The new Future of HR Function 2022 survey conducted by the HR Research Institute has revealed that many HR professionals are struggling to manage key challenges facing their organisations. Most admit that they are not prepared for the quickly changing future of work. The consequences could have a far-ranging impact on the health of organisations.
The study suggests that HR professionals are having a crisis of confidence about their value in the workplace as HR becomes more focused on meeting the needs of individual employees in an era of labour shortages. Only about two-fifths believe they are good at meeting organisational needs from the perspective of employees; 17% strongly agree that HR maximises employee experience; and 10% strongly agree that they are working on long-term planning to help the organisation.
“HR professionals tend to be consumed by current crises. The things keeping them up at night are recruitment, retention and figuring out the best ways of handling new demands and expectations from workers,” said Mark Vickers, Chief Research Analyst at HR.com. “Many feel as if they still have not mastered the ability to recruit high-quality talent, but they’re also struggling in more strategic areas such as advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, communicating effectively, leveraging people analytics and preparing for the near future.”
When HR departments are succeeding, they are an equal partner in the strategic planning process and bring vast benefits to their organisations. The study found that, compared to lower-performing HR departments, higher-performing HR departments are:
- More than three times as likely to be fairly/very successful at enhancing the employee experience.
- More than three times as likely to say HR is proficient/highly proficient at advancing diversity, equity and inclusion.
- More than twice as likely to say HR is proficient/highly proficient at facilitating positive change.
- More than twice as likely to say HR is proficient/highly proficient at recruiting high-quality talent.
But many HR departments are under fire. Enhancing employee experience and creating agile workforces are two pressing issues that HR must be prepared to address in the short term, but fewer than half of respondents (43%) rated HR as eight or above on a 10-point scale in terms of their preparedness to thrive in the next two years.
Creating a positive corporate culture has become a focus in most organisations since employees more often quit organisations with unappealing cultures. However, only 20% deem their organisation ‘very successful,’ indicating there is much room for improvement in how HR influences culture.
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