Human resource leaders monitor existing HR practices to see how much value they add at a strategic or business level. Moreover, they analyze available data to identify problems in those strategies.

That is also how they develop new HR strategies to enhance the employee experience. When a considerable number of companies start adopting these new strategies in their HR departments, they become trends.

Ignoring emerging HR trends and sticking to old-school methods can negatively affect your business. Skilled employees may feel unfulfilled and leave the job, resulting in bad customer service, financial loss, and reputation damage to your business. Therefore, companies should respond to employee needs and embrace the changes in the evolving market.

The rise of artificial intelligence, the growth of the gig economy, and the pandemic have played a huge role in setting the HR trends for 2022. An effective way to efficiently manage the workforce and keep up with all the latest trends in the HR industry is to recruit a competent HR manager.

An ideal candidate can be someone who has graduated with an MBA in Human Resources degree online program or on-campus program and has a few years of experience. The HR trends have changed drastically in the previous two or three years. This article will discuss the emerging HR trends that companies need to keep an eye on in 2022.

1. Four Day Work Week

A four-day workweek is a 32-hour workweek with no loss in productivity, salary, or other benefits. It basically means to do the same work in four days that was previously done in five days. The idea of a four-day workweek has been suggested before and will only become more popular this year. Many countries have pulled it off for a year already.

For example, the success of a four-day workweek in Japan has led the Japanese government to make it a national policy. In the US, employees are demanding a four-day workweek, and companies are also accepting their demand to recruit competent new employees.

A four-day workweek has several challenges too. Some employees believe that it builds pressure to get more work done in lesser time. If one of the two companies working together adopts a four-day workweek, it can cause collaboration problems. However, if all these challenges are addressed, a four-day workweek is here to stay.

2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Ensuring DEI in the workplace has been a priority of the HR departments in recent years, and this year it will only become more mainstream. Having a diverse workforce means recruiting employees having different religions, ethnicities, languages, nationalities, socioeconomic statuses, and more.

Equity is the promotion of justice to reduce any favoritism in the workplace. Inclusion means ensuring that employees from all backgrounds feel welcome and participate in all decision-making processes and events at the organization.

Therefore, DEI is the inclusion of employees from diverse backgrounds and ensuring that they are treated equally and provided with the same opportunities in the workspace. It will remain a crucial trend in the HR industry this year.

Also, many companies now invest their time and money in unconscious bias training online. With virtual unconscious bias exercises, they are creating an environment more acceptable to diversity and inclusion.

3. Skill-Based Hiring

The essence of skill-based hiring is to concentrate on a candidate’s practical skills rather than formal education. This approach focuses on the skillset of people instead of their work history, past careers, and track records.

Some job roles still require formal certification, education, and experience. Therefore, this approach has mostly proven to be perfect for only low-skill jobs so far. However, technology fields have fully adopted skill-based hiring strategies. Some benefits of employing this strategy include;

  • Accelerated time to hire
  • Wider talent pool
  • Improved retention rates
  • Reduced costs
  • Great diversity potential

4. Hybrid and Remote Work

Remote work became a necessity company culture during the pandemic. However, now that the pandemic has slowed down, many companies are planning to permanently adopt this work model for several reasons. There are several benefits of socializing in the workplace, especially in the early years of your career.

That is why companies didn’t want to fully adopt this remote work model and introduced a hybrid work model, which is a mix of remote work for most of the week and coming to the office for only two to three days a week.

Identifying and hiring talent has become difficult these days, and people have more choices regarding who they work for. Therefore, companies in the US are responding to employee demands and allowing them to either work remotely or adopt the hybrid work model. Establishing and managing a remote workforce is going to be a challenge for the HR department.

The Wrap Up

The HR trends have evolved drastically in the past two years. Several factors like the rise of AI, the pandemic, and more drove this evolution. The unique HR trends in 2022 have been discussed in this article. Among these trends, four-day work has gained massive popularity, and if the HR leaders eliminate all related challenges, it will become the norm.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace will be at the forefront. Even though degree-based hiring won’t go out of the picture any time soon, skilled-based hiring is becoming more and more common in technology and other low-skill fields. Lastly, remote and hybrid work, which started as a necessity during the pandemic, is here to stay.