Three HR Resolutions For 2019

How to stick to them

Front of mind for most of us personally in January are the few extra pounds showing up on the bathroom scales and our promise that this will be the year we get back in shape.

 

However, with YouGov Omnibus research finding that only 31% of Americans honored any of their New Year’s Resolutions last year, we secretly know how likely it is to happen.
 
Professionally, having switched off from work for at least a few days it’s likely you have re-entered the office with some big goals and aspirations for the year ahead.
 
Here are three resolutions I think every HR professional should be making, and how you can approach them to make sure you stick to them throughout the next 12 months.

It’s no longer a war, it’s a race.
 
Talent is short and demand is high. Hiring the right people into your business in the year ahead will not just be about finding them but also about how quickly you can take them through a positive recruitment process with confidence in your final hiring decision.
 
Increased competition for talent means you need to sell your workplace. Now, more than ever, candidates have the power of choice. If your employer brand does not stand out and align with their values, they will go elsewhere.
 
You must be able to tell our story persuasively, using the language that resonates with your candidates, via the channels that will reach them.
 
So, you will need to become a marketer, or at least find a way of working with your marketing colleagues to learn from them and apply the marketing principles that have helped them to attract the attention of their prospects for decades.
 
But to be successful, you will need to go beyond traditional ‘spray and pray’ push marketing tactics and adopt the smart, pull techniques that marketers are using to attract audiences before they’re even looking for a product or service.
 
By doing this you’ll set yourself up perfectly to attract the elusive passive candidates - a goldmine of potential recruits who are performing well in their current roles but may be open to a new opportunity if it happens to pop up in front of them.

Sadly, in 2018, we continued to see stories hit the headlines about companies that had fallen victim to deceitful candidates.
 
At the center of all of these stories was, at best, reliance on old, outdated recruitment processes that cannot provide the hiring assurance we need. At worst, they revealed companies that were neglecting their due diligence altogether.
 
The fact remains that there will be candidates that look great on paper and interview extremely well but, once they are hired, are unable to perform or even commit workplace misconduct. We must do our due diligence so we approach every hiring decision with data and not only our gut feel.
 
Traditionally, the checks required to ensure you avoid these bad eggs take time and distract HR and recruitment professionals from other, value-adding tasks.
 
2019 will be the time to prioritize business security, by ensuring you know exactly who you are bringing into the business and doing so with processes that will not only verify candidates quickly but with additional insights that add value and contribute to broader business goals.
 
With technology solutions available for every step of the recruitment process, the year ahead is the perfect time to add security and assurance to your hiring journey. Scrutinize your own ways of working, as well as the technology vendors you’re trusting with your data to make sure they have the correct security measures in place.

Although it will be important to embrace tech that brings ease and assurance to the HR function, with the prevalence of HR tech at its peak, you might feel like you are being bombarded with hundreds of options when it comes to recruitment and employee engagement apps.
 
These technologies all look and sound great on the surface, so it can be tempting to jump at the first opportunity to invest. But it's important for HR professionals to lead the charge in identifying the applications that will work best for their organization, adding real value by automating processes and allowing the HR function to focus on driving business success.
 
Understanding which solutions are right for you requires a critical examination of the technologies and their providers.
 
As you map out your ideal HR tech stack for 2019, analyze each investment opportunity with these seven questions:
 

 
And don’t worry if some of those sound a bit techy - they are! Work with colleagues and peers who understand the implications of these questions and can help you to find the answers to them.
 
With these three HR resolutions up your sleeve, you can head into the new year with confidence that you are focused on a few key areas of importance for the year ahead. Got your own goals for 2019 already mapped out? Tell us (and your industry peers!) about them.