Gone are the days of rigid 8-to-5 workdays and lifetime employment to a single company. With flexible schedules, remote offices, and “tour of duty” employment the face of the workforce is changing and the Human Relations department must keep up. HR departments are crucial to an organization’s work culture, fostering the emotional well-being of employees.
An article on BigSpeak notes that “HR managers ought to hire and maintain employees not on the false pretense of loyalty (an outdated concept), but on a shared trust based on how the worker’s skills can serve a set of projects, and how the company can serve the worker’s career.” Human resources expert, Ben Casnocha, calls this mutually beneficial relationship between employer and employee an “alliance” where both parties are up front about what they will offer the other, and the realistic time frame in which these objectives will be achieved.
Additionally, HR managers should keep in mind that they will have to keep the skills of their workforce up-to-date in the quickly changing technological world. “Your younger employees, for example, probably have knowledge of social media which an older generation might struggle with, reversing the traditional hierarchy of skills” says an article from The Huffington Post. The good news though is, employees can help and learn from each other. “Harnessing this peer to peer learning can be an efficient and cost effective way of increasing skills, and the knowledge transferred is likely to be relevant because it is delivered by people who understand your organization’s culture.”
“While success in the 20th century was driven by process, structure and encouraging people to function more like machines, success in the future requires us to make more of the human side of business.” —focusing on the employee experience, emotional and mental well-being, as well as encouraging work through cooperation, collaboration and fostering a positive work culture are all quickly becoming essential to HR departments.
