1. Up to a few decades ago, the term ’human resources’ did not exist. Recruitment, compensation and training was done by individual departments, and there would be a small ’personnel department’ that was responsible for clerical jobs such as keeping staff records and processing the payroll.

• The situation has changed dramatically, mainly because jobs nowadays involve higher levels of knowledge and skill, and qualified labour is in short supply. Incresingly, the modern company sees its human capital – its employees – as one of the most important assets, and most large companies today have an HR strategy. But it is still often true that HRM is seen as having lower status than other areas of management.
• Work-life balance
  • Work-life balance refers to the level of prioritisation between personal and professional activities in an individual’s life and the level to which activities related to their job are present in the home.
  • Work-life balance is a topical issue due to the increased amount of technology that removes the importance of physical location in defining the work-life balance. Previously it was difficult or impossible to take work home and so there was a clear line between professional and personal.
  • The increase in mobile technology, cloud-based software and the proliferation of the internet has made it much easier for employees to be ‘permanently’ at work, blurring the distinction between professional and personal. Some commentators argue that smartphones and ‘always-on’ access to the workplace have replaced the authoritarian control of managers.
  • Stress is a common feature of a poor work-life balance. In the information economy mental stress has been identified as a significant economic and health problem, causing by a perceived need of employees to do more in less time.
  • A key issue in the work-life balance debate is where responsibility lies for ensuring employees have a good work-life balance. The general feeling is that employers have a responsibility to the health of their employees; apart from the moral responsibility, stressed-out employees are less productive and more likely to make errors.
• Wellness management
  • A program intended to improve and promote health and fitness that’s usually offered through the work place, although insurance plans can offer them directly to their enrollees. The program allows your employer or plan to offer you premium discounts, cash rewards, gym memberships, and other incentives to participate. Some examples of wellness programs include programs to help you stop smoking, diabetes management programs, weight loss programs, and preventative health screenings.
  • Wellness programs are provided to employees as a preventive measure to help avoid illness while improving and maintaining the general health of the employees. This can be accomplished through education, communication and a supportive work environment.
  • Typical benefits in a wellness program include smoking cessation, weight loss, stress management, company gym/workout rooms, recreational programs such as company-sponsored sports teams, medical screenings and immunization/flu shots. Also included are educational safety and accident prevention programs that provide information and guidance on topics such as back care, cancer prevention and AIDS awareness, as well as proper eating and exercise habits. All of these benefits can be administered within an employer’s employee assistance program or could be stand-alone programs.
• Employer branding: Employer branding is the process of:
  • Positioning or promoting an organization
  • To a desired group of talent/professionals
  • As an employer of choice

And employer brand is a company’s reputation in a job market as an employer. The need of building a strong employer brand is more than ever. As it has a direct impact on hiring, talent retention and ultimately company’s reputation, c-suite executives need to apply strong focus and consistency to establish their employer brand. The process of building a strong employer brand is concerned with

• Attracting the best industry talent
• Engaging and retaining talent
• Balancing the rewards and benefits offered to employees in return for their performance
• Identifying unique policies and programs to demonstrate a company’s commitment to employee well being and growth
• Sustaining the brand as a living identity
• Showing strong commitment towards people

Here are the fundamentals of employer branding that every organization can lay its focus on to achieve their goals:

1. Transparency:So is the pressure on organizations to disclose information related to employee happiness level, labor relations, employee engagement, community development, environment impact that it’s providing unparalleled transparency into organizations. Moreover, advent of social media has led them to publish scenes behind the screen, offer details of events and happenings and exposing their initiatives.
2. Momentum:It’s important to continue to work towards it to move in an upward direction. Employees of great workplaces take great interest in how enthusiastically it is working towards keeping them happy.
3. Well Being:Identify unique opportunities to ensure overall well being of employees at work. Being at work is stressful for almost everyone. Organizations need to look into how they can place more value on both physical and mental health of employees.
4. Additional Perks and Benefits:The millennial generation is demanding an all-inclusive workplace, as they spend more and more time at office. In such a scenario, day care for their children, schools and universities, family events, paid time off can be a part of their compensation structure.
5. Rewards and Recognition:Companies recognizing the contributions of their employees and rewarding them are considered the best places to work for. This makes it clear that employees are propelling companies to recognize their efforts and provide them with employment growth opportunities.
6. Culture of Fairness and Diversity:Most companies claim to be ‘equal opportunity employers, which indeed they are not. Develop a culture of fairness, justice and equality while simultaneously ensuring that your workplace is as diverse as possible.
7. Women Empowerment:The best workplaces in the world have more than 25% women in executive management positions. Plus, these companies take initiatives to ensure their safety, teach them self defense, grow them as leaders and help them pursue alternative career options.

• Gig economy: Due to the large numbers of people willing to work part-time or temporary positions, the result of a gig economy is cheaper, more efficient services (such as Uber or Airbnb) for those willing to use them. Those who don't engage in using technological services such as the Internet tend to be left behind by the benefits of the gig economy. Cities tend to have the most highly developed services and are the most entrenched in the gig economy. While not all employers tend toward hiring contracted employees, the gig economy trend often makes it harder for full-time employees to fully develop in their careers, since temporary employees are often cheaper to hire and more flexible in their availability. There is a wide range of positions that fall into the category of a "gig." For example, adjunct and part-time professors are considered to be contracted employees, as opposed to tenured or tenure-track professors. Colleges and universities are able to cut costs and match professors to their academic needs by hiring more adjunct and part-time professors.

Trends from the past years

• No more performance reviews
• The org chart is fading away
• Talent everywhere
• Detecting and selecting the best
• Rewards: less external benchmarking
• From individuals to teams to networks of teams
• Man-machine collaboration

Trends for 2018

• From PTB to EI: Previously, HR has focused too much on pleasing top management, and forgot to develop one of the other key roles: Employee Champion. The tide is slowly turning, from PTB (please the boss) to EI (employee intimacy). Really understanding the wishes, needs and capabilities of employees is getting more important, and this employee intimacy is required to design relevant employee journeys.
• Renewed focus on productivity: In the last years, there has not been a lot of focus on productivity. Traditionally, capacity problems have been solved by recruiting new people. But when you need many people, it is difficult to apply very stringent selection criteria. Because you compromise on quality, and because if you grow you generally need more coordination mechanisms (often management), productivity goes down. When focusing more on productivity, the benefits for the organisation and the employees can be big. You need to hire less people, and the potential of the employees is better used. People analytics can help to determine what the characteristics are of the best performing people and teams.
• Power to the people (or: Bring your own everything): Many organisations are still used to work in a top-down way. In those organisations, also HR finds it difficult to approach issues in a different way. Performance management is a good example. Changing the performance management process is often tackled as an organisation wide issue, and HR needs to find the new uniform solution. In line with the trend called “the consumerisation of HR” employees are expected to take more initiative, being tired of waiting for the organisation and HR, and wanting to be more independent of organisational initiatives. Many teams primarily use communication tools as WhatsApp and Slack, avoiding the officially approved communication channels. HR might go with the flow, and tap on to the channels used, instead of trying to promote standardised and approved channels.
• The end of fixed jobs: The Tayloristic organisation, where everybody has a clearly defined and assigned job, often does not work so well. Especially when the assignments are not so clearly defined, more flexibility is required. The jobs become more flexible, and employees get the opportunity to craft their own job, to make the best fit with their wishes, needs and capabilities. Some organisations go beyond job crafting. When there is an assignment, there is a process to look at the capabilities (qualitative and quantitative) required for this specific assignment. The wishes, needs and capabilities of people connected to the organisation are known, or captured as part of the process. A team is established, where the availability of people and the requirements of other teams must be considered. Teams are not build of people with specific fixed jobs, but of people who have specific skills that are needed to deliver the assignment.
• Learning in real time: The learning domain has been slow in using the opportunities offered by technology. Big chunks of material are divided in more digestible small pieces (micro learning). Employees will have easy access to learning material when they need it (just in time). Knowledge and skills can be learned in a playful manner (gamification), and VR and AR learning solutions make learning more real (and fun). The learning experience can be tailored to the individual capabilities and needs of employees. A challenge will remain to monitor and measure the performance of people, to be able to find (or design) the most appropriate learning solution.
• Hospitality and Service: HR operations has been highly undervalued. In HR services both IT and hospitality are important. Organisations that measure how employees experience their journey, often find that employees are not very happy with how they can find relevant HR information (often on the intranet). A top-notch HR service centre is very important for a positive candidate and employee experience. 24/7. Friendly chatbots that help employees and managers. High level professionals that can help when the programmed processes do not offer a solution and when the issue is too difficult for the chatbot.
• Shrinking HR teams: Most HR professionals will work in HR services. The number of jobs in HR services will decrease, as the level of automation increases. Top HR professionals will be needed in HR services, and on a high-level HR architects can (and should) play an important role in the transformation of organisations.
• Letting go: One of the trends which was labelled previously: “A more organic approach to talent management”. Planning and control are overrated. Most talent management programs cost a lot of money, and do not deliver on the high expectations. Talent in many organisations often starts initiatives without any corporate involvement. The main task of the corporate team is to stimulate and not to stop these initiatives, and not to force them to a global approach immediately. An interesting organic approach.

 Video 1: The future of work