Key HR deliverables in 2023

HUMAN resources (HR) practitioners will be deluged with great challenges in 2023. They must address a number of key HR issues like hybrid and remote work, sustaining employee engagement, integrating technology into HR processes, reskilling and upskilling, talent retention, and dealing with such acronyms as DEI, ESG, SDG, etc.

As the war for talent continues, HR’s key deliverables in 2023 revolve around getting, retaining, motivating and making talent productive. While half of HR’s eyes and ears are focused on the chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) directions, HR’s other eye and ear must be trained to listen, anticipate and address employees’ expectations.

Overall well-being

During the pandemic, the American Psychological Association (APA) said that “3 in 5 employees reported being affected by work-related stress. High inflation rate makes 87 percent of Americans anxious…” Meanwhile, Millennials and Gen Zs are looking for flexibility, meaning and purpose.

HR is the organization’s first line of defense in dealing with employees’ demands and feedback. Workvivo research reported that the majority of employees, including HR professionals, reported feeling burned out during the past six months. In 2023, organizations must act to address this looming burnout.

Several surveys said that more than 80 percent of workers expect flexible hours, 64 percent will consider leaving a job if the company stops remote working practices, and 70 percent said that paid leaves could swing a worker’s decision to accept a job offer or not.

HR must realize that, obviously, for employees to perform at their peak level, they must first be healthy and safe. HR must address employee well-being with a holistic approach. The purpose is to make employees healthy and safe and develop a highly resilient organization. HR must ensure employees’ physical, mental, and financial well-being. HR must 1) maintain a Covid-free workplace; 2) ensure a psychologically safe workplace where they can be themselves without fear of retribution; 3) provide employees sound tips on mental health; 4) have a help-desk that workers can access freely; and 5) have a continuing financial literacy education, training and support systems.

These sound easy to do, but it could be challenging for HR if HR practitioners have to first overcome their own burnout, health, safety and financial issues. I’m reminded by the flight attendants who direct us to put on our oxygen masks first before we put them on our children.

Relearning workplace learning

Much has been said and written about reskilling and upskilling advocated by large institutions (WEF, ILO, OECD, etc.) and leading consultants (McKinsey, Deloitte, etc.)

At the height of the Great Resignation, Great Reshuffle and Quiet Quitting, many organizations have realized that the main reason why employees quit is lack of career development and advancement — not low pay as was often suspected. McKinsey recently reported that “while 87 percent of organizations know they have a skills gap or will have one within the next few years, only 40 percent of employees say their company is upskilling.”

Perhaps, 2023 is the year that CEOs and CHROs will realize that they need to revisit their learning strategies. The traditional way is to consider learning apart from performing the job.

This is the same old notion about innovation — separate from doing the job. Some companies make employees just work, while others (in the laboratory) focus on innovation. These didn’t work well. On the other hand, more innovative organizations asked employees to submit suggestions on how to innovate products and processes. They allow employees to tinker with their processes and find better ways that cut costs and time, save on materials, and produce better products.

I am sure that many HR practitioners know well the following tenets: 1) The best form of development is self-development — you can only lead the horse to the water, but you cannot force it to drink; and 2) the best form of training is on-the-job training — classroom training gives the learner only theoretical knowledge; workers learn by doing the job itself.

Despite these tenets, I have seen training done as a separate facet of the employee experience, often measured in terms of time put into the training, rather than in terms of the impact of the skills learned on job performance. Often, sales training is reported in terms of the number of training hours per employee per year, rather than the increase in revenues generated by the trained salespersons.

In 2023, HR should have more personalized workplace learning where people learn areas of interest that will make them successful in their jobs — hard and soft skills that can make them contribute to corporate goals. The challenge for HR is to reinvent learning methods that will interest the learners and implement learning strategies within the flow of work. Some new and old learning methods include microlearning, micromentoring, and performance coaching.

Purpose-driven organizations

Over the past few years, we have seen a shift in employees’ priorities. The workplace was bombarded with altruistic ideas, with fervor for the care of the environment, for diversity and equity, and for other noble purposes. As a result, the Millennials and the Gen Zs are now choosy about the organizations they want to join. They want to work with purpose-driven organizations and participate in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, where they can achieve their personal advocacy or noble purpose as well.

Even some Gen Zs believe that the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, where automation threatens massive job losses, could lead to more meaningful work — as machines perform repetitive, menial tasks and human work requires empathy, critical thinking, creativity and similar human skills. Even the retired population, who perhaps had the best personal values, could be enticed to return to mainstream employment if “the work matters.”

In 2023, purpose and meaning will likely become a differentiator in attracting and retaining talent. I urge the HR practitioners to revisit their employee value proposition (EVP) and use purpose and meaning to help them reduce the talent gap.

Often, the CEOs drive the organization’s culture. HR must deeply listen to employees and engage them in developing a new organizational culture, and in helping reshape the company’s purpose. When the company’s purpose is connected to diversity, equity, inclusion, environmental, social, and governance goals, and these are synonymous to the employer brand, it would be easier to attract talent.

Organizations today cannot exist purely for profits or personal gain. They must do good, in order to do well — not the other way around.

David Packard is the P in the famous HP brand. In his speech to Hewlett-Packard’s training group in 1960, Packard said: “Purpose is like a guiding star on the horizon — forever pursued but never reached. Yet although purpose itself does not change; it does inspire change. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress.”

Ernie Cecilia is the chairman of the Human Capital Committee and the Publication Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham); chairman of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines’ (ECOP’s) TWG on Labor Policy and Social Issues; and past president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP). He can be reached at [email protected]