Two years ago, as I was wrapping up a year-longĀ Fast CompanyĀ series on 21st century HR, I closed the year byĀ writing about how the world of HR would change in 2020. Then came the global pandemic, renewed conversations on racial equity and social justice, and a massive shift toward the digitization of work that accelerated many of those predictions.
The past two years have been a rollercoaster for the field of HR. Weāve been tasked with leading our organizations through a once-in-a-generation pandemic, designing and modifying (and modifying again) return-to-workplace plans, creating new āpeople ops in the cloudā remote models of working, and more.
The duality of this era of transition is profound. HR and people functions have been elevated to a status weāve long sought, as weāve been essential to navigating all of the turmoil of the past year. Thatās led to an 87% increase inĀ demand, according to Indeed. On the other side, the emotional toll this centrality is taking has led to high levels of burnout, and experienced executives transitioning out of operator roles.Ā The weight of these responsibilitiesāplus the stress and uncertainty of their leaders, teams, and employeesāis aĀ counterweightĀ to this increase in status and demand.
Listen to HR practitionersā stories about navigating their role in the pandemicĀ here.
As the field of HR and people operations looks ahead to 2022 we do so with a clearer focus on the changes we face and our role in driving this continued evolution in the world of work. Weāve grown more comfortable with the ambiguity that permeates the pandemic and understand the need for agile approaches that can adapt to our new constantly evolving world of work.
The field of HR is a spectrum with some still operating in legacy environments that are largely transactional and others with more progressive and proactive practices. These are some of the ways HR will begin to look different in 2022 for that latter group:
HYBRID 2.0
When the pandemic swept the globe in March of 2020 the world of work went remote overnight, porting their office-based communications and collaboration systems to digitalĀ ones. It wasnāt pretty, but we figured it out. 2021 brought hope of a āreturn to workplaceā as vaccines rolled out and visions of pre-pandemic offices seemed to be on the horizon. Then new variants emerged andĀ postponed those plans sending us back into cycles of uncertainty.
The working models of remote and hybrid weāve beenĀ reliant onĀ for the past two years have largely been office-centric frameworks ported to digital. Meetings remain the core way work gets done. Our efforts to create equity and parity for those coming into an office and their remote colleagues have been largelyĀ inconsistent.
As we move into 2022, the companies that successfully navigate this new work landscape will be much more intentional about re-engineering their HR operating systems and structures to be more cloud-based. Weāll get better at moving away from synchronous work and be more intentional in re-orienting to asynchronous as a default operating model. The āmeetings that should have been emailsā clichĆ© will actually lead to more emails. Weāll use tools like Loom to send video messages that describe in 5 minutes what usually takes a 30-minute meeting. When we have meetings theyāll be thoughtfully structured, with agendas, pre-read materials sent in advance, and include only those who are necessary to move that project forward.
FLEXIBILITY RULES
HR used to follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Not anymore. Over the last two years, weāve done a lot of listening to our employees to better understand how theyāre doing, what they need, and more. This awareness has refocused the field of HR toward employee experience and is allowing us to co-create programsĀ withĀ employeesānot justĀ forĀ them.
Working through the pandemic reinforced the reality that different employees have different needs. Some are desperate to return to the office. SomeĀ will never return. Some want the power to choose when and where they work. Companies that empower employees with the autonomy to make decisions that best suit them will have a clear advantage.
EQUITY, INCLUSION, AND ACCESS
The past decade has seen our approach broaden beyond ādiversityā to include equity, inclusion, belonging, and access. Following George Floydās murder,Ā Tech giants committedĀ $3.8 billion dollars toward racial equity initiatives.Ā But has this had a meaningful impact on driving change?
The field of HR still has a lot of work to do in uprooting the systems of inequity that permeate our companiesāfromĀ pay equityĀ toĀ board representation. While some companies have madeĀ antiracist commitments, others seem to have settled back into past habits.
The shift to remote and hybrid work is also impacting our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Removing geographic constraints opens the talent pool and creates moreĀ accessĀ to talent and thatās having aĀ positive impactĀ on hiring. As more companies embrace remote constructs, HR teams must be more mindful and intentional about maintainingĀ equityĀ within these new distributed teams.
TALENT MOBILITY CONTINUES
Weāve spilled plenty of ink coveringĀ the Great ResignationĀ and have felt the pain of the spiking attrition within our companies. Underneath the tumult whatās really happening is a āgreat migrationā asĀ industry analyst and writerĀ Josh BersinĀ effectively frames it.
The current job market is white-hot. Recruiter jobs postings areĀ outpacingĀ software engineers, as companies battle for an edge in this hyper-competitive hiring market. The āwar for talentā now transcends technology and is expanding to fields including retail, where employers are offering previously rareĀ perks, like signing bonuses. According to the U.S. Labor Department job openings have topped 10 million for five straight months.
Today, 45% of full-time U.S. employees are workingĀ partly or fullyĀ remotely. While that number may drop as more companies implement return to workplace plans in 2022, it will remain a significant portion of our workforce. The percentage of employers offering remote or hybrid work significantly reduces the hiring friction. The ease of virtual interviews and hiring will continue to fuel talent migration in 2022. To offset this, companies must double down on building great places to workāprioritizing career growth, flexibility, learning & development, and total rewards programs that attract and retain talent.
THE METAVERSE IS COMING
Facebook made waves earlier this year when they changed their name toĀ Meta, a nod to their plans to invest in expanding into the metaverse. While virtual reality isnāt new, the barriers of access (mostly hardware) continue to lower, opening up more use cases for HR and people operations.
As companies whoāve migrated to remote and hybrid struggle to fill the void of watercooler moments and live meetings, the metaverse will help bridge that analog-digital divide. Companies like Remote andĀ Accenture are sending new hires Oculus VR headsets for a range of uses from onboarding, training, meetings; to more casual always-on spaces where employees can connect, play games, and watch live events together.
WEB3 ON OUR RADAR
The metaverse is often bundled with the nascent world ofĀ web3. While we wonāt see widespread implications for HR yet, we should be paying attention as this develops. Collectively, web3 includes a mix of technology, open standards, cryptocurrency, blockchain, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Decentralized Finance (DeFi) communities, and a new creator economy.
You may have learned about DAOs several months ago when ConstitutionDao, a āfinancial flash mobā, was narrowlyĀ outbidĀ to purchase a copy of the constitution. In terms of HR implications, the shared ownership and transparency of DAOs could have broader implications includingĀ narrowing the pay gap.
Crypto is already in play for some companies including Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, and others who offer employees cryptocurrencies as anĀ optionĀ for wages or bonuses.Ā HR needs to navigate the legal and tax complexities when offering crypto as wages, including a mix of state and federal guidelines on how wages must be paid.
THE GREAT RESET
The pandemic has upended many of the long-held industrial era constructs of work itself. The when, where, and how work happens has evolved beyond those limited legacy views of 9-5ās in the office. Sure, there willĀ alwaysĀ be traditionalists who want to return to a pre-pandemic era of work that no longer exists. They will beĀ atĀ the companies struggling to attract and retain talent in 2022 and beyond.
The great reset requires HR to examine our practices, shed the ones that no longer serve our companies and employees, and build anew for some of the new constructs of work detailed above. It requires a shift away from prescribed playbooks of HR programs and a willingness to pilot and adopt new practices. It will be centered onĀ employee experienceĀ andĀ co-createdĀ with our employees.
The days of HR being a back-office function are over. Our generational opportunity to redefine work itself is directly in front of us. Can we meet this moment? I believe we can. Weāll see how far weāve come in next yearās post.
HOW DO CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICERS FEEL ABOUT HRāS FUTURE?
I asked leading People executives from the Coca-Cola Company, the Lego Group, Reddit, and SAP that question on myĀ Redefining HRĀ podcast. You can listen to their answersĀ here.