With each passing day and minute, HR is progressing and becoming a crucial department for any business. Back in the day, companies did not feel the need to setup an HR department. Now, the importance of HR has been realized and practically no company can function without it.
When a field becomes so important over a period of time, it definitely evolves. This applies to Human Resource as well. The conception of HR truly happened at the time of industrial revolution. Robert Owen and Charles Babbage pioneered the field, proposing the definite correlations between the employee’s productivity and how well they are treated at the job. Followed by the informational era, where factory setups shifted to offices and people required a different treatment and then, the current, social era, which demands completely different HR dynamics.
In the following paragraphs we discuss the more prevalent HR trends now practiced:
Flexible Hours
In the industrial era, employees were set to work for 8 hours. In contemporary times, people have to juggle between personal lives and work therefore more and more people demand flexible working hours and the HR agrees to adapt to the demands as long as the work gets done.
This gives employees the ability to work at their own will and not be fixated on a 8-hour time window. Many companies have witnessed the benefits of these policies and are seeing boosts in overall productivity.
Virtual Workers
During times of traditional factory-line work and the rigid time frame of employees being physically present at the premises of an office, an employee’s usefulness was limited to their physical attendance at a company’s immediate vicinity but times, worldly dynamics and the way the world operates now, have all certainly changed, which means that employees no longer need to be restricted or confined to certain spaces and can offer their services on the go, through the availability of certain equipment and a stable Internet connection. Many of the world’s leading companies with young CEOs and innovators operate virtually and have shifted to virtual employment models, allowing them to hire the best talent from all over the world. Plus, they only have to keep up with a resource till the work gets done which mostly costs less and is a better way to get tasks completed.
Post-Covid Scenario
The pandemic reshaped and redirected the ways the world previously functioned. Including the business dynamic change, communication, the old versus the newly preferred ways of interaction and in fact, the overall perception of many structures that mankind created and was stringently following in the past, changed. This also pushed for reformations Human Resource.
While finding solutions in the midst of a moral-economic quandary, where human lives were stake just as much as the world’s economy, both dependent on one another, the HR got to be increasingly more accommodative of employees and innovative in creating new standards of an ideal work ethic. Moreover, on a global level, employees as well as companies realized that many processes could be carried out more efficiently from the comfort of preferred working spaces, ranging from one’s own home to a professional office environment, to an external location, according to the desired working circumstances of an individual – while also getting to manage health and a secure lifestyle under current global conditions. The HR that we know now would be happy to accommodate covid friendly policies as long as work does not suffer.
Incorporation of Automated Processes
Prior to the pandemic, a lot of HR processes occurred manually, until Covid forced people to become more efficient and the impact was well taken by the HR departments of many businesses. Companies now have automated HR processes that help them ease in many ways. With process automation and virtual hiring, companies can now operate more easily, without the need for having set physical offices, which saves them rent and operational costs.
The HR has evolved greatly, changing the course and meaning of how ‘regular’ HR processes were carried out. Cases and scenarios that might have been an exception in the past have now become a norm. In fact, many companies have now completely outsourced their HR operations to better look after their core offerings.
If your business is struggling with running a smoothly operating HR, explore the options of outsourcing or HR consultancy. If you are a business operating in looking for in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi or Peshawar and looking for HR consultants, contact People, an expert agency in business consultancy and HR outsourcing.
