As the digital age advances, the human element in Human Resources often gets overshadowed. 'Back to Human' explores the renewed emphasis on people-centric approaches in HR, underscoring the importance of personal connection in fostering a productive and harmonious workplace.
Human-resource leaders have found themselves on a cost-efficiency treadmill
Processes have replaced the creativity and innovation they need to attract and develop talent, manage and reward performance, and optimize workforce strategy
- The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated employee demands on HR to meet physical and mental health needs, as well as intensified moral concerns about a company’s overall impact on society-lent urgency to their view that some core human element has been lost in all these technological advancements.
- CHROs want to implement more flexible, responsive policies
HR’s role: From processes to people
To build organizational resilience and generate value, CHROs and their teams must connect these insights to the business in four ways
- Mastering technology to improve HR processes and develop insights through advanced analytics
- Connecting insights to business: McKinsey provides individuals with disabilities equal access to the website
Act as ‘human capitalists’: Expand the view of talent to the whole ecosystem
The focus of talent acquisition must spread across the entire organization-or at least to the specific sites or pockets of excellence where winning on talent is critical for a company’s success
- 70 percent of business executives around the world plan to engage more temporary workers and freelancers than they did before the COVID-19 crisis
- Companies will have to adapt to changes in skill requirements more quickly than in the past
Engage more directly and deeply with employees
Key processes should always be undertaken face-to-face or with enough individual attention to make remote interactions feel like personal ones.
- Management lever Segmentation. HR leaders should use robust survey methodology to assess organizational health and then segment responses of employees with specific needs.
Organizing for the future: HR as a role model
HR leaders should focus on the organization’s internal culture and readiness and capacity for change yet remain constantly aware of the broader human ecosystem and the markets from which they draw talent.
- Besides making core processes work well, these teams should spend time not only observing and listening but also proposing, explaining, and convincing.
Let employees bring their ‘whole person’ to work
HR can shift from mechanistic skill and talent management to addressing the employee experience in a more targeted, dynamic way
- This means engaging not just with contractual moments and employees’ safety but by taking a broader view of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and their sense of purpose
- To encourage colleagues to bring their whole person to work, HR leaders can develop programs that focus explicitly on purpose and inclusion
- Purpose: Employees are five times more likely to be excited to work at a company that spends time reflecting on the impact it makes in the world
Spread agile decision making to roles across the organization
Of the CHROs interviewed, 85 percent are thinking about how to empower more employees to make good decisions quickly
- Faster, better decisions
- The right people
- Leaders with the right temperament and character are necessary during times of uncertainty
- HR leaders can help facilitate empowering ways of working through a network of teams-a dynamic and collaborative structure that can tackle an organization’s most pressing problems quickly
