20 HR trends everyone will be talking about in the future

Here are 20 trends in Human Resources business professionals will be talking about in 2020. In a rapidly evolving global economy business leaders need to be mindful of these trends.

Permanent Flexibility – The term, coined by Mercer in their 2018 Global Talent Trends Survey refers to flexible work arrangements that are in flow with a modern digital lifestyle. Flexibility involves rethinking how work is done and by whom.

Gig Economy – 1099 to replace 9-to-5. The gig economy will see a large majority of the workforce shift away from full-time jobs into free agent employees. Intuit estimates that by 2020, 40% of American workers will be independent contractors.

Remote work will be even more remote – SHRM finds that globalization will lead to an increasingly diverse workforce, contracted on a per-project basis, oftentimes at a lower cost. You may soon be working with team mates nine or 10 time zones away.

English continues to be dominant in international business – When companies merge and acquire each other at a global level, English remains the de-facto tongue. In fact, it is spoken by one in four people in the world. English is natively spoken in over 60 nations. Interestingly, when Nestle, the Swiss chocolate company enforced English as a company standard, it saw greater efficiency improvements in purchasing and hiring.

HR Chatbots – Chatbots are already being used in customer service, IT technical support, and resume parsing. By 2020 we will see a greater reliance on chatbots, especially as a way to aid employees with the onboarding process. The challenge? Putting together a Frequently Asked Questions list into a chatbot program. The benefit? In the long run, having a robot field commonly asked HR questions (i.e. benefits, compensation, retirement) can free up HR’s time elsewhere.

 Reskilling of Jobs – Gaps in this knowledge present significant obstacles if workgroups are not up to speed in their digital prowess. For instance, Gartner research shows that 67% of business leaders believe their company will no longer be competitive if it does not become significantly digitized by 2020. Project managers should work with HR departments to appraise job functions, conduct a job analysis, divide jobs into micro-containers, and then redistribute these functions to gig workers (or train existing workers in new workflows). 

Data-Driven HR – HR departments now have a deluge of information available at their fingertips, including employee demographics, recruitment data, and performance KPIs. Using this data, we can make less biased hiring decisions, reduce adverse impact, and promote employees with a higher likelihood of company loyalty. Too much data can cause confusion or “paralysis by analysis.” Worried? That’s your common sense kicking in. Check in with team mates when a candidate seems too good to be true. The best HR leaders leverage data, yes, but they still check in with their gut. When your instinctual guttural reaction defies the data we recommend looping in another decision maker or adding another step in the selection process. Realize that data, at the end of the day is imperfect – play it safe!

Automation and A.I. – Much of the hiring process has become automated, and accordingly, devoid of scrutiny. Search engines, applicant tracking systems, and email automation have in some ways commoditized the job search to a simple keyword match. Candidates that know how to game the system have an advantage over individuals who are honest, but don’t know the tips and tricks Applicant Tracking Systems use to screen incoming candidates. Your best bet when trying to hire a rockstar/unicorn? Look in your network and not on job boards says the Undercover Recruiter. Employees hired through referral are hired 55 percent faster than those who come through a career site. They also stay longer and have greater job satisfaction!

Continuous Performance Management – Performance Reviews used to be a once-a-year occurrence which determined an employee’s annual raise. This dreadful experience was carried out seriously and with highest formality. No longer.

As jobs continue to become more autonomous and decisions get made from the bottom up, companies are realizing that 1-on-1 meetings between manager and employee help move projects along faster. Management shouldn’t be a bottleneck but an enabler. As such, most managers conduct weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one meetings in order to prevent bottlenecks from happening.  SHRM, 2018 celebrates this shift away from the once-a-year performance management process.

Incentivized Healthcare – “Corporate wellness programs aren’t just being used at shiny big companies like Apple. Organizations are seeing the value in leveraging healthcare to both lure talent and streamline a costly expense.” -Evan Tunis of E&M Global Insurance.

Organizations that encourage their workforce to be healthy showed lower rates of absenteeism and turnover, and showed higher rates of engagement and productivity.

Greater Disposable Income – Low cost technology and easier barriers to entry for lifestyle brands on social media will make it cheaper to create customized niche products. Over the next decade, a growing middle class will greatly increase the number of consumers purchasing unique products. Already the United States has an average personal disposable income of $3,258 per month.

Universal Basic Income – Universal basic income would provide all citizens of a country with a given sum of money. Small pilots and experiments have been tested in Ontario, the Netherlands, Finland, and Italy, with varying degrees of success. Critics argue that it would be too expensive to implement and would create a disincentive to work. Proponents, however, believe that it could be cheaper in the long run, and would counteract the effects of poverty, promoting creativity, entrepreneurship, and global trade. We believe that the will of the public will determine whether universal basic income remains a utopian dream, or a feasible undertaking. If enough people wish to eradicate poverty, we will.

Slack & WhatsApp overtake Outlook – Teams will naturally gravitate to the most easy to use communication tool on the market, even if that tool is not an approved communications channel. E-mail chains on Outlook and G-mail have become inefficient and impossible to sift through, with many workers preferring the group based messaging available through apps like Slack, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. HR can choose to go with the flow, and tap on to the channels used, or try going against the grain to promote standardized channels.

On the Job Training becomes standard – New employees used to take the first day (sometimes even the first week!) learning about the company before they could actually perform the job. Employees in 2020, regardless of their job function, will be expected to get hands on as soon as possible, putting additional pressure on HR to get new hires onboarded as fast as possible. Possible avenues for on the job training include gamification, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality.

Shrinking HR Teams & Outsourced HR – HR Trend Institute 2017 predicts that the number of jobs in HR will decrease as the level of automation increases. For example, the work that talent sourcers used to do is now being performed by search engines and applicant tracking systems – the role has been automated to a simple software purchase. Similarly, the need for customized, flexible, by-the-hour, outsourced HR solutions has risen sharply.

HR becomes involved in strategy – A 2017 Forbes article headline read: Why Every CEO Should Give HR A Seat At The Table. They described the shift happening in Human Resource departments worldwide. With a transient workforce, a lack of clearly defined structure, and a bottom-up approach to project management, CEOs and CFOs alike need to leverage the expertise of their HR department when making projections, opening up new revenue streams, or deciding to shrink and expand operations.

Smartphones & Tablets > Laptops & Desktops – Intuit predicts that “smartphones, tablets, and other mobile computing devices will become the go-to computing devices for most of the world.” We think they’re over-emphasizing a developing trend here, but regardless, the rise in smartphone and tablet use present a growing worry for HR and IT administrators working in sectors like finance and healthcare where compliance and privacy are paramount.

Individuals become brands. Brands leverage individuals – Anyone can create a brand on social media and gain renown, practically overnight. As the lines blur between the real world and the digital world, brands and individuals will morph together into a term known as “brandividuals.” Candidates with strong social media followings will have greater leverage in the job interview, since they can take their network anywhere. Internet celebrities (brands in themselves), will partner with companies that have a similar audience overlap with their target market. Similarly, companies will leverage the social networks of individuals in order to gain relevance in the younger market. Takeaway: When follower counts become the scorecard of success, how will HR make fair hiring decisions?

Personal Accountability – Got a problem? Google it, don’t bother me with it. When facing a problem, how often have we heard the term: “Just Google it.” The phrase “Just Google it” is an easily quipped invitation to figure it out for yourself.

Whether it be the simple setup of an e-mail account or the creation and management of a job posting online, employees will be expected to know how to navigate the digital environment. [Blue-collar workers included].

Managers simply won’t have the time to micromanage every detail of their workers’ jobs. For the sake of saving onboarding time, HR Technologist even anticipates that employees will be expected to BYOD, or “Bring Your (Their) Own Device” into work. Managers will expect new hires to show personal initiative and demonstrate the formulation of intelligent questions that drive projects forward, not waste the intellectual capital of their brightest players for the sake of keeping the laggards up to speed.

Ironic that in an age where we are more interconnected than ever, each individual will be expected to run asynchronously and autonomously. Without question, the biggest trend we anticipate happening in 2020 is the acceptance of personal accountability as the office norm.

Concluding Thoughts

Employees that will thrive in the economy of 2020 will exhibit a do-it-yourself attitude.

As we rethink how work is being done, traditional 9-to-5 work will be replaced by an on-demand marketplace of contract-based specialists.

HR leaders will be more taxed than ever as they attempt to hire the project managers that will bring these projects together. Slowly but without fail, the digital world will overlap more with the real world. Workers will be expected to know how to research their own information, and stretch their skillset as the need arises, or risk being displaced. Luckily, a renewed emphasis on cultivating an organization’s talent will mean talented Human Resources professionals skilled in identifying talent will be highly sought after.

We anticipate that the best HR leaders will be welcomed at the strategic boardroom meetings – even though each member in attendance may be a talking head on a virtual monitor.

Source: https://kleinhrsolutions.com/20-hr-trends-everyone-will-be-talking-about-in-2020/

Ymerali: The respect of the employees rights within the Headhunter

Invited in the morning show “Mirmëngjes Shqipëri”, in the public Albanian television, co-administrator of The Headhunter, Eranda Ymerali, talked about some of the problems faced the most in the labor market, when it comes to the employer-employee relationship, based on the Work Code and contracts.

Mrs. Ymerali, human resources expert said that the employee should pay more attention to his rights and obligations to the employer.

She mentioned an example related to The Headhunter policies, when it comes to signing a contract with an employee. “Our policy is to give enough time to the employee to read the contract before signing, we leave him alone for 15-20 minutes in one of our offices, because not everyone has the information needed.”

Continuing with the discussion, the conversation also focused on dismissing employees for political reasons.

“In the private sector, there are less dismissals based on politics and in this case the relationship is 100% regulated by the Work Code”

Anyway, there are cases when scandalous contracts are signed. 90% of them violate the Work Code. There are also cases when only one written copy is signed”, and not two as required by law, said The Headhunter representative.

Mrs. Ymerali put the emphasis also on a case where the companies deal with violations of the contract by the employee. “There are employees, who, without respecting the years predicted by the contract, create enterprises identical with the ones they used to work for, therefore, damaging the companies they worked for. In this case, the companies have all the rights to take the case to court and win it.”

Lastly, about the efficiency and the way of working in Albania, asked if the Albanian employees can be considered as “not so dedicated” to work, Mrs. Ymerali said that “In the Balkan Countries, there is a tendency to not be automated with the job and this is not a phenomenon we can only find in Albania. In Albania, there are cases when the employee works 44 hours, but with low performance, and this is also influenced by the social and economic development of a country. Albania will move forward, things will get better, but it takes time. Individuals should realize that work is responsibility, not just 8 hours to pass time and get a salary. The employee should not abuse with everything he’s been given.

Ymerali: Steps to avoid contract “surprises”

Invited in the morning show “Wake up” in Top Channel, The Headhunter Co-CEO, Eranda Ymerali talked about reading or not reading job contracts from employees or employers.
The TV show hosts put the emphasis on the fact that nowadays there is a decrease in the attention paid to what is being signed and in most of the time contracts aren’t read.

About this phenomenon, Ymerali emphasized that: The candidates appreciate the good news, but forget about the rest of the things. They must keep in mind that by acting this way the enthusiasm might be over soon and things might not always be the way they started.
To avoid any unpleasant unexpected situation, Ymerali advised that “When someone is informed that they got a job, the parties should at least sit and spend at least 15 minutes together. So, if one should read a spacious contract that reflects the work code in detail, such thing doesn’t take longer than that.

You can ask your employer question about unclear issues, continued Ymerali. The main article is the one about the salary and the employee has the tendency to pay attention to the salary and ignore the other parts. But there are other details one should be careful with, if personal data are correct or not. We must have the personal number as an identification number, which doesn’t change, meanwhile the ones from ID or passport change.

Asked about how you can make an employee read the contract before signing, Ymerali presented the standard used by The Headhunter.

The method we apply in our office is that we leave the employee alone in the meeting room without any pen around. 15-20 minutes are enough and after this one of the company representatives sits with the candidate or employee, to explain in detail every part of the contract. About the technical details, it is very important for the pen to be blue.

Faced with the concern that the new generation in Albania and abroad does not read, Ymerali added: “It is a general tendency of us as Albanians, maybe inherited by earlier generations. It is very important in this case that it should be the employer who should inform the candidate that they should read every part of the contract, positive and negative since the beginning, to avoid surprises. The contract isn’t too long; it is drafted using simple language, excluding those cases when the employer is trying to deceive the employee. If we talk about a fair relationship from which both parties want to benefit, the employer is there to explain and should help and the employee should use the work code, to refer and check if an article or a certain word is expressed or not exactly as in the work code.

USAID’s representative visits The Headhunter’s offices

USAID’s representative for Albania, Mrs. Cate Johnson paid an informal visit to The Headhunter’s offices in Tirana. Accompanied by her colleague, Mrs. Zhaneta Shatri,  Mrs. Cate Johnson met the company staff and was also informed about the project’s performance so far by the project director Mr. Besart Kondi, and technical support expert Mr. Elton Ilirjani, who is also the company founder.

Mrs. Johnson was very enthusiastic about project implementation and its perspective and put emphasis on the directing team’s motivation, assuring her about the project’s success.

People first project will train 2000 young people, who will get a genuine professional in tourism sector and will make sure to put focus on women and vulnerable social groups.

The project will take place in four main touristic areas in Albania, such as Korca, Shkodra, Vlora and Durres.

The hotel in Dhermi is already chosen, and it will serve as a Tourism Academy where the most talented candidates will put to practice the knowledge gained during the training, serving to real clients.

Also, the curricula that will be used to train and certify the candidates is already developed by the best sector experts.

Trainees, will gain the knowledge by Vocational Training Centers, also in private restaurants and hotels, and The Headhunter has signed an understanding agreement’s with more than 100 of such companies, focused on employing all trainees, something that all companies included are interested in.

Mrs. Johnson also said that Albanian youth are the ones who make her feel full of hope and the country’s future should be focused on them.

Symbolically, project director Mr. Besart Kondi and USAID’s representative Mrs. Johnson cut a cake, with the project logos on it.

Mr. Ilirjani thanked Mrs. Johnson for the support and showed her The Headhunter’s inspiration from the United States, where The Headhunter lately created its new branch.

Mrs. Johnson said she is ready for her maximal support for the project’s progress.

Mrs. Shatri meanwhile put emphasis at the fact that the financial support USAID has given is because it believes in The Headhunter’s expertise and both have agreed that this project should continue through the years to have a big impact on employment encouragement. 

U.S Department of State cites The HeadHunter’s Index

In its annual Human Rights Report, which is conducted for each state, the US Department of State, regarding the LGBTIQ community situation in Albania, has cited the Employment Equality Index organized by The Headhunter in May 2016, the first time event of this kind in Albania and Southeast Europe in general.

Since there is only one week that The Headhunter successfully organized for the second consecutive year this Index in Albania, this time significantly increasing the number of businesses participating in the survey, as well as the attention given to it by the international factor and local media, this news is a tremendous encouragement to move forward to broader, locally, regionally and further, this initiative, in support of the rights and non-discrimination of the LGBTIQ community.

This problem is a deep and serious wound of the Albanian society and it is enough to adjoin it, in order to understand how real this is. In fact, it was enough for the founder of The Headhunter, Mr. Elton Ilirjani, to repeat for the second consecutive year publicly that he was proud of being gay, that on various news portals, but also on the facebook page of the United States embassy in Albania, many commentators, in many cases anonymous, but in many other cases by identifying themselves with name and surname, showed hatred and homophobic unprecedented comments against LGBTIQ persons. This, once again emphasized the great importance and need that exists to do much more for the cause in question.

Below you can find what exactly is written in the U.S Department of State report on the situation and rights of the LGBTIQ community in Albania:

Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, including in employment. Through August the government’s commissioner for the protection against discrimination received five complaints from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals and organizations. Enforcement of the law was generally weak. In May the Council Of Ministers adopted the National Plan of Action for the LGBTI 2016-20, and in August an order of the prime minister established the National Group of Implementation and Coordination to implement the action plan. The action plan seeks to improve the legal and institutional framework for protecting LGBTI persons; eliminate all forms of discrimination; and improve access to employment, education, health, and housing services.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are among the classes protected by the country’s hate-crime law. Despite the law and the government’s formal support for LGBTI rights, homophobic attitudes persisted in private and public life. Public officials sometimes made homophobic statements. NGOs reported that families evicted LGBTI persons from their homes during the year. Through August the country’s first shelter for evicted LGBTI persons, opened in 2014, accommodated 12 individuals.

On May 14, activists participated in the fourth Tirana Gay (P)Ride against Homophobia, a short bicycle ride on Tirana’s main boulevard, and Albanians witnessed the first television spot on family equality rights. As part of a “diversity festival,” activists organized other activities, such as the public recognition of 30 persons who supported the LGBTI cause. Police ensured activists’ safety during the events. In May the job placement company Headhunters Albania released an LGBTI employment equality index rating the compliance of private companies with recruitment laws that protect sexual orientation. The index of 71 companies indicated that 62 percent had inclusive human resource policies but only 3 percent specifically addressed nondiscrimination of LGBTI job candidates.

Training about health and safety at the workplace by The HeadHunter Group

The HeadHunter Group started from 4 October 2016, a training program which would be developed in the six months to come, within the biggest Port Authority of Albania, the Durres Port.

The program foresees different training sessions with more of 400 staff and managers of the Port, about the health and safety at the workplace.

These training sessions are an institutional duty for the public sector, according to the Albanian law.​

The success continues, 15 more stewardesses in Kuwait

The successful collaboration between The Headhunter and MECCTI related to hiring stewardesses for the prestigious international flight company Kuwait Airways continues.

In the selection process organized in The Plaza Hotel in Tirana on March 12th, from around 70 participants from Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, 15 best ones were selected.

The girls underwent physical and English tests and now 15 of them will move to Kuwait, where they will undergo a 3-month training that will give them the skills needed to become flight attendants.

Around 3 months ago, The Headhunter gave this opportunity to a considerable number of girls from the same countries, which are now at the end of their training and ready to start the flights and give a kick-start to their career.

The key that will open the doors to any job/ Elton Ilirjani’s inteview for Monitor magazine

Elton Ilirjani, founder of The Headhunter Group

What profession has been the most requested during 2016?

There have been a number of professions actually, which have been very requested. Starting from the ones that require high qualifications to the ones with average and low qualification. There aren’t many job seekers looking to get hired in the private sector in jobs such as engineers, mechanics, plumbers or carpenters. These professions, being very rare, cause the ones who work in these positions to be overloaded with requests or to be self-employed, so it is not necessary for them to be part of the job-search market. Most requests from job-seekers are for positions such as lawyer, human resources specialist, but also for drivers, cooks and especially for call centers, which, although are high in number, are always part of new employments.  We also face a number of requests from students from law or social sciences, who are not clear what job they should look for. This year many girls expressed their wish to become stewardesses abroad. We recruited 20 of them only in the last month and we will recruit the same number or even more during February.

Which profession has the most job offers?

Sectors such as marketing, finance and banking always have something to offer. So, the ones specialized in accounting or finance with knowledge on marketing, have a higher probability to be employed. As said lately by Bill Gates, “Top three skills of the next five years will be the ones who have basic knowledge about informatics, mathematics and economy”. You don’t have to necessarily be a software developer or system developer, but, having some understanding on these fields, will be the key that will open more and more “job doors” in the future. Anyway, we shouldn’t leave behind craft works, because being a plumber, a carpenter or an electrician today is also a good chance to get a job.

Which professions have the highest salaries?

The ones with high qualifications and experience surely have the best economic treatment. Prestigious international companies, which are our clients or our partners, offer higher wages compared to the market or compared to what Albanian companies of the same profile offer.

What is your prediction for the job market for next year?

Next year will be undoubtedly better for the job market. Our company is looking to train through our project “People first” which has already begun, financed by USAID and Sweden government, 2 thousand young people and women, focused on the tourism sector. Hotels, restaurants and touristic bars where experts will train them, will be the first ones interested to hire these youngsters.  We will be the intermediaries and we will work focused on achieving maximal employment of all the trainees. Tourism is undoubtedly the future of economic stability in Albania and we’re going this way.

Most required professions in Albania for high and average levels

1.Economy/Finance
2.Information technology
3.Marketing
4.Programme developer
5.Digital
6.Engineering
7.Mechatronics
8.Production/Chemical industry
9.Design
10.Services

(Note: This is a list created by the recruitment companies’ orientations and not by a proper market research.)

Average salaries for some of the professions

Financial chief –  3,000-4,000 euros

Finance specialist –  800-1,000 euros

Human resources director –  1,500-2,000 euros

IT engineer –  1,000-2,000 euros

Civil engineer –  10,000 euros

Mechatronics –  1000 euros

Cuisine chief –  800-1000 euros

The HH breaks through the Bosnian market for flight attendants

The successful collaboration between The Headhunter and MECCTI related to hiring stewardesses for the prestigious international flight company Kuwait Airways continues.

In the selection process organized in The Hotel Europe in Sarajevo on April 16th  2017, from around 40 participants from Bosnia and Hercegovina, 14 best ones were selected.

The girls underwent physical and English tests and now 14 of them will move to Kuwait, where they will undergo a 2-month training that will give them the skills needed to become flight attendants.

Around 2 months ago, The Headhunter gave this opportunity to a considerable number of girls from the Bosnia and Hercegovina, which are now at the end of their training and ready to start the flights and give a kick-start to their career.

The HeadHunter, now in Texas USA too

The Headhunter group, starting from January 1st 2017, does not only have a regional profile, but has now moved its activity to a global level.

Starting from the date mentioned above, The Headhunter has legally registered its branch in the United States of America, marking this way, maybe a unique case for an Albanian enterprise, taking its activity and being physically present in an inspirational country seen as a bright light of making business worldwide.

Now with “The Headhunter Karriera, LLC”, The Headhunter will start its activity in Houston, Texas, as a limited liability company.

After its branch in Athens created not long ago, with its reach as far as USA, one can surely say The Headhunter is making a dream come true, “The American Dream.”

Congratulations for this achievement go to the founder of The Headhunter, Mr. Elton Ilirjani and also to the never-tired and dedicated staff of this company.