Employees’ search for more: What HR trends reveal

By Toni De la Harpe, GM of Employee Experience and Enablement at Nando’s South Africa

Toni is the General Manager of Employee Experience and Enablement for Nando’s South Africa, a wife, and mother to three children. As the employee experience and enablement GM supported by an amazing team of specialists, Toni is the lead responsible for the development and implementation of the learning and development strategy. 

Change was always a constant, but the current rate of change faced today is unprecedented. Already in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the greatest challenges for leaders were the pace of change and the complexity of the challenges faced in the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. Now, the world of work is undergoing a metamorphosis becoming even more unchartered with marketplace competition emerging more quickly and unexpected consequences arising with faster impact. The desire and need for evolution have always been innate and when it is guided by knowledge and the desire to improve, it can inspire us to reconstruct our world or businesses as they ought to be. We need to rethink how we lead our people, organisations and communities, writes Toni De la Harpe, General Manager: Employee Experience and Enablement at Nando’s South Africa.

If in the past there was an unspoken traditional belief that human-centricity comes at the sacrifice of productivity or profit, this has since been disregarded. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the way in which we look at the world has changed. In what has been termed the Great Reset, employee wants and needs have changed, and leadership must keep pace with this. No longer is the traditional concept of top-down leadership viable and fit for purpose. As a collective, we are moving from a digital and virtual age to a personalised age where employees are seeking work to empower them and satisfy their individual preferences. Companies have come to appreciate that the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of employees about their employer matter and can have a causal effect on the prosperity and organisational health of a business. 

Dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’, by distinguished professor of Organisational behaviour, Dr Anthony Klotz, many employees left their roles. Inspired to take more control of their personal and professional lives or driven by the effects of the pandemic, employees have flooded the labour market in search of new roles to fill new purposes, a stronger desire for better work-life balance and greater flexibility. This is predicted to continue to be impactful as people search for jobs that provide them with the right pay, benefits and work arrangements. Klotz’s prediction has since been validated by subsequent reports on the global workforce by consultancy firm PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey and Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index. Findings not only confirm the trend but further suggest that it shows no sign of abating with a projected one to two in five workers planning to quit their jobs this calendar year. 

Against this backdrop, adaptive employers must strengthen their talent retention strategies, policies and employee value proposition (EVP), which includes the benefits, compensation, and perks offered to employees. Nowadays, particularly amongst top talent with highly specialised skills, a company’s culture, and its alignment with one’s values can be the defining factor in accepting or rejecting a job offer. Additionally, when comparing job culture to that of 10 years ago, there is less loyalty amongst employees to their employers. More than before, employers need to do everything they can to keep talent in the company for as long as possible.

As new employees take up new roles and as the nature of work continues to change, employers need to support individuals in building additional hard & soft skills. As leaders step up to manage diverse and interspersed teams, there is a greater need for the development of soft skills such as emotional intelligence, creativity, adaptability and time management. Additionally, with the retirement of the baby boomer generation, millennials will move from being managed to becoming managers. Millennials have a strong desire for a different approach to development and learning. They actively seek to be engaged which demands more from organisations, while also providing great opportunity to ensure smooth transitions of leadership. Investing in various methods of soft skills training for all, results in an increase in leadership potential, satisfaction in the workplace, and work performance.

Employees want to feel appreciated and recognised. More than ever before, mental health and wellness are core to employee engagement. Affected by the pandemic, globally people have experienced a decline in mental health. People are facing increases in stress and anxiety and are emotionally exhausted. While employees may have risen to the occasion to deal with the pandemic, we may still see and feel the long-term implication for years to come. Standard employee assistance programmes (EAPs) will not be enough to support employees. This is a leadership challenge and organisations will need to create cultures and environments that support the mental and physical health of their people. For organisations, tackling the well-being of their employees not only lower levels of employee burnout, anxiety and depression, all while boosting trust, innovation and resiliency, but it also translates into higher performance and retention. 

While employees are seeking personalised experiences of work, fairness and equity will remain a core focus. Debates on which fairness is at the core are prominent in society, emerging on a variety of topics such as race, gender & climate change/sustainability  Generation Z and millennials value diversity and as such, will push for these strides in business. Achieving gender equality will become more important, not just linked to fairness but also because it is directly linked to growth. Workplace gender equality is associated with increased organisational performance, enhancing organisational reputation and ability to attract and retain talent.

Rethinking performance management and recalibrating KPIs in the wake of hybrid and flexible working is important to success. With the increased use of technology in the workplace, organisations can utilise this to drive data-driven dashboards and tools that automatically capture and analyse data while building capacity for leaders to engage rather than monitor their teams. If the need for adaption, learning and growth has become more prominent in organisations, then employees should be rewarded for these behaviours. Performance will be linked to the creation of environments of psychological safety, trust, and transparency – aspects that are being identified as an employer’s most valuable currency. 

These are but a few notable human capital trends and maintaining a motivated, engaged and content workforce is a mammoth endeavour. Practising consistent communication, investing in future development and constantly re-evaluating traditional metrics and policies allow us to stay abreast of undercurrents, align with global best practices and be better in tune with our organisation’s pulse. Finally, to succeed we must appreciate that learning is a lifelong process and the unknown brings great opportunity. 

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