How Will HR Leaders Measure Success in 2021 and Beyond?

Over the last two years, Covid-19 has created a major evolution in the workplace. In response, HR leaders around the world have shifted the KPIs and metrics used to measure success. Reliable HR metrics can help your organization understand the success of specific policies, procedures, and initiatives. With the right metrics in place, you’ll gain better insight into what’s working and what areas of your organization require improvement. This insight will help you establish your priorities and track future progress. 

Let’s take a look at the most important KPIs for measuring success and adding value to their organizations this year.

Human Resources Metrics vs. KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) and human resources metrics are often used interchangeably, but they are each distinct and equally essential to the success of your organization. At their core, KPIs are the broad business goals of your organization. HR metrics are the specific data points used to help HR leaders determine if they are on the right track to achieving their KPIs.

A recent Gartner survey of 800 HR leaders identified six top priorities:

• Building critical skills and competencies (68%)
• Change management and organizational design (46%)
• Developing leadership through diversity (44%)
• Future of work (32%)
• Employee experience (28%)

Building Critical Skills and Competencies

According to Gartner, “thirty-three percent of the skills that were present in an average job posting in 2017 won’t be needed in 2021.” With the rapidly changing landscape of the workplace shifting to include at least some aspects of a remote workforce for the foreseeable future, it’s important to know where to start and what to include in training programs. Now more than ever, it’s important for HR professionals to invest in the right types of HR training programs to ensure their employees are developing the critical skills and competencies they need to excel in their current positions and into the future.

Change Management and Organizational Design 

As we transition into the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, department managers,  HR leaders, and employees continue to experience the outcomes of a year of rapid change. For those companies quick to respond to the evolving landscape (i.e. hybrid and remote workforces), this process has been less invasive. However, it has proven difficult for large companies with more traditional hierarchies and processes to quickly adapt to meet the needs of their customers.

Moving into the future, HR leaders need to create processes to effectively detect when they are focusing on the right things for their organization and customers. Additionally, HR leaders will continue to shift their focus from designing for efficiency to designing for flexibility.

The Future of Work

Although the future of work is a top priority for HR leaders, roughly only 38% say their organization has a clearly defined future of work strategy. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaped the way we work. The changes we have witnessed in the workplace over the last two years will have a lasting effect on the way we work by accelerating specific future of work trends.  

Whether it’s more employees working remotely, increased use of employee data, or creating new impacts, an organization can differentiate themselves as a quality employee brand based on their crisis response. As we move further into 2021, HR leaders will be shifting their focus on how to respond to future events that impact their business.

Developing Leadership Through Diversity 

After a year of worldwide protests calling for racial justice, to include increased diversity in the workplace, organizations around the world continue to publicly commit to developing and improving diversity and inclusion programs. However, a recent survey indicates nearly half of organizational leaders said their leadership bench is not diverse. 

In order to develop diversity in current and future leadership, organizations must create a clear path to advancement in their corporate climate. By creating robust, growth-focused diversity networks and mentorship programs, organizations will become empowered to better develop underrepresented talent.

Employee Experience

Employee experience has become an increasingly important topic across HR, with 31% of Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) reporting that employee experience is a top priority moving into 2021 and beyond. However, developing and implementing a consistent employee experience has become increasingly more challenging due to the nature of today’s hybrid workforce (i.e. working from the traditional office and remote work). 

HR leaders must embrace and leverage their hybrid workforce model to empower employees and managers to share ownership of location decisions. In doing so, employees will seamlessly switch between onsite working and remote working with minimal disruption to their engagement and productivity.

MenaITech: Helping Your Organization Navigate HR

Although 2021 is likely to provide its own set of unique challenges, it will also offer an opportunity to create new and improved methods for how organizations manage their workforce. By planning ahead and building out your plan, your organization will have the agile systems in place to respond to any future challenges.

At MenaITech, we offer our clients complete end-to-end human capital information solutions and services, including payroll and personnel management, HR dashboards, data and analytics, time and attendance, talent management, and many other services through web-based, mobile, and cloud technology.