Top HR Strategies to Help Your Business Find Success in 2019

The turning of the calendar marks an excellent time for people and businesses to examine the events of the prior year and plan for the new one. When it comes to setting your company on the path for fresh victories in 2019, recognizing and implementing these trends in HR strategies will be key. G&A Partners has analyzed current workplace developments and assembled 6 crucial areas that deserve your focus and attention in the New Year.

1) Align HR Goals with Company Goals

HR and the C-Suite should communicate more directly and openly about 2019 business goals. Start by identifying the differences between what the company wants to do and what it should do. For example, a lofty sales goal is wonderful, but to accomplish your goal, you either need to already have the right people on your team or active plans to recruit and hire them as promptly as possible.

From there, the company should look for specific instances where the goals being set can directly incorporate, involve, and impact employees. You want your people to feel that their day-to-day work matters to the long-term direction of the company. Ideas include:

• Engagement Score Improved
• Trainings Completed
• Advancements Achieved
• Acknowledgments Increased

More than ever before, employees want to feel a tangible connection with the big-picture company goals, as this gives them value and purpose. HR must work with leadership to put this in place.

2) Improve the Recruiting and Hiring Process

Our digital world has made the process of looking for a new job very employee-driven, but the actual hiring process is still dominated by the company. A recent KPMG survey showed that a full third of job applicants developed a negative view of a company simply because of the application process.

In 2019, companies should explore HR strategies that streamline their hiring processes wherever possible. The point is not to lower the barrier for entry, as businesses still need to hire great people. Instead, they should use this time to showcase why they’re the right fit for the applicant – not the other way around.

3) Realize that Culture Fit is More Important than Talent

One of the leading HR strategies for 2019, businesses should focus more time on hiring the right people for the job, especially in terms of how that person matches company culture. People and personality are increasingly seen as more important than skill sets and resumes.

Obviously, you want to find a great employee who’s talented, a hard worker, and an ethical person who connects with their co-workers, but you can’t always hold out for unicorns with every role. If an applicant meshes well with your current employees, HR professionals find it easier to train up a person into the demands of the role than hire for the role in hopes they eventually jive with their team.

4) Embrace Workplace Flexibility

A Randstad survey from 2018 discovered that 82% of people like jobs where regular telecommuting is an active possibility. This isn’t simply because twenty-somethings don’t want to keep traditional 8-to-5 work hours. It’s really because technology allows companies to hire people around the globe – even if the home office is in College Station, TX, Denver, CO, or literally anywhere.

Acclimatizing to this trend will help businesses expand their pool of applicants. If a company has roles that truly don’t require the person to be in the physical office to work successfully, they make themselves more appealing to both potential and current employees by creating space for adaptable work arrangements.

5) Gamify Your Training Opportunities

No, we’re not suggesting that businesses invest time, money, and energy into revamping training processes to resemble video games. And no, this trend in HR strategies isn’t wholly reflective of millennials and Generation Z attitudes toward work. Gamification simply encourages companies to understand that many people regardless of age respond more positively toward both a little competition and having their progress acknowledged.

Much like a video game, training regimens should contain rewards at different increments, typically in terms of the difficulty and commitment to the objectives of the training. And by rewards, we mean concepts like branded company swag, bonuses, gift cards, and other such tangible items – along with public praise for a job well done.

In other words, Don Draper’s claim of “That’s what the money’s for,” doesn’t quite hold water any longer.

6) Create New Avenues for Career Development

This is a call for companies to take steps beyond helping their employees reach the obvious next promotion inside the organizational chart. That’s all well and good, but it’s much too linear for today’s workforce, which is simultaneously international, more mobile, and eager for concrete experiences. It requires leadership to be more flexible and personable in how they lead because no single approach will address every employee need.

Some employees would benefit from regular conference attendance that helps them burrow deep into their niche and network with other like-minded practitioners. Others might be generalists who want to touch several projects to gain a strong grasp of how companies operate at a high level. Still more might need old-school mentorship from someone completely outside their field.

What matters is that the company they work for realizes that not all career development is created equal. Businesses can lower turnover and increase engagement by attending to the vocational desires of their workforce.

If these top HR strategies for 2019 reveal anything, it’s that companies are becoming more people-focused, even with across-the-board increases in automation and artificial intelligence. With the workforce becoming increasingly multi-generational – especially as Generation Z begins working and people keep working past traditional retirement age – taking care of your people is more important than ever. As technology helps everyone work smarter and harder, businesses who pay the closest attention to the people behind the technology will find greater levels of success than ever.

Ready to work with an HR partner to help you implement these strategies in 2019 and beyond? Let’s Talk!

For additional information about emerging HR trends to complement these strategies in 2019, check out our video with G&A Partners VP of Client Services, Kim Traylor.