HR Trends & Predictions for 2021

I have written several articles in the past year or so dealing specifically with the rapidly changing landscape of HRM globally as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the coronavirus scourge in early 2020, I wrote about the need for companies to get their HR & IR houses in order.

More recently, I have addressed issues such as the need for empathetic leadership (with HR acting as a change agent in this endeavour), global HR challenges, the impact the pandemic has had on job roles and responsibilities around the world, and the migration from traditional performance management systems and processes to outcome-based performance management.

In conducting my own research for this week’s article, I happened upon some interesting research conducted by Gartner highlighting a number of HR trends that will inform HR decision makers in 2021.

Based on the research conducted by Gartner, coupled with inputs gleaned from conversations with senior HR leaders around the world, Brian Kropp, group vice president and chief of HR research at ‎Gartner, offered some predictions in respect of trends that HR decision makers around the world cannot afford to ignore in 2021.

Employers will shift from managing the employee experience to managing the life experience of their employees

Business leaders now have increased visibility into the personal lives of their employees due to the pandemic. As a result, employers now realise that supporting employees in the entirety of their lives, not only as employees, directly affects their work performance.

Gartner’s 2020 ReimagineHR Employee Survey found that employers who supported employees with their life experience see a more than 20% increase in the number of employees reporting better mental and physical health.

More companies will adopt a stance on societal and political issues

More and more people want to work for organisations with comparable cultural values. Gartner’s research shows that 74% of employees expected their employer to become more actively involved in the cultural debates of the day.

The gender-wage gap will continue to increase as employees return to the workplace

Many organisations are planning to, or have already adopted a hybrid workforce, enabling employees to work from the corporate office, their home, or some alternate location such as a coffee shop or co-working space.

HR leaders are reporting that within their teams, men are more likely to decide to return to their workplace, and women are more likely to continue to work remotely. A recent Gartner survey indicated that 64% of managers believe that office workers perform better than those who work from home and are likely to reward in-office workers over remote workers.

If men are more likely to come into the office, we could see managers over-rewarding male employees at the expense of female staff.

New regulations will limit employee monitoring

In the past year, companies have invested in technology to passively track and monitor their employees. However, many of these same companies have not determined how to balance employee privacy with the technology, and employees are frustrated.

In 2021, emerging regulations will start to put limits on the type of tracking employers can do. Gartner research found that less than 50% of employees trust their organisation with their data, and 44% did not receive any information regarding the data collected about them.

Flexibility will shift from location to time

In 2021, we expect to see a rise of new jobs where employees will be measured by their output, as opposed to an agreed-upon set of hours (see my article ‘Migration to outcomes-based Performance’ published on 16 April 2021). Gartner’s 2020 ReimagineHR Employee Survey revealed that only 36% of employees were high performers at organisations with a standard 40-hour work week.

Access to Covid-19 vaccines

Employers that provide the Covid-19 vaccine to their workforce will leverage this opportunity as a key differentiator to attract and retain talent. On the flipside, several companies may face legal action for making it mandatory for employees to have proof of vaccination before allowing them to return to the workplace. The legal contestation may slow the return to the workplace even as vaccines are administered to more people.

Mental health support will expand

The Covid-19 pandemic has sharpened the focus on wellbeing, with employers now more aware than ever of the impact of mental health on employees and by extension, the workplace. By late March of 2020, 68% of organisations had introduced at least one new wellness benefit to help employees during the pandemic. In 2021, employers will go even further and expand mental health benefits.

Employers will “rent” talent to fill the skills gap

The number of skills that employers are looking for has increased sharply (see my article ‘Changing Global Job Role Landscapes’ published 7 April 2021) . Gartner analysis shows that companies listed about 33% more skills on job ads in 2020 than they did in 2017. Many organisations cannot reskill their existing workforce fast enough to meet their changing needs and will ramp up their use of contract hiring to address the skills deficit.

Jurisdictions will compete to attract talent rather than trying to get companies to relocate

The new age of remote and hybrid work means that employees are not as tied to their employer’s location as they were in the past. This separation between company location and employee location will lead countries to start using their tax policies to incentivise individuals to come and work in their jurisdiction.

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