New generations of our workforce are shaking up the way companies build, satisfy, and retain top talent through modernized human resource departments.
Millennial and Gen Z employees challenge traditional HR standards with more-frequent career jumps
A scorching hot job market in favor of candidates is throttling organizations that have fallen behind on improving employee treatment, development, and career enhancement. A recent Gallup study showed that 60% of Millennials are open to leaving their current role for a new job opportunity. This hinders employee retention, a key metric affected by factors such as internal wellness offerings and upskilling. With the changing mindset of the 2022 candidate pool, digital work flexibility and advanced employee care have taken the forefront in rising candidate expectations.
“Organizations are looking to HR, the intersection of employee and manager relations, to strengthen worker loyalty. To do that, HR departments are transforming their own initiatives, processes, and purpose to cater to the modern workforce.” Says Evan Violette, CSS PSG Managing Sales Director.
The shifting climate and evolving functions of HR teams
Gone is the stereotypical HR department concerned solely with PTO calendar accrual and office event planning. These days, HR needs to pivot to a business strategy model built on retention and training costs/benefit analytics. HR needs its own seat at the c-suite table instead of reporting to it. Chief Human Resource Officers are popularizing, but CHRO presence should be the norm and not the exception for organizations looking to build their talent.
HR teams should see themselves less as administrative resources and more as “employee coaches”-people who are focused on employee growth through purpose-defining and value-proposing methods.
Adopting an agile HR methodology will alleviate internal friction earlier and more effectively. The key will be consistent communication both with direct reports and higher-ups to deliver analytically based solutions for employees. These new capabilities could include more robust upskilling, advanced health and wellness programs, and more comprehensive career mapping.
These advanced HR capabilities should define and proliferate an organization’s central theme of purpose; a quality that, according to McKinsey & Company, defines 70% of an employee’s work. Before CHROs and their teams can dig into the meatier upskilling and purpose-defining systems, they need to automate and offload work to efficient tech and outsourced resources.
Automation and outsourcing
Antiquated HR responsibilities, like booking employee time off and manually enrolling new hires into benefit programs, take valuable time and energy away from culture building and wellness monitoring. Thankfully, for the modern HR department, new software platforms allow employees to take care of mundane paperwork and requests in just a few clicks. Platforms and web services like APD and Rippling offer centralized platforms and data storage for all employees. HR departments need to leverage this technology and constantly reskill when new technology drops in order to maintain efficiency.
Sometimes, technical offerings cannot solve laborious talent responsibilities like candidate sourcing and recruitment. Talent recruitment has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, with niche experts tasked with finding talent across varying skillsets. Internal HR employees consistently list talent and staffing as their most cumbersome, time-consuming duties that would save tremendous amounts of time if outsourced.
Top-tier organizations like Contemporary Staffing Solution’s Professional Staffing Group have a successful track record of supporting talent acquisition, while their client’s HR teams focus on building company cultures and wellness. Furthermore, 70% of global executives said that two years from now, they expect to hire more contractors than they did before 2020. With contingent staffing partners like CSS PSG, HR departments can focus internally rather than stretching their resources too thin over searching for top-quality candidates.
Institute robust wellness programs
By outsourcing certain responsibilities, such as recruiting, HR departments can focus on other things such as improving their company’s wellness program, which is an underrated necessity most organizations overlook. Remote work and employee burnout are at an all-time high and both present unique challenges to organizations.
An MIT Sloan study shows that five areas of wellness investment including active listening, revisiting values, modeling wellness, addressing wellness in reviews, and introducing “bookends” to the workday, increased employee loyalty by a whopping 79%. If we’ve learned anything so far, it’s that HR can multiply its impact astronomically with investment in employee purpose building and expanded wellness initiatives.
Never stop upskilling, especially within internal HR departments
The accelerating development of modern technology forces employees to learn new software, hardware, networks, and systems more frequently than ever before. Offering upskilling through HR is vital for talent retention and gives massive importance to company-sponsored learning.
Taking a step back, HR departments need to invest in their own skill development, before coordinating classes and seminars directed toward the rest of their company. A 2018 PayScale survey found that HR upskilling and certification acquisition increased promotional odds of an HR Assistant by over 21%. Similarly, HR directors saw their promotional odds increase by 25%.
Human Resource professionals are tasked with many responsibilities, some even outside of an individual’s job description. Thus, retention of a company’s HR team comes down to the investment made in the employee, now more than ever.
Evolve your HR team today by partnering with CSS PSG!
Partnering with parallel organizations to outsource complex tasks, such as recruiting and talent acquisition, is the modern model of business. With a robust recruitment process, large and qualified talent pool, and modern technologies, CSS PSG is here to streamline your department’s HR, Accounting & Finance, Office Support, and Call Center staffing needs. Reach out today to learn how we have supported hundreds of other HR teams nationwide!