HR trends in 2024 will transform workplaces by prioritizing employee engagement, diversity, and climate adaptation. Key developments include overcoming productivity paradoxes and incorporating AI to enhance work-life balance.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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HR will raise the standard of work by 2024. This transition is being driven by three fundamental developments, which are generating 11 key HR trends.
First, in order to better meet the evolving needs of the contemporary workforce, HR will reorganize its priorities. Secondly, HR will reimagine its operations with an emphasis on creating value for its internal clients. At last, HR is taking the lead in promoting significant change in the workplace. These changes will set HR on an exciting path filled with opportunities, difficulties, and the prospect of a time when HR will play a major role in improving work for everyone.
Now, using these predicted changes as a guide, let’s explore the 11 HR trends that we have found.
In today’s business environment, the function of HR is changing significantly, requiring a reexamination of some of HR’s established frameworks.
These advances are driven by a variety of factors, such as societal movements, legal changes, global environmental upheavals, and the unanticipated stagnation of a whole HR department.
Furthermore, as technology becomes more integrated into the workplace, it becomes necessary to reassess how we use it to improve worker productivity, incorporate people who have long been invisible, and expand the potential influence of HR.
It is evident from all of this that HR must refocus its goals by 2024.
In 2024, HR will not only be adjusting but also leading the way toward a future that is more inclusive, sustainable, and business-focused.
This brings us to the first four trends in HR.
Over the past 20 years, there have been many shocks, enormous changes in the economy, and technological advances. As a result, productivity has always been a top priority for HR. The US has had the highest job satisfaction in the last 36 years as a result of employee engagement, experience, and wellbeing interventions, yet these factors have mostly had no effect on worker productivity.
The primary reason for the slight increase in productivity is the increased efficiency of manufacturing. Since the 2008 financial crisis, white-collar productivity has plateaued, giving HR a chance to identify causes and develop remedies.
We anticipate HR to make investments in a workforce that is frequently disregarded: the hidden workforce, particularly in this period of record low unemployment when businesses are growing more and more in need of talent.
The “forgotten workforce,” sometimes referred to as the “hidden workforce,” is made up of people without degrees, retirees who wish to work, caretakers, neurodiverse persons, those with long-term health issues (particularly those with lengthy Covid), and ex-offenders. It accounts for 14–17% of all American workers.
These people either don’t yet participate in the workforce but are willing to work given the right circumstances, or they are already in it but want to work more (and are frequently paid as “hourly workers”).
We think 2024 will be the year when this workforce is truly acknowledged.
The year 2024 is designated as the DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) reinvention year.
We’ve come this far thanks to three major changes. First, there is the Supreme Court judgment that invalidated affirmative action, or decisions made based on race in college admissions. Fortune 100 CEOs were forewarned by Republican attorney generals that private corporations will also be subject to this verdict.
Dissatisfaction with DEIB departments is evident at the same time. Employers such as Amazon, Twitter, and Lyft have let go of DEI personnel, and in 2022 there were 19% less DEI job postings than the year before.
By the end of 2022, the attrition rate for DEIB-related roles was 33%, while the rate for non-DEIB-related functions was 21%, according to Revelio Labs’ analysis of the layoff notifications of over 600 organizations.
Employee attitudes run the potential of being negatively impacted by DEIB activities in their current state. According to Gartner, 44% of workers believe that their company’s DEI initiatives are alienating an increasing proportion of their peers. According to 42% of them, peers see their organization’s DEI initiatives to be polarizing and dislike them.
Lastly, it is evident that diversity officers are either self-conscious or do not recognize the significance of their work. Leaders in these capacities need the backing, love, and representation while they’re in the positions not when their resignations make the news, the former Vice President of Impact and Diversity at the Academy said, hinting at some of the struggles that Black executives face in the wake of the exodus of diversity leaders in Hollywood.
Although HR’s contribution to sustainability is still relatively young, it is rapidly taking on greater significance as businesses attempt to prepare their workers for environmental disruptions and adapt to the challenges posed by climate change.
Since companies are becoming more and more dependent on sustainable practices, HR professionals need to change their focus and assume this obligation.
First, laws pertaining to sustainability are evolving globally. To enhance sustainability reporting for EU corporations and any other company doing business in the EU, the EU adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. While the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is developing climate change disclosure regulations, the UK has adopted Sustainability Disclosure Standards for reporting climate-related risks.
Second, instead of attempting to mitigate the effects of climate change, forward-thinking businesses are beginning to invest in climate adaptation.
In order to maintain water quality and control supply hazards near facilities, like Prabhat in India, Unilever has started water stewardship programs. Nestlé encourages intercropping as a way to maintain soil fertility and create supply chains that can withstand climate change. Bayer makes investments in creating seed varieties with increased resistance to wind, flooding, heat, and drought. A significant portion of this agenda falls under HR’s control, and it should aim to assist the company in adjusting to the new climate realities.
Throughout the past 20 years, the corporate landscape and the world have changed, but HR practices have largely stayed the same. HR is frequently set up to provide effective services through defined roles, with specific areas of superiority, client-facing partners in business, and centralized admin teams making up the organization.
But in today’s complicated world, integrated solutions—rather than isolated specializations—are needed to actually bring value. As a result, centers of excellence are combined into areas of solution that have a significant business impact. A distinct value offer and a diverse set of abilities are needed to accomplish this successfully. It will force us to improve our internal and external communication.
HR will also accept the challenges of functioning in the new territory of social connectedness and transparency.
Lastly, HR will take back its own identity. The field of human resources (HR) has developed into one that supports organizational objectives using data, technology, and evidence-based procedures. Still, we tend to think of ourselves as business enablers rather than impact creators. HR’s current perception of itself needs to be updated, and with the following three HR developments, this will happen in 2024.
Business models have changed throughout time to become increasingly electronic and flexible in response to shifting customer demands. Because of this, the popular Ulrich operating model’s functional silos and siloed structure have been questioned regarding its capacity to provide integrated and cross-functional business solutions.
We think that the Ulrich model will eventually give way to a new HR system that better aligns with the business goal of the company. Beginning in 2024, when separate HR services start to combine into comprehensive solutions, this evolution will take place.
Over the course of its existence, the HR function has undergone several changes, including conversions from human resources to human capital, people and culture, strategic partners, and, most recently, employee experience. To genuinely rebrand and realign HR to support and propel business developments, though, a fundamental transformation is required that goes beyond a simple name change.
In the past, HR has not prepared itself to contribute as much as it could have. It has frequently neglected to adopt digital technology, develop skills, and have faith in its own potential to produce value, which has left the department overburdened in terms of transactions and operations.
Attitudes regarding HR reflect this. The majority of C-suite executives—63%—and HR leaders—73% and 76%, respectively—think that their HR team’s primary focus is on procedures. It’s also one of the reasons that HR departments have been disproportionately affected by layoffs recently, and many HR professionals are not proud of the contribution their industry makes to the bottom line.
HR will reverse this in 2024, reclaim its own identity, and embrace the strategic dialogue.
Experiences of employees are becoming more and more visible. HR operates in a glass box, as evidenced by the firings of employees, the live firings on TikTok with over 10 million views, the orders from Zoom, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs to return to the office, and the sharing of onboarding packages by employees with the public.
Internal policy dissatisfaction is also more widely shared. In around five months, Google employees protested not only against union busting but also against layoffs in California, New York, London, and Zurich. They even almost called off drag shows. These instances frequently make headlines without giving much thought to the internal context or the way that information was conveyed to staff members. Still, they influence public opinion.
HR must work with marketing to develop a PR strategy in order to shape and manage the public narrative as increasing ethical and social issues call for an organizational response. Employees themselves are beginning to take on greater active roles and feel more at ease disclosing private information to the public than to their employers through internal channels.
HR professionals are taking the initiative to drive revolutionary changes that benefit their companies and their workforces, especially in light of the tightest US labor market since World War II. HR will lead the way in constructive change in 2024.
Generative artificial intelligence is among these developments. It increases employee productivity and business output, but it also has the potential to affect the significance of our work for us. While the degree of significance that each job offers may vary, we should endeavor to keep jobs from being completely pointless. This change presents HR with a special chance to improve employee habits and generate corporate results.
Here, we observe a shift from competing in a congested external personnel marketplace to internal marketplaces that prioritize advancement and professional development. Businesses will keep accommodating talent by offering the many types of work-life balance that workers desire.
All of this points to a promising future for HR in 2024, when the department becomes a catalyst for important changes in the workplace and uses better people policies to generate business success. This brings us to our final four HR trends.
In 2023, the workforce will be significantly impacted by the exponential rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), such as ChatGPT. By 2024, most firms will incorporate AI into their workforce and operations as they continue to grasp its disruptive potential.
As the distinctions between labor performed by humans and machines become more hazy, a comprehensive strategy to AI in the workplace will become essential for long-term corporate success.
Our fragile relationship with work was exposed by the pandemic, which also exposed the stress and instabilities in our working lives.
After the Great Resignation (2022), which saw 47 million workers leave their jobs voluntarily, there were other options such as quiet resignation, lying flat, and bai lan. This phrase, which literally means “let it rot,” originated in NBA games and describes the decision to voluntarily give up on a goal when one knows it will be too tough to accomplish. These phrases depict a bleak picture of our attitudes toward our jobs and, by extension, the companies we work for.
A contributing factor in the issue is the way that organizations handle and approach work. Alternative work lifestyles are becoming more and more popular. 15% of workers stated that “no amount of money” would persuade them to return to being at work five days a week, while the majority of workers who took part in a four-day workweek experiment stated they didn’t want to go back.
Employee dissatisfaction at work is a hot topic in HR, but firms have been neglecting to address it.
David Graeber introduced socially worthless jobs ten years ago, calling them ‘bullshit’ jobs.
According to earlier studies, 37% of British adults feel that their work does not significantly improve the world. According to a more comprehensive survey that looked at 47 nations, 17% of employees have doubts about the value of their jobs. In a similar vein, another US study finds that 19% of workers believe their professions are socially meaningless.
Additionally, changes in technology are having an impact on the skills and substance of jobs that are necessary to do essential duties. 83 million jobs are expected to disappear and 69 million new ones to be created. Thus, creating meaningful positions that play to individuals’ abilities is essential to staying competitive in a changing economy.
We observe a move away from talent acquisition toward internal advancement and promotion in the historically competitive labor market of today.
Organizations that try to close the skill gap by vying for external talent are left at the mercy of the job market.
In 2024, it will be critical to take a more active and long-lasting strategy that creates new ways to access talent.
This is not to suggest that acquisition is unimportant; in fact, we think that opening up access will help acquisition even more, since talent nowadays requires a lot more than simply an alluring offer.
When applying for jobs, millennials prioritize the following, per Gallup:
Companies have also caught on. As one of the most significant HR trends of 2024, 48% of businesses cite improving talent progression and promotion procedures as essential business strategies to boost talent availability.
2024 will be a pivotal year for HR, with its impact going beyond the conventional boundaries of the role.
In addition to meeting current organizational needs, these 11 HR trends will help HR establish the foundation for a sustainable future. Making these changes will allow HR to establish a workplace where workers flourish and companies achieve their goals. Even if there is plenty of work in front of us, there are huge opportunities for businesses, employees, and society in general.
HR’s unique combination of strategic thinking and innovation will promote strength, development, and diversity. By assuming this enlarged responsibility, HR will lead companies to new heights of performance. There are many opportunities ahead in 2024; HR needs to seize the chance to flourish in this new era of work.
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