As we commence the new year and want to overlook the scars of the year 2020, the influence of the pandemic has brought residence new realities we need to have to address in the year 2021. With vaccines round the corner, there is higher anticipation for normalcy to return in numerous walks of our lives despite the fact that there is a common acceptance that there would be a new typical in our functioning.
The priorities for HR heads in the new year are centred about the definition of the ‘new normal’ and the strategic function HR function would play in performing so. During these final 10 months, digital technologies has drastically changed the approaches in which enterprises function irrespective of the extent of self induced transformation. As a outcome of this, as enterprises have learnt to adapt for becoming capable to survive and develop in spite of the pandemic, HR heads have a crucial function to play in rethinking the approaches in which people today aspect impacts the new approaches of performing business enterprise.
In order to make certain business enterprise continuity, at the commence of the pandemic phase, ‘work from home’ was regarded as as a necessity by most organisations. While numerous corporations in the IT sector continue to assistance this, corporations in other sectors have began realising that there are serious limitations to productivity, buyer service and even motivation of personnel, should really they take into account ‘work from home’ to be a extended-term strategy.
Despite the positive aspects of flexibility and access to sources of decision that remote working could offer you for facilitating a work atmosphere devoid of physical boundaries, the learnings from the year 2020 should really be the guiding things for shaping the policy for defining the work norms. New work norms need to have to be outlined primarily based on the work flows and the abilities expected to execute the work. Based on the abilities expected for the roles to be performed, remote working could be regarded as exactly where it is probable to define the outcomes and deliverables.
Examples of such roles are in the locations of coding, design and style, content and analytics. Functions or roles that call for important quantity of coordination, vetting and supervision are ideally performed in a physical atmosphere. Thus HR managers have to draw clear lines for work from workplace and for remote work— balancing optimal productivity, ownership for benefits and business enterprise continuity. Arising out of the redefinition of work norms, formats of employment would be expected to be reconsidered from becoming largely on permanent modes to a healthful mix of contractual and permanent modes. At the very same time, compensation formats could be reviewed. For instance compensation could be output linked for particular roles with a mix of fixed and variable element.
AI, sensors and cloud technologies have begun to disrupt the processes and workflows. The possibility of obtaining digital co-workers is true. Therefore, it would be vital to program in advance for particular roles to be retired permanently on account of digital interventions and determine the new roles that would get designed to assistance the new needs. Depending upon the kind of automation that is becoming planned and the tools that are emerging, displacement impact or productivity impact should really be anticipated and baked into the resourcing program.
In summary, the new year brings in its wake an chance for HR managers to reimagine the HR function in more approaches than a single and make a positive distinction to their enterprises.
The writer is chairperson, Global Talent Track, a corporate education options enterprise