Why The Now Of Work Is All About People Strategies

People strategies help companies attract, train, and retain more talented workers

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on the workplace and the relationship between employers and employees. More recently, an ongoing labor shortage has caused companies to panic, looking for employees to fill open positions. However, this has had a significantly positive impact on employees, forcing employers to take more consideration of their employees through adopting new people-centric strategies.
 

Why Are People Strategies Important?

People strategies have become a buzzword in that, many like to use it without fully understanding what it means. In a broad sense, people strategies are the function of developing strategies to attract, train, and retain a company's best resources: their employees. It is the evolution of a traditional HR department from managing paperwork and resolving concerns to becoming an active part of a business's operation.

One of the biggest mistakes that an HR department can make is not having any strategy whatsoever when it comes to their people. Many HR departments hire, fire, and train employees on an as-needed basis, but they are not intentional about their HR activities. Having a strategy allows HR departments to not only be prepared to meet the needs of their organization but exceed them with high-quality, satisfied employees.

While business leaders know precisely what their business needs to succeed, HR departments often don't. As the people in charge of ensuring that the business needs are met from an employment standpoint, the HR department must know and understand the business goals to be successful. Without this understanding, HR teams will simply form a strategy without a clear vision of its endgame, causing further frustration as a result.

Working with people outside of the HR department is essential for the HR department to be successful. HR professionals should understand the function of the business they serve. To do this, they must frequently and openly communicate to the company’s sales, service, and engineering teams, as well as every other department that is essential to the organization's success. The goal of the HR department should be to find a way to tie their efforts to the overall goals of the business.

How to Be Successful with a People Strategy

Many HR departments approach measuring their success in the wrong way. A high employee satisfaction score is great to have but ultimately means nothing if it isn't placed into the context of the business's overall success. HR departments should be more focused on improving employee morale and performance to help the company's bottom line. In other words, it's not about what makes sense — it's about what makes cents.

The first thing that a good HR professional should do in developing their people strategy is to listen to others at all levels of their organization. While an HR manager might not be a subject matter expert in some of their business’s more technical areas of operation, listening to those who are can allow them to receive a deeper understanding of these technicalities. An HR department’s intent is not to dictate the future of a company, but rather to create one based on the needs of the company and its workforce.

Next, HR professionals must actively respond to what they heard. HR departments can conduct surveys all day, but if they don't act on those suggestions, they are left with heaps of data that go nowhere. This is one of the most prominent issues with exit interviews — HR will receive the data of why an employee left the company, but it's often too late to do anything about retaining that employee. It's essential not only to ask these questions early but to implement their answers in a way that can ensure future employee satisfaction and retention.

HR departments also have to realize that solutions are not one-size-fits-all. A strategy that maximizes one employee's efficiency may not work for another. One employee may prefer working from home, while another may perform at their peak when they have an in-person office where they can focus on their work. However, if an HR team forces employees who prefer to work from home to go to the office, they may quit — we've seen it happen many times since the pandemic subsided. The job of HR is to find solutions that work for each person, not one solution that works for everyone. Such a solution does not exist.

How Has Remote Work Affected People Strategies?

This shift towards a remote work environment has also significantly affected how HR departments operate. Managing people who are working virtually or remotely is a stark difference from managing the people we see in the office daily. If someone's behavior is out of character in the office, HR is given a distinctly visible sign that they must check in on them and ensure everything is okay. It's harder to see these signs when only communicating with someone via email or instant messaging platforms like Slack.

Businesses also tend to overly monitor the workforce when they aren't visible. There is a misconception that workers working from home will not get their work done, so businesses try to keep a more watchful eye over them. This is an entirely wrong philosophy to approach this new paradigm. Remote work enables employees to do work on their own terms, and if employers allow this to happen, it can lead to significantly better results.

Remote work has made the workplace much more connected, but that does not always translate into a legitimate connection. Companies can give employees all sorts of technology, like webcams, to keep them connected. Still, if the employee is not turning them on, they are doing little to form a connection with their employer and co-workers. It is a connection, not being connected, that will impact the workplace.

When the human element has been removed in a situation like remote work, employers need to lead with trust and empathy. As an employer, showing your employees that you genuinely care about their well-being — both inside and outside of work — is crucial. Given how the lines between work and home are blurring significantly these days, it is more important than ever to ensure employees feel supported and valued.

Companies must realize that this is not the future of the workplace — it is the now of work. Employees are demanding more flexibility than ever before. If a company doesn't adjust to the unique needs of its employees, they are unlikely to find success in its overall operations. HR departments can no longer operate as separate entities. Rather, they must fully integrate themselves into the business's operation to find the right people strategy for the company.

Author Bio

Jason Averbook is a leading analyst, thought leader, and consultant in the area of human resources, the future of work, and the impact technology has on that future. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Leapgen, a digital transformation company shaping the NOW of work. Averbook helps organizations shape their future workplace by broadening their executive mindset to rethink how to design and deliver employee services that meet the expectations of the workforce and the needs of the business. Connect Jason Averbook