4 challenges and priorities for HR departments in 2024

Between 2017 and 2018, I set up a training course entitled “Leading in an uncertain world” for Comex members of the entities of a major French industrial group. At the time, we were barely touching the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world that has become our daily reality since the start of the Covid crisis.

To deal with these issues, the Human Resources Department (HRD) found itself propelled “to the front line”, undergoing an acceleration obligation for which it had not always been well prepared.

For the past 2 years, not all companies have advanced at the same pace. Not all have put in the same human and financial resources. It therefore seemed interesting to me to share with you, through our role as a privileged consulting partner in the transformation (digital or not) of the HR function, some of the issues and priorities (not exhaustive) that we have identified among our clients.

1 – Giving value to time

When the danger seems too far away, we often wonder if we should anticipate it. This is what has happened in many companies, with the perpetuation of operations from the last century: basic tools (such as Excel), no centralization of HR processes or data, and inordinate investment in time for tasks that could be largely automated today.

When you read that last sentence, some of you might want to raise your shield. And yet, it’s not a question of making jobs disappear, but of giving meaning back to day-to-day activity, and putting ourselves at the service of a company’s overall performance.

In fact, HR populations would be the first to benefit, as shown by a 2021 study by ParlonsRH, which explained that 73% of HR professionals spend most of their time on administrative tasks.

To perpetuate practices from another time is to go backwards in order to go forwards. On the other hand, implementing tools adapted to the realities of 2022 (Core HR, Best of Breed HRIS), rethinking jobs that are bound to evolve (via a GEPP – ex GPEC – strategy), and really supporting change, means being responsible to the organization and its employees.

Your employees’ time is valuable: know how to give it to them in 2022.

2 – Empowering employees, or the acceleration of “HR self-service

We are currently seeing an increase in projects focused onempowering employees in their use of HR services. The aim is, for example, to give them a better view of their leave or RTT counter in real time, to track the progress of training requests, to take advantage of tailor-made training courses that can be started at any time, to receive internal mobility offers, to fill in and track their expense accounts, or to provide their own personal data via an HR portal…

For managers, the idea is, for example, to have a better view of their team’s attendance, or to be able to retrieve information easily to prepare for a professional interview…

All this must be done on modern interfaces, be accessible on Smartphone, and be in phase with a necessary alignment between the services of personal life and those of professional life: the HRIS is thus adapting to the digital habits of employees.

3 – Amplify the learning company culture

I’m always surprised by the number of employees who have little or no interest in the subjects of monitoring and self-training… The confidence of a good diploma, the habit of daily life, the blinders we put on over the months and years to keep abreast of market developments, mean that the threshold of incompetence(cf. Peter’s Principle) is often reached without us noticing.

The problem here is that the subject of lifelong learning is rarely seen in companies as a major strategic issue. There are plenty of training courses on “learning to learn”, but do we really understand what it involves?

However, according to a BCG study, companies will have to ensure the upgrading of skills or the requalification of nearly 60% of their staff in the next 2 to 5 years. With skills becoming partially obsolete after 5 years, one billion jobs would have to be reconfigured over the next decade. Traditional training alone will not be enough to keep up with this trend.

So what to do? For example, you can :

• Integrate this learning culture into the heart of the company’s raison d’être and DNA: exemplary leadership from senior executives, managers taking over, regular assessment of employees through this prism…
• Personalize training paths: invest in modern training content, use intelligent recommendations, invest in Adaptive Learning approaches
• Set up a platform to automate monitoring by theme, with the possibility for everyone to share content on their personal networks (Socciable type).
• Invest in a real PPIM and Talent Management platform, associated with up-to-date skills repositories, to encourage the development of expertise with a view to constant evolution.

The field of possibilities is wide, and SQORUS helps its customers to define priorities and action plans in this context.

4 – Questioning habits

I was recently listening to a podcast in which Shana Roy, ex-Chief People Experience Officer at Talentsoft who has since joined the scale-up Swile (but with a long experience at Danone before that), explained that when she arrived at the company, she began by analyzing what already existed, and had to lead (not without a few bumps in the road) the organization to question the relevance of its historical HR actions .

It reminded me of other discussions in recent years, the topic of which was “The best time to reinvent yourself is when you’re doing well.” Because being well today does not mean that it will still be well in 5 years. That our organization will be adapted to changes in the market, in recruitment, in generations, which will shake up what seemed to be working.

Some food for thought for you on the subject:

• What is the real need of the employees, and is it still being met?
• Should we satisfy the individual or the collective?
• Is it enough to tick all the boxes (training plan, legal obligations…)?
• Should we continue to do everything, or should we do less but more?
• Will recruiting with a CV soon make sense?
• Is choosing an HRIS partner on the basis of “lowest cost” a good investment for the future?

There are many questions, and they can be unpleasant to ask, or to hear. Here we’re at the heart of achange management issue which, if ignored, can have a very negative impact on the organization’s smooth running.

I’ll be sure to share other HR concerns with you in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, and if these initial issues resonate with you, please feel free to contact us to discuss them.

See also our feature on "HR strategy management tools".

• What are the key issues facing HR departments today?
• Organization, talent management, recruitment: priority HR projects?
• Human resources management: what HR strategies for the future?
• Best practices to manage your HR strategy in an optimal way
• The different HR management tools to carry out your HR strategy
• HRIS software: the different areas of intervention for the HR function
• How to convince your management to invest in an HRIS tool?
• Is it necessary to be accompanied in the management of an HR strategy?
• What indicators should be defined to measure the performance of an HR strategy?
• HR strategy: how to achieve effective HR reporting?
• Who should drive HR projects in the company?
• Setting up a working group for an HR project: who should be involved?