The HR Trends to Watch in 2022

 1. Remote Working is New HR Trends 2022

First on our list is the most drastic trend that developed over 2020. The idea of remote
working was not unheard of, but most companies lacked policies and infrastructure to
make this possible. As the pandemic struck, companies had to adapt to the Working
from home trends almost overnight.

 Today, 98 percent of people prefer to work remotely for the rest of their careers
according to a report by World Economic Forum.

 Yes, the rush to give employees access to all the tools they’d need to work from
home was a bit, well, sudden for many employers. But after everyone settled in, what
quickly became apparent to many office-based teams is that employees could be
productive and focused when not in the office—in many cases, even more so.
Employers everywhere began to understand that remote work really works.

 Remote working is here to stay, even after the pandemic subsides. We’re not saying
that all companies will go virtual, but WFH will certainly become an important trend
in HRM. Companies like Twitter, Microsoft, and Square have already embraced the
WFH trend, with some proposing a “hybrid” working model.

2. Remote Learning

As employees work at home, the business model changes. Employees need to learn
and develop, so they can work with new technologies. Learning has been an important
aspect of the workforce, even in pre-pandemic times.

The present times are witnessing an upward trend in “e-learning” or “remote

learning”. This is where employees use virtual classrooms, video lectures, and virtual
exams to learn new skills. These virtual platforms offer fun, interactive lessons on a
wide variety of topics. Remote learning has opened a whole lot of opportunities for
the employees to work, along with its focus on their weak areas and learn how to
correct them by investing their much provided time while working remotely.

3. Upskilling

A recent survey by Udemy shows that demand for upskilling grew by over 38 percent
in the past year! That’s a huge number, and it goes to show the demand for upskilling.
We’re in an age of technological boom, wherein the demand for trained professionals
far outstrips the supply.

 Sure, organizations could hire experts, but that is an expensive process. A more
viable option is to retrain your existing workforce. Upskilling your employees give a
boost to their morale, thus helping you with employee retention. It also saves the cost
of onboarding and hiring. Overall, upskilling is a new trend in HR that has huge
potential.

4. Virtual Team Building Activities

As more people adapt to the WFH trend, the employee experience undergoes a
significant change. Think about the pre-pandemic times. You went to your office and
met your colleagues. There were round table meetings, your seniors were around to
guide you. Your office cafeteria offered some healthy meals.

All these experiences bring change in the WFH trend. HR will have to redesign an
employee’s journey. An employee’s connections, collaborations, and work-life
balance have to be taken into account. For instance, virtual video conferencing helps
employees to feel like a part of a team, rather than working alone.

5. Digital Collaboration Platform

As work turned remote, most organizations turned to video conferencing software.

MS Office, Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and Google Workspace are some of the
many platforms that saw widespread popularity.

These platforms were a crucial starting point in the WFH trend. But as the recent
trend of digital collaboration continues to grow, companies will have to innovate. The
focus is now towards improving an employee’s experience on a digital collaboration
platform so that it mirrors the human-to-human interaction in offices. Most
organizations have already turned towards cloud (SaaS) solutions to solve this
problem.

6. Digital Tracking

HR is faced with the huge task of tracking employees digitally. Traditionally, an

employee would come to their office, scan their ID card, and get attendance. The
employee would then proceed to log in to their computer, and IT could monitor their
activities and timings.

 In the WFH trend, tracking undergoes a 360° shift. Companies now have to depend
upon online tools. Virtual timesheets, virtual attendance, and virtual performance
management are trending areas in HRM today.

7. Virtual Employee Experience

The remote working trend has a domino effect, wherein several other traditional HR
activities have been toppled over.

 Activities like hiring or firing an employee, onboarding, and training have relied
upon in-person conversations. HR is faced with the challenge of doing all these
activities virtually. The recent HR trends 2022 in HRM have been focused on
structuring an employee’s virtual experience. For eg- some organizations have started
“virtual fun meetings”, where employees collaborate and share their creative ideas.

8. Data-Driven HR
The world is moving towards data-driven strategies. If you haven’t already, it’s time
to adopt data analytics in your business decision-making.

HR executives today use the data generated to access the gaps in their workforce and
skills. Also, smart data analysis helps organizations to estimate future demand, and
plan for it. Smart technologies like automation and AI help HR with their screening
and recruitment processes too.

9. Virtual Employee Engagement

The physical distance in working from home can quickly turn into isolation. As
employees sit in front of their desks, they need to remember that they are a part of a
team. The recent trend in HR pf virtual employee engagement aims to do just that.

Companies are strategically developing fun activities to keep employees engaged.

Virtual board games, virtual karaoke, virtual treasure hunts, etc are some examples
where employees from different teams work together. This helps employees feel
comfortable, collaborate better, and enhance their work quality.

10. Automation of Tasks

An average HR department in a company spends up to 40 percent of their time on

repetitive and tedious HR tasks. Automation does this burdensome work manually, so
your HR staff could focus on important decision-making.

Several tasks can be automated, like:

1. Onboarding- Everything from resume collection, screening, and online tests can be
automated.
2. Approving/ rejecting leave requests.
3. Handling accounting, payroll, and expense claims.
4. Employee timesheet and productivity management.
…and many more.

11. Mental Health Support

The Covid pandemic has hit us all differently. However, studies show that the mental
health of employees has declined over the past year. We’ve now reached a point
where companies need to look for mandatory mental health support, rather than it
being a nice “add-on”.

 According to a recent report by StartupHR Toolkit, women are still grossly

underrepresented in India. The gender gap between working men and women is still
very high.

 As organizations evolve, HR departments are trying to gather employee feedback.

Recent HRM trends encourage employees to voice their woes and offer help, support,
and resources

12. Mobile-Friendly Recruitment

Technology has changed. Companies and HR who are constantly looking for the top
talent, have to switch towards a mobile-friendly recruitment process. Essentially,
HRM has to build a process where someone with a smartphone could apply and
appear for a job interview.

Mobile-friendly recruitment improves an employee’s experience and reduces hassles.

It’s also a cheaper and more streamlined process for your company. Video interviews
through phones, skill tests, and digital reference checks are some new trends in HRM.
13. VR Breakthrough

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are two technologies that are
changing the game today. Gaining popularity from games like “Pokemon Go”, VR
can now be used in HRM.

The possibilities for VR applications in Hr are endless. They are being used to
simulate real-world scenarios, where employees can be trained. They are used to gain
insights into different situations. VR is also used to give new employees a “virtual
tour ” of the office. Additionally, some companies use it for remote learning.

14. Productivity

Productivity is a major goal of any HR department. The idea is to get work done, in as
little time as possible. With the remote working model, the traditional idea of
“productivity” has changed drastically.

First up, automation has entered the market, which helps companies to measure
employee productivity automatically. Second, the advent of the Cloud helps HR to
monitor the productivity of remote employees, and share documents within minutes.
And lastly, remote working has led to flexible timings, which often serve to boost
employee productivity.

15. Ethical Leadership

Any business thrives on not just the leaders, but with the help of every employee. The
year 2020 has helped companies to focus back on their leadership.

Organizations that encourage open communication and foster a culture of trust,

usually have a higher success rate. Ethical leadership is not always simple,
particularly when jobs are at stake in the middle of a pandemic. However, this is one
emerging trends in HRM, that will continue to strengthen over the next few years.

16. Getting Back to the Workspace

We have seen quite a few WFH is new HR trends 2022 emerging today. And as we
said, WFH is here to stay, but it cannot altogether replace the traditional working
environment.

HR will have to decide when it is safe for employees to come back to offices, once
local restrictions are lifted. Even then, HRM needs to have a system in place where
employees can socially distance themselves, wear masks, and get tested. An
employee’s health, well-being, and morale will be crucial factors to consider in the
process. The only viable solution is to promote 2-way communication within a
company, so HR can safely welcome back employees at the right time.

Conclusion
These were our top 16 recent HR Trends 2022, which will continue to rise over the
next few years. The last year has changed the world in several ways. We hope that
these trends will help you adapt to the changing time. The work from home trends
have been widely adopted and will continue to redefine business designs in the future.