HRD Forum of Vidarbha Industries Association organised a Session on “HR trends in 2021 & beyond” on zoom recently. Prasad Kulkarni, Sr Vice President (HR) of Global HR Shared Services at CITCO, Pune having extensive experience of leading HR Operations & Shared Services, Compensation & Benefits, and HR Technology functions. He stressed that before pandemic, in 2018 and 2019, many of us were talking about the VUCA world, a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We were also discussing the fourth industrial revolution and how it is influencing the industries and HR strategies. The goal was to retain the best employees and attract valuable new talent to succeed in the long term plans the companies have worked on.
HR trends for 2021 & beyond, he elaborated that Home as the new office, the definition of workplace has changed and it will continue for a long time. Home has become the new office place for which employees and the companies are getting adapted to. Rethinking HR, revising HR policies and practices to align with the emerging needs of time has become very crucial. Flexible working hours are being followed and HR technology will gain high importance. Similarly, companies are now reinventing the employee experience strategies which include more employee interaction, emotional connect, and family bonding. Informal ways of team building and socializing will increase. Work life balance and physical/emotional wellbeing of employees will be at peak. HR leaders are focusing to showcase the company’s efforts to support its people employees as well as customers.
Perennials and diversity, we have been talking about different generations at the workplace and designing workforce strategies as per their needs. However, with the flexibility in working conditions, availability of agile workforce and virtual learning methodologies, companies may look at having multiple generations of workforce and design their strategies accordingly. Learning as a driver of business success, this pandemic has taught all of us that people can be trained and retrained to achieve the business objectives. The methodology of learning will shift from in-person to virtual. HR in the driver’s seat, As the focus is concentrated on employees, HR will be part of business strategies and many of the business decisions will be taken based on HR’s input.
Effortless shared services, HR structures will evolve. The management at large organizations may look at reducing the number of HRBPs and moving to HR as a more structured way of managing operational and transactional activities. Creating room for personalization, instead of having a common standard job approach, companies may look at customizing it. Job crafting is aimed at improving people’s jobs for the benefit of both the employee and the organization. Acing analytics: People analytics has been an increasingly popular topic in recent times. Now companies may look at more predictive and perspective analysis to take business decisions. Purpose-driven organizations, the new age generation is also attracted to companies who are purpose-driven. According to PwC, 79% of business leaders believe that purpose is the key to success.
He said during the lockdown period, the industry had to sweep away the traditional way of working from physical office spaces. HR professionals played a crucial role in making their people stay motivated, productive, and engaged during work from home. HR trends comparison 2020 and 2021, some of the priorities will become obsolete or may go through a big change, top priorities for 2020 publishes by Forbes, Start with focusing on worker well being, prepare for Humans + Bots as The new blended workforce; look for new use cases of Al 4 HR; Consider soft skills to be power skills; Audit your workplace environment for Physical, Emotional, and Environmental attributes; Explore virtual reality for corporate training; Re-Define blended learning to include on demand coaching; make your workplace experience a top priority.
Earlier, Suresh Rathi, President – VIA welcomed the guest speaker and said HR had done a commendable job during pandemic, we all are very curious to know what should be the role of HR in the times to come after post COVID. Pandemic has changed our thinking. Now every employee has to actual performance and online workers rather than giving at work place, change in the skill development process is going on. Suresh Pandilwar, Co-Chairman of VIA HRD Forum briefed about today’s relevant topics and nomenclatures of HR, IR and Labour welfare officers and said many foreign countries every year suggested new trends of HR. Neelam Bowade, Convener of HRD Forum introduced the speaker conducted the proceedings. Prof Ashit Sinha, summed up and said today’s topic was relevant and guest speaker had suggested that HR should be given the responsibility, challenges of business so that critical situations should be controlled backend by HR, thanks to pandemic, the role of HR come up during such tough situation and handling the critical situation very aptly and also proposed a formal vote of thanks.
Prominently present were Hemant Lodha, Chairman of HRD Forum, Aditya Saraf, Vice President – VIA, Anita Rao, Jt Secretary – VIA, HR / IR Professionals, Industrialists joined the session in large numbers.