The workplace is versatile and has seen significant transformations throughout history.
Before the 20th century, HR didn’t even exist as a concept. It wasn’t until 1901 when John H. Patterson, leader of the National Cash Register Company, created a new role to deal with employee lockouts and strikes, which he called “personnel.” Equivalent to today’s human resources, these people were in charge of record keeping, employee compliance, workplace safety, etc.
It means that more than a century ago, an employer realized how vital it is to have someone take care of their employees’ needs.
Nowadays, the necessity for quality HR is paramount, particularly after the latest abrupt shift in the concept of work. Faced with lockdowns and labor shortages, companies had to adapt quickly to accommodate workers with better conditions. Otherwise, they would risk losing their leading employees to competitors that reacted swiftly to this new and diverse workplace.
In the post-pandemic era, we now strive for environments that promote diversity and dignity at work, care for the workers’ physical and mental well-being, and allow flexibility through a four-day workweek, remote employment, or a hybrid work model.
How well a company executes this largely depends on its HR team, which further expands its role in the current workplace.
According to a McKinsey report, HR leaders should facilitate positive changes in these three key areas:
- Identity, or helping businesses find their purpose and clarify its meaning, value, and company culture. Organizations that know what they stand for can enhance their economic performance by creating long-term value and increasing employee engagement and customer trust.
- Agility, or helping businesses and their employees leverage speed and simplicity to improve performance and employee satisfaction. HR can help shift to a less traditional workplace by adopting new organizational models, creating a flexible workforce, and introducing next-generation performance management.
- Scalability, or using innovation and learning resources to reduce the skill gap. The role of the human resource department is to provide the means for transformational reskilling and upskilling of the workforce.
Seeing how hybrid working requires new policies, digital tools, and even new skills for the organization’s HR and employees, it’s safe to say that HR is heavily invested in building a new workplace.
Employees have unique needs, and a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work. Therefore, it is up to the human resource department to review the consequences of a potential workplace model shift, evaluate the economic impact, and find ways to update existing policies. That is, of course, without negatively affecting areas like recruiting, onboarding, performance, motivation, career growth opportunities, etc.
So, their job is to maintain a strong culture while digitizing everything or hiring and retaining the best talent and trying to lower costs for the organization.
It seems like an impossible mission.
That only points to how important this job is and that it takes a qualified person to do it. Falling short in any area could result in failure to fulfill the requirements of the post-pandemic workforce.