Understatement of the year award incoming, but 2020 and 2021 changed the way we work forever. But like most things in life, it’s how you deal with change, and 2022 is certainly the year HR will have to ride the transformation waves that rippled across the past two years.

Here are the top 2022 HR trends:

Over the past few years, we have seen social movements such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter become a huge part of the public discourse. This has also led to HR leaders setting a high priority to DE&I, with 25 per cent saying it will be their top focus for 2022.

An inclusive workplace culture that is made up of a diversified workforce (one that is diversified in terms of sexual orientations, age, gender, religion, color, and nationality) will not only bring about higher employee satisfaction and retention but also generate substantial profit and drive innovation in an organization.

Diversity and inclusion in the workplace is going to be one of the 2022 HR trends. For everyone at your organization to be on the same page, senior leaders need to show commitment and passion when it comes to DE&I. It has to be an ongoing instead of a one-off thing.

When the Covid-19 swept the globe in early 2020, the typical workplace was changed overnight. Nearly all operations shifted to remote. With vaccines roll out in 2021, hope of a “return to workplace” sparked. However, now the Omicron variant seems to rewrite the plan for 2022, the hybrid work trend is projected to continue in the coming year.

Large enterprises like Shopify, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and others have implemented the hybrid work model within their organization. A study reveals that 79 percent of the C-suite will allow their employees to split their time between corporate offices and remote working, if their position allows it.

This hybrid approach to work where employees can have the opportunity to work from home as well as the office is surely going to be one of the most popular 2022 HR trends.

A Gallup study in mid-2021 revealed that 48 percent of America’s working population was actively searching for new opportunities. This statistic reflects the low level of employee engagement, which has materialized into the Great Resignation.

While the current job market is white-hot, the hiring market is hyper-competitive. According to the U.S. Labor Department job openings have topped 10 million for five straight months.  Notwithstanding, while people want to work, they want to feel valued by their employer.

It turns out the problem is not in recruiting but in retention. And in 2022, the ease of virtual hiring will continue to fuel talent migration. In order to attract, hire and retain great talent, companies need to prioritize learning and development, career growth and total reward programs.

As many workers experience burnout and struggle to balance work-life, companies offer added benefits, such as mental health apps and time off, to address mental wellbeing concerns. However, even when majority of employers shift to the hybrid way of working, the lines between work and life continually remain blurred.

According to research,

29% of employees won’t always take a sick day, even if they aren’t feeling well enough to work, and among those employees, 61% cite workload as the reason why. And while employees aren’t working, 20% often worry about work problems during their personal time. 

COVID-19 completely changed how wellbeing and inclusion was earlier looked at. Employees began to demand more from their job than the nine-to-five grind.

Following the pandemic, employee wellbeing has been put more into focus – thus seems to be of the 2022 HR trends as well. Now employers need to create a compelling employer brand by putting more emphasis on supporting employees and giving a sense of purpose. Moreover, a safe space where everyone feels sharing their opinion and holding conversations without any fear should be built at all levels within the organization.

Another key HR trend would be reskilling and upskilling employees. While employee skills development has been a common practice for several years, it spiraled up after the COVID-19 pandemic. This was because employers began to face the shortage of multitalented professionals, and therefore realized the importance of employee skill development much more than before.

Workplace technology is going to transform more than one-third of jobs worldwide. In other words, more than one billion people will need to be reskilled and upskilled to keep up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In terms of hiring, a trend of companies moving towards more data-driven skills testing is conspicuous. More focus is being put on work experiences than educational history. Gartner study shows that 59% of HR leaders are prioritizing critical skills-building in 2022.

According to a recent Fast Company article,

“As with solving any new challenge, we need to look at what’s not working in order to create something that has greater value. We need to build programs that will inspire workers to stay with their respective organizations and acquire the skills that can advance their careers or allow them to transition into more satisfying roles.”

It’s time for HR leaders to identify both the in-demand and obsolete skills to be able to help employees develop and navigate their careers and also boost company performance as a whole.

Virtual hiring tools have become to an HR manager what a paintbrush is to a painter. They simply cannot do without it in 2022. In his article on ‘Predictions for 2022’, technology analyst Josh Bersin writes:

“We are about to witness the unleashing of the most incredible technology I’ve ever seen. Not only do we have AI under the covers of every HR too, but Talent Intelligence systems are also getting incredibly good at matching, predicting, and selecting people.”

While HR professionals had been using tools for talent management and handling all the other vital aspects of their day-to-day life earlier, after the pandemic the need arose more than ever. Among the virtual hiring tools, gamified assessments have been a big hit. A great number of organizations including Nestle, Novartis and Shell have been using recruitment games to attract and hire top caliber individuals. As a result, one can witness a lot of recruitment gamification companies emerging in the global market due to the high-demand of recruiting gamification tools.

It is exciting to know that in 2022, workplaces will have a mix of employees from 5 different generations, varying from traditionalists to Generation Z. Identifying the ways to manage multi-generational workforce and minimizing their differences is going to be one of the prominent 2022 HR trends.

According to a Deloitte’s report, only 6% of respondents believe that their leaders are equipped to lead a multigenerational workforce effectively. The traditionalists are said to be less tech savvy and place less emphasis on career advancement opportunities. On the other hand, millennials and generation Z are more likely to prefer companies with better growth opportunities and digital work environments.

People will be able to learn from one another and hear different viewpoints on the same ideas due to the 2022 trend of many generations in the workplace. “Reverse mentorship,” a practice in which younger and older employees help each other acquire new concepts, is becoming more popular.

Measuring employee performance is an essential part of assessing your business’ health. Since your people are your biggest asset, you need to ensure everyone is meeting their full potential, with access to the right support and opportunities. Key performance indicators provide teams with useful metrics to try and benchmark progress.

In 2022, HR and business leaders need to consider productivity measures better suited to ‘New Work’ and remote/hybrid working.

Some KPIs are straightforward and specific to an employee’s role. Employees on your sales team, for example, may be evaluated based on monthly sales growth, monthly calls or emails and quote-to-close ratios. Employees on your IT team may report server downtime, help desk resolution rates, alert-to-ticket ratios and network availability. While it’s worth considering whether department-specific KPIs need to be adjusted, all employees can benefit from two additional KPIs: self-discipline and communication effectiveness.

With the remote work model, businesses have faced new cyber security challenges. The most common dangers are phishing and malware. There has been an increase in cyber risks since the COVID-19 epidemic. On the other side, HR automation is a reality that has permeated practically every facet of human resource management. It is envisaged that advanced HR technology solutions will continue to drastically alter workplace dynamics in 2022.

AI and Machine Learning are used in modern workplaces to suit commercial objectives. As a result, HR technology solutions will be widely used in the future year. These would be utilized to address HR issues and boost business efficiency and employee productivity.

Therefore, one of the crucial upcoming HR trends in 2022 will undoubtedly be creating a swift and secure environment with automation procedures.

The initial layoffs, furloughs, and hiring freezes of early 2020 led to record-breaking unemployment. Presumably, as the dust settled, hiring would be easy for employers, right?
Even with unemployment rates still higher than pre-pandemic levels, many employers are struggling to find enough talent. Why?

We’re in an unprecedented candidate-driven labor market and flexible mode of working is going to be one of the 2022 HR trends. In April 2021, both job openings and quit rates hit all-time highs while layoffs hit an all-time low. Employees now expect flexible working hours’ policy from employers to be able to stick with them for long-term.