Hiring Trends for 2018
In the present dynamic business environment, human resource management is taking on an approach based on ‘employee experience’ to ensure staff are ever more strongly engaged and able to report higher levels of productivity in a way that complements the organisation’s high growth ambitions. 2017 saw the adaption of several industry-growth led initiatives that have paved the way forward for greater development. For the next four or five years, we will see an exponential growth in financial services businesses particularly across housing finance driven by SME lending, mortgage, liability and project finance segments. In a nutshell, “stimulating employee experience” is the need of the hour, that’s redefining human resource management and trends. That may include a complete revamp of the company that puts employees at the centre. Companies are already redesigning facets of culture, technology and physical workspace aspects and operations to develop an environment that fits the current aspirations of people and organisations.
Adopt a more organic approach to people management, to create growth-driven experience stories: The growth and transformation being witnessed by large organizations, is shifting from a transactional approach, moving more towards a “developmental driven” attitude and method, whereby practices of talent management, higher employee engagement, retention, training & development, re-skilling, etc. that are more organic aspects, have started to form core of HR functions. Primarily, organizational work place related developments or methods which involve building a culture of meritocracy, the growth-driven approach focused on performance management will continue to take center stage and maintain the trend over the next few years. Therefore bringing the new perspective into the organization will be the key requirements of the organization.
Re-evaluating functions: When the organizational growth journey is qualitative, involving insights of consumer analytics where data analysis plays a major role and companies have the tremendous opportunity to leverage and monetize that data, indicates that companies will need to manage talent differently. In a capital market environment, I believe that going forward, the street will tend to evaluate /recognize companies that are lead by talent & leadership which can sustain – 1) revenue growth and 2) quality of assets reflecting lower than industry NPAs. This, in turn, specifies that credit policies and risk management systems need to be far superior and robust, which explains that we need to employ people with specific skill sets that will steer the company on the desired growth path. Also, communication strategies to engage customers and implement systems even considering technology and devices, to realign with them on real-time basis, will need to be thought through. Therefore technology, analytics, and data lead oriented roles will play important roles across organizations in times to come.
Learning and development: Although fin-tech trends are today suggesting new ways of working and operations, its large-scale adoption is still very premature in India. The way business will be done in the future will be very different. In India, organizations are beginning to expose employees to these trends and technologies so they can start aligning at an early stage and decipher what the organization’s future growth journey will be like. Organizations growing rapidly want to bring new perspectives to their domain and challenge prevalent thinking and build new capabilities. Creating learning opportunities based on new, futuristic trends that will aid faster employee growth is a key focus area. Additionally, the younger generation brings a different way of thinking, therefore, we must be aware of their talent trends. If we are aware of this, we can build our systems to accommodate the talent trends of this generation that is making up the current work force. Innovation and ideas are relevant needs organization would need to put as the structure and engage employees who can put thrust on building an innovation-based enterprise.
Communicating to the last mile link: Large organisations’ geography spread is so high that their ability to connect to the last mile is very essential. Communications strategies need to be thought through based on how we engage with them on real-time basis, across devices using voice and data to our advantage, makes all the difference.
Retention: with a huge number of financial services companies in the fray, how do you ensure that talented employees are retained? The basic tenets of employee progress are hinged on earning, learning and growth opportunities. For an organization on a high growth trajectory, growth opportunities for people will naturally emerge. Subsequently, all human capital development initiatives begin to work together to ensure employee growth and productivity. The aim is to create a valuable experience at every point.
Ensuring a continuous flow of talent within the organisation: For organizations to ensure continuity of their growth, the next league of impactful talent has also started to emerge from the current crop. Large companies already on a high growth trajectory are developing unique engagement and performance-led platforms to bring the best out of employees in innovation, thinking differently, and in challenging existing boundaries even more. The test will be to identify unique sets of people who have common expectations, aspirations from the organization and in a very small set cater to them differently on all agenda through high impact engagement programs.
Although over the years employee experience has been talked about, it will be the next big factor that HR will be turning their attention to in 2018. HR leaders will be tasked with the role of designing, building and maintaining the employee experience across their company, and teams as well, which in turn will encourage and deliver quality outcome through their employees.
