What HR Trends Are You Hoping to See in 2012? Share Your Wishlist Here

As this year comes to a close, what trends are you expecting in 2012?

Here's a Wishlist of What Could Be Better:

- A training budget for the HR Team
- Performance reviews beyond the recency effect
- Greater focus on Social Learning without speculating on ROI through a near-term window, but with a long-term benefit
- A "Wow" attitude in our employees
- Business leaders' inclusions, not intrusions, in HR functions
- A think-through attitude, not a think-without, during brainstorming sessions
- Agreed, accepted, and an "owned" goal path, not just a pre-destined one
- Grant us a brain-gain, even through attrition. When we build an alumni network, we mean them
- An honest salary survey
- An Efficiency Dashboard that focuses not just on tasks completed or allocated, but measures the incremental increase in performance and acknowledges the supporting features
- Implementation after a training program, including behavioral ones
- As we design the objectives for the next year, please let them be unanimously echoed by both managers and reportees
- Wishes cannot be all expressed and contained in a list. So please allow us to follow up. We, as HR, mean no harm when we ask for an update or an upgrade :)

Please add on to this with what you feel will take the limelight away!

I totally agree with your wishlist to be achieved by all our HR professionals by 2012. I would like to add some important perceptions from my side; please correct them if needed.

The New HR for 2012

Kick off your electric boots; shed your mohair suit; throw down your magazine. I'm not talking about fighting our parents out in the street to find who's right and who's wrong, but it's time for something ageless. It's time for The New HR for 2012.

10 Tenets for The New HR

1. HR has one job: business success. Anything else is useless and a waste of air. If it doesn't have to do with business, we're not doing it.

2. HR isn't the Complaint Department or your Kindergarten teacher. We're going to teach people to grow up and stop wasting our time like they're 5-year-olds who can't share their toys.

3. We won't accept mediocrity in HR. Human resources cannot be where people go when they can't find meaningful employment. We're going to cowboy up our talent. We want — we demand — the best and the brightest.

4. Nothing is sacred. We're going to critically think about everything we do. And if we hear people saying, "That's the way we've always done it," well... don't make me come over there.

5. We're not in charge of the holiday party anymore. Yeah, that's right. We aren't the social secretaries. We have real jobs to do. See #1.

6. Business is going to want a seat at our table. The time of putting HR at the kid's table is over. You said, "Our business is about our people." Now, with way fewer of them, it's going to be true. Like scary true. Take a number.

7. Rules are for fools. We're tossing out the rule book. We're not hall monitors anymore. We're going to expect grownups to behave like grownups. Or they're gone. Any questions?

8. We're going to make pay-for-performance work. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. So forgive us if we insist that the best people make the most money. It's not a rule — it's a fact.

9. No more workarounds to make up for weak managers. Please see #1. Our job is to make our company work most efficiently. We won't be making up policies to compensate for bad managers. It's either up or out.

10. We're going to put the "human" back in Human Resources. They're not numbers on a spreadsheet or "human capital" that can be traded like a commodity. They're people, with fears and hopes and dreams. And for a few hours a day, they come to our place. We'll make sure that (along with #1) we remind ourselves every day that what we do is about people. Mediocre people = mediocre business. Great people = great business.

Regards,
Ramkishore

Thank you, Ms. (Cite Contribution), for initiating a thought-provoking wishlist for HR. Let us hope our voices reach our management and encourage them to listen to the message we are communicating.

I disagree with your statement, Mr. Ramkishore. We, as HR professionals, need to support our colleagues so that their morale remains high, enabling them to deliver better results for our organization.

Thank you, Mr. Bhaskar. I am not denying your statement. As HR professionals, we need to boost morale in our organizations. I am not saying no to it, right, Mr. Bhaskar? But again, I need all our HR professionals to be business-oriented rather than the old profiles that have been in place for years. Honestly speaking:

1. We need to be business-oriented.
2. Use workforce skills and abilities to exploit environmental opportunities and neutralize threats.
3. Employ innovative reward plans that recognize employee contributions and grant enhancements.
4. Indulge in continuous quality improvement through TQM and HR contributions like training, development, counseling, etc.
5. Utilize people with distinctive capabilities to create unsurpassed competence in an area.
6. Decentralize operations and rely on self-managed teams to deliver goods in difficult times.
7. We need a change in role: Talent shortage is the highest risk for Indian businesses. Recognizing this,
8. We, as HR professionals, want to be enablers of business strategies. We need to make significant contributions to the bottom line through expense reduction, revenue generation, talent management, and risk mitigation. We all know CEOs are demanding that HR stop giving lip service to strategic performance and find metrics that prove they are contributing to the growth and performance of the company through effective people management.
9. We need to be Talent Departments. The most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent – smart, technologically literate, globally astute, and operationally agile workforce.
10. We need planning to be replaced by talent strategies and skills gap analysis. The key to attracting and retaining scarce skills is for companies to be, and be seen to be, a first-tier employer that can meet the needs of high-potential/performance employees.

Regards,
Ramkishore
Proud to be an HR Professional

Thank you, Ram and Bhaskar, for responding to this thought. A request, this is primarily a wishlist through which we will try to identify the trends. We understand the industry as a whole does not acknowledge any wishes, yet it is the need for a change that would drive these trends. The major areas for focus will remain hiring, as seen in the poll. The jobs are largely getting redefined to funnel out a talent pool that can function in multiple roles, such as social recruitment, an addendum to the talent acquisition roles.

Training and Employee Engagement

Other than this, what about training and employee engagement? Attrition is coupled with defects in the training agreement or the employment bond. Employee engagement will identify measures beyond removing such practices. Looking for more thoughts on this.

Regards,

Thank you, (Cite Contribution), for initiating such a thought-provoking wishlist for HR. This will give us an idea of what to do and what not to do. Thanks for your contribution 

I appreciate your view and agree with the point that we are the owners of the systems, closest and comprising of human beings. My wishes reaffirm this and remain focused on better functioning of the systems and processes we are responsible for.

Please point out the wishes that you disagreed with. I apologize for my absence of understanding to cite them on my own. Or did I miss the humor in your words? In either case, I am sorry. Please provide the required clarification to me.

Thanking you in anticipation of your support.

Regards,
(Cite Contribution)

I'll go with option one:

Talent Acquisition: As the Budget Gets Tighter, Hiring the Right Fit Will Get More Challenging

Today's most critical task is to find talented individuals for our organization—not just talented, but those who will be the best fit. Equally important is ensuring that we take the necessary steps to recognize and develop our employees. Otherwise, we risk losing these employees we worked so hard to find as they go elsewhere in search of better opportunities.

Finding, retaining, and developing a superior workforce is becoming a significant challenge today. We always want to hire candidates who can be more successful and effective with the least amount of support. We are working on it but need to be more strategic. Well-written job descriptions and competency models that clearly delineate success behaviors make for effective selection and hiring. Understanding cultural differences in the recruitment process, the selection of candidates, and what motivates employees in various cultures is crucial to organizational success.

That's why one of the most critical tasks businesses face is not only finding talented individuals but finding those who are the best fit for their organization.

Apart from that, we also have to work on the development of the following areas:

- Leadership and Management Competencies
- Development of Succession Processes
- Assess Talent Management
- Identify Areas for Individual Development
- Consulting Behind the Scenes for HR Professionals to Support Them as They Serve the Needs of Organizations Even at the Global Level
- Need to Be More Practical with Web Content, Which Is Playing a Really Important Role for Today's HR Professionals Who Can Use It to Sell to, Train, or Explain About and Be a Better Business Partner
- Certification for HR Professionals in the Administration and Use of ITAP Tools and Services
- Act as Temporary Staff to Supplement the Capabilities of the Existing Professionals

Thanks to Ms. (Cite Contribution) for raising this and to all other members who have contributed on this.