Optimise employee experience
Finding talent is currently one of the most difficult tasks in the HR department and retaining talent increases the challenges in recruiting even further. In 2023, increasing the employee experience will therefore be one of the most important trends in talent acquistion.
Similar to the customer experience, the employee’s experience begins with the first contact with the company. Advertisements, application procedures, induction and working environment determine whether employees feel a high degree of satisfaction that leads to more productivity in the job.
According to a Gartner survey of HR managers, around 47% of respondents place employee experience as a top priority. As early as 2019, Citrix published a study according to which an improvement in workflows has a significant impact on employee productivity and, as a result, on customer satisfaction.
Key points to address include:
- the creation of optimal (technical) processes that are based on real requirements,
- the offer of flexible working hours and locations,
- a value-based corporate culture,
- a comprehensive approach that benefits emotional and mental health.
“It is crucial that all departments collaborate on the implementation of such a concept. Since technology is the main focus, it is crucial to establish a coherent overall concept rather than just a few small enhancements here and there.”
Counteracting talent shortage with modern recruiting methods
The employee experience begins right from recruitment. 2022 brought drastic changes in this regard, which affected the virtual recruiting of employees and the inclusion of social media platforms. However, according to a Gartner study, around 36% of HR managers still consider their own recruitment strategies to be inadequate.
In the future, it will be crucial to take the following steps in recruiting candidates rather than sticking with antiquated techniques or posting job offers on job boards in a biased manner:
- Strengthen one’s own company as a brand and to clearly convey aspects such as business ethics, growth, stability, and positive corporate culture.
- Involve employees more closely in referral management and use their expertise and commitment to the search and onboarding of new specialists.
Transparent presentation of career opportunities and pay
The fact that women receive around 18% less pay than men for the same performance (cf. Federal Statistical Office) is currently no longer considered justified.
However, fair pay is not expressed in the fact that everyone generally earns the same, but that the salaries are appropriate to the position. Transparency in payment will therefore also be one of the trends in talent acquisition and one of the decisive recruiting measures.
Transparency begins with a clear and verifiable salary evaluation, which is based on the market on the one hand and on the company’s internal salaries on the other. In order for employees to perceive salaries as fair, the parameters that lead to differences should be defined in a comprehensible manner.
Important measures to ensure fair pay include:
- Create career paths that are equally open to all genders, and
- Implement an analysis tool that enables a clear and transparent comparison of the evaluation bases.
Automate core HR processes
From administration to time recording: time-consuming routine tasks can be automated in many cases. These include, in particular, core tasks such as
- The pre-selection of suitable applicants,
- The time recording of employees,
- The coordination of shift and holiday schedules,
- The submission and recording of sick leave and permissions.
The following prove to be helpful:
Employee self-service tools: To automate processes such as the time tracking process. Employees are given access to the areas activated for them and enter the relevant data themselves. In addition, the time recording software can be linked to other components so that, for example, surcharges or time off can be automatically calculated.
Tools for recording and responding to correspondence: In addition, the challenges in recruiting can increasingly be optimised by AI-supported processes. By integrating AI into a company’s recruitment process it is possible to respond to frequently asked questions from job applicants, such as information on the application process and job requirements etc. Hence, it can be used to send automated responses to applicants and to track the status of each application.
Know more on the topic
Promoting employee engagement
Optimising the employee experience is an essential measure to increase employee engagement. Not only the work processes, but also the collegial cooperation and the recognition within the company contribute to a high level of commitment and consequently to a lower turnover.
One of the important personnel trends will therefore be to promote meetings and social gatherings even where work is done in the home office or by hybrid teams. This is possible:
- Through shared attendance times, regularly or in the form of events in which all employees or all members of a team participate. These include, for example, joint “happy hours”, lunches or informal meetings.
- Through shared online times, in which rituals strengthen the sense of togetherness. In this way, new employees can also be better integrated into hybrid teams.
“Many companies also report that it is not advantageous to mix live meetings and online meetings. The different possibilities of participating in events could otherwise easily be perceived as a hierarchical structure.”
Perfect hybrid work
Even if some employees insist on continuing to work in person, remote or hybrid work has long since become an attractive model, especially for the next generations. In 2023, HR should therefore examine whether and to what extent one must integrate and perfect the hybrid team model within the company.
The optimisation should follow an overall concept that offers solutions for:
- Strengthening the sense of togetherness and the integration of new employees into an existing team.
- The transfer of knowledge and competences, the sensible division of tasks and the joint evaluation of results.
- The provision of technically flawless and intuitive collaboration software and other tools.
- Involving the team in decisions that affect their work.
Not only must the individual team be supported in its hybrid activity, but the HR organisation should also be able to cope with a hybrid working environment in the future.
Know more on the topic
Empathic leadership
In the future, recruiting ideas and personnel management will be shaped by a concept of leadership that has already distinguished itself from classic management in recent years. One of the salient features of this leadership is an empathetic leadership style that replaces rigid rules with dynamic processes and authoritarian behavior with motivation.
With further education and training, the associated soft skills can be trained, such as the ability to
- deepen the quality of the relationship on the basis of trust, honesty, transparency and reliability.
- To establish and maintain a personal level even in hybrid teams through virtual, telephone or direct conversations.
- Give employees the feeling that they are seen and recognised in their achievements.
Making workplaces more flexible
Making work location and working hours more flexible will also become one of the top HR trends in 2023. Cleverly planned, sustainable flexibilisation offers benefits to employees and employers alike. For example, full-time employees who want to reduce their working hours can switch to part-time work or project-related work. Gaps can also be filled by working with freelancers or temporary workers.
In this respect, it will be a major challenge in recruiting and workforce trends to continue to ensure stability and continuity in cooperation despite far-reaching flexibility.
Strengthen the visibility of all employees
“Visibility” can be seen as a problem or as an opportunity in the context of making working hours and places of work more flexible. If employees feel seen in a positive sense, this implies appreciation and recognition. In a negative sense, visibility is combined with control and regulation.
Visibility is therefore one of the crucial issues for the HR organisation in the future. Managers must succeed in maintaining a balance so that employees feel noticed, but not controlled.
Visibility as an HR concept also requires that all employees are seen appreciatively in their diversity. This also means that:
- Gender, skin colour, etc. do not play a role in career opportunities in the company and
- all employees are offered the opportunity for professional development in line with their respective fields of employment.
Promoting the individual development of employees
According to a Gartner survey, 44% of employees who feel a desire for professional development miss attractive career opportunities in their company. The promotion of existing talent could be a measure to counteract the shortage of skilled workers.
The examination of how the treasures can be lifted among one’s own employees is ideally accompanied by the question,
- how the respective employees learn individually.
- what are the existing skills that can be further expanded.
- how to improve the sharing of information, knowledge and resources within the company and teams.
“Overall, the recruiting of employees will therefore increasingly shift “inwards”, so that, in combination with a flexibilisation of tasks, workplaces and job descriptions, a dynamic environment is created that leaves more room for entrepreneurial and personal growth.”
Conclusion: The HR outlook for 2023
If the digital transformation in companies is still often met with skepticism, this may be due to the fact that the focus is more on technological requirements and little on the everyday work of employees. The employee experience in particular could therefore develop into a big game changer for HR teams and the overall business.
The prerequisite is a convincing and motivating leadership style that increases the quality of relationships between all parties involved. Personnel demands on the flexibility of work play just as much a role as the desire to be visible and to be individually promoted.
Technological change and human cohesion form an inseparable unit that supports the development of strong branding. Not only does this lead to higher productivity, but it also increases the chances of making some good catches in the war of talent.