McLean and Company published their HR Trends report 2023 last week, and it’s well worth a look.
In the report they detail 5 key trends for 2023:
- Re-examining HR’s role in 2023
- Expanding the employee experience conversation
- Making space for DEI
- Charting the course to HR digitisation
- …and the struggle to close skill gaps
As you’d expect there’s overlap between the 5 trends, but I’m going to start by looking at ‘expanding the employee experience conversation’, and share some of the key findings and take-aways.
First up, there’s some great news if you’re looking to make the ‘case for change’ for EX. It’s no surprise to hear that employee experience is associated with more favourable organisational outcomes. But the report adds some really compelling evidence to the growing body of evidence for EX. The findings show that organisations that are high performing at designing the employee experience, are also much more likely to report high performance across multiple measures. This includes DEI performance, innovation, and workforce productivity.
The findings also show that those organisations who are high performing at designing great employee experiences report lower stress and burnout. Again, this probably won’t come as a surprise, and I’ll be writing a blog in the New Year to explain the neuroscience behind this finding, so keep an eye out for that one.
The report also outlines the opportunities for companies to use the employee value proposition (EVP) to communicate their employee experience. What was interesting to me is that 55% of organisations surveyed don’t have an EVP.
My view is that an EVP is much more than a tool to communicate the employee experience; it’s the blueprint for the employee experience. And those companies that don’t design and then use their EVP are missing a huge opportunity to positively impact the experience their people have. Again, I know this is something that many of you are interested in. So I’m planning to run a webinar on how to design and develop your EVP in the new year. Once again, keep your eye out for that one.
A few further thoughts from me on the other themes identified in the report:
Examining HR’s role in 2023.
Within the report, the focus is very much on the increasing opportunity for HR to step into the strategic space. And how to balance this with the increasing demands on the HR team themselves. While I don’t disagree with any of this, for me re-examining HR’s role is all about shifting into the EX space and genuinely putting people at the heart of the design process.
Making space for DEI.
I was shocked to see from the research that only a third of organisations have a formal DEI strategy. This is an absolute no-brainer, and made me question why there are companies out there who still don’t have a formal DEI strategy – if you have any insights let me know. And in addition we know that companies that get it right with DEI are more likely to have higher, and better levels of employee experience.
HR digital transformation.
The need for HR digital transformation is long overdue; the opportunities are vast when it comes HR tech: to fix broken moments, to improve the EX at every level, to free up the HR team from routine admin tasks so that they can focus elsewhere. Bring it on we say!
The struggle to close skill gaps.
What interested me here was calling out the need to recognise the importance of developing first time leaders. This really resonated with some work that we have been doing over the last year to understand how we can support first time leaders to facilitate a great experience with their people to improve their engagement. The report specifically calls out that first time leaders are most proficient in competencies least associated with leadership. This needs to change if we are to improve the EX our people have and see an uplift in employee engagement
Big thanks to the folks at McLean for running the research and sharing the findings in an open forum – the report is definitely well worth a look. Any thoughts and/or reflections on the HR Trends? Get in touch – we love to hear from you.
