At LACE, we’ve taken a look through an HR lens to explore the key trends shaping the year ahead after two years of significant change. We asked our team to share their top predictions for what HR teams should focus on in 2022—find them below! What do you think? Get in touch and share your thoughts on the priorities for HR professionals this year.

Our top predictions

1. People managers: Talent management capability will continue to need renewed investment as we deal with hybrid working
2. Mergers and acquisitions, market consolidations: Will mean significant additional challenges for People functions as we see changes in business leadership and increased speed of market consolidation
3. Real time payments: We will see this trend taking hold more and combined with the greater awareness and debate on Financial wellbeing we will see this become a normal element of a benefits
4. Digital HR: Leveraging technology to differentiate you in the talent market will continue to accelerate and businesses will continue to focus on where they will be adopting new technologies on the Cloud
5. Employee value proposition (EVP): Clarifying how you will differentiate your employee promise and EVP will never be more important
6. Workforce planning: Building flexibility and agility into HR practices through more robust workforce analytics and management and enabling the business to respond at pace will differentiate leading companies
7. Chief People Officers (CPOs) will move: Building on our survey findings last year, we continue to anticipate significant movement of CPOs throughout the year, as crisis fatigue hits home.

Cathy Acratopulo

If the global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that businesses need a robust wellbeing offering and 2022 will bring an increased focus on more holistic wellbeing strategies, with targeted policies and benefits, addressing the ‘whole person’ (e.g. physical, mental and financial wellbeing). In addition, with unemployment rates dropping (pending the latest impact of any restrictions on the retail and hospitality sectors) and unfilled vacancies numbers rising, candidates hold all the power. I also think HR’s Achilles heel – people manager capability – and the need to invest in people manager coaching and development, will be vital. An HR function is only as effective as its people managers and so setting out a more explicit set of expectations about ‘what good looks like’ with a direct link to individual managers’ performance objectives and measurement should be towards the top of any HR agenda for 2022.

Aaron Alburey

If there is something we can be sure of it is that the new post-COVID business landscape is ripe with commercial opportunity. Cash for growth, as well as mergers and acquisitions, remain underspent and market performances between those getting it right and those struggling has never been more pronounced. I believe this will lead to two major developments: a consolidation in markets, leading to significant talent and people implications for CPOs, as well as continued hybrid working challenges, the implications of new variants for business and the ongoing market change, will lead to a continued and accelerated turnover of CPOs in the market.

My other big prediction for 2022 is the emergence of Earned Wage Access (EWA) technologies and benefits. We believe that the combination of technology advance with the post COVID focus on financial wellbeing will see the acceleration of real-time pay as your earn for employees. This will bring changes to policy, process, etc.

Max Bailey

Hybrid working is here to stay and in 2022 I think the key question ‘how did we manage previously and what are offices really for?’ will continue to be asked by HR leaders. The last two years have shown organisations how there is an importance on focusing on maximising the productivity of the people in your business and with a constrained labour market the need to evolve HR to focus on workforce performance will be high on the list of priorities. With hybrid working we have already seen more organisations focusing on how they can embed new tech, or make the most of their existing tech, into their plans. Now organisations will be looking at how to make the experience as easy as possible for employees. HR tech vendors will focus on providing an integrated experience rather than a large set of tools. That has already seen many organisations look at chasing the Cloud and I see that continuing in 2022, with employers’ attention on how to use and exploit the opportunities offered by the Cloud, without investing in new technology (build yourself a job architecture to make HCM work). As with any new effort to drive new technology into a business, getting the business case right by making your HR systems investment a people systems investment is key, but so too is ensuring that with all the focus on the new/existing tech, organisations and HR teams don’t ignore the importance of getting people processes and data right.

Liz Sanders

It has never been more important for HRDs to be clear on the employee value proposition (EVP) to ensure it is compelling and competitive but, more importantly, gives a real view of the ‘deal’ so the employee experience matches up to the promise. Businesses will have their EVP for attracting and retaining their talent top of the agenda. As people fundamentally think differently about the ways of living, craving independence, personalisation and self-control, employers have a sense of urgency to refresh their proposition taking an imaginative look into personalised experiences, fresh look at reward packages offered and new ideas for connecting all their workforce.

Emma Leonis

This year we need a concerted effort on tackling the experience of the frontline, operational and field-based employees – i.e., the ‘unconnected’ workforce in organisations. How do we best provide HR services to them so that they feel connected, engaged and empowered? I think every HRD recognises the challenge, but with these groups playing a pivotal role in their organisations, we can’t afford to keep putting it in the ‘too hard to solve’ bucket.

Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen organisations fundamentally rethink their approaches to wellbeing, spurred by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. With possibly the most diverse workforce population ever (backgrounds, generations, individuals’ expectations of their employers re: work and work-life), we’ll continue to see a fundamental rethink of support programmes in 2022 – particularly within the benefits area. Traditional benefits models need to be turned on their heads at speed if organisations want to retain and engage their talent, and we’ve seen some innovative offerings in recent months – e.g. Saga’s grandparental leave benefit.

James McLintic

With adverse external factors still impacting businesses, rises in the cost of living, high levels of wage inflation and a shortage of talent available, this will all contribute to rapidly fluctuating business demand. I expect to see even more companies offering remote working where available. This cycle and development to workforce structure, which began in 2020, will last into 2022. I believe we’ll see a number of shifts that HR teams will need to consider. Firstly, there will need to be a sense of ability to respond to those rapid changing needs of the business, so HR services and SLAs should shift as a result (for example, shifting to an emphasis on talent attraction, development and retention). Secondly, I think the need to be able to match up the business demand to supply through better application and greater use of workforce analytics will see more businesses looking at how they can model to plan talent strategies ahead of time. Finally, the rethinking of the HR operating model to deliver employee centric HR services (i.e., employee value chains over process efficiency, utilising virtual teams from multiple geographies, spinning up agile teams to solve business problems), will have an impact on the priorities for HR teams in 2022.

Do you agree with our team? Perhaps you’d like to discuss your thoughts on what we’ll see in 2022? Either way, get in touch with us today – we’d be happy to have a chat.