven implementation. The 4-day working week could lead to inequality between sectors or within companies if only some departments can adopt it.
Solutions?
→ Split teams so that not everyone takes the same day off.
→ Let employees structure their own 4-day week with breaks or split-shift that match their peak productivity.
→ Consider a genuine 32-hour week if productivity can be maintained or improved. Provide tools or training for time management, prioritization, and delegation to make workloads more manageable.
→ Offer equivalent benefits for roles that can’t do 4-day weeks.
Coming up next: “HR trends: Separating”
If you’d like to discuss how we could potentially support your organization, feel free to get in touch by email with Zadrozna.Anna@CareerAngels.eu.
