The HR management field is transforming quickly due to global demography, advanced technology, and increasing focus on employees’ health. Historically, HR practices emphasize compliance, payrolls, and reasonable minimum employment benefits. However, today’s employee wants more from an employer – he wants to be treated as an individual, wants career growth, and, most importantly, wants to work in a healthy organizational culture.

The focus of Human Resources Management has recently shifted towards meeting and managing such needs, playing a central role in attracting and maintaining organizational staff. In this article, a shift in the paradigm of HR, gaining knowledge of the employees’ needs, is discussed, and potential solutions for increasing the employees’ level of engagement and possible consequences of such a change are considered.

1. The Shift from Transactional to Transformational HR

“The conventional end view of HRM is that it is a clerical activity whose primary role is to execute clerical responsibilities such as recruitment, selection, and termination, among others. However, there is a new trend in the transformational approach to human resource management, which is based on understanding all the employees’ needs and adjusting the HR department’s activities according to the company’s goals. Hence, we must look at transformative HR, which incorporates creating organizational structures and conditions that enhance the performance of employees,” says Brett Gelfand, Managing Partner at Cannabiz Collects. This approach makes the HR professionals become organizational change agents responsible for championing high employee experience and satisfaction levels.

2. The Importance of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is a crucial determinant of organizational performance. Jeremy Biberdorf, CEO of Modest Money, said, “Engaged employees tend to work harder, do not think of quitting their jobs, and help create a religious working environment. HR professionals must learn about and comprehend what makes employees tick and what they require to engage. Examples include flexibility measures at the workplace, such as work-from-home privileges, training and development, reward systems, or organizational culture.”

Engagement is crucial in this case because it will assist HR in ensuring that employees are committed and enthusiastic about their organizational roles and vision.

3. Personalization in HR: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

A multicultural workforce that characterizes today’s workplaces means employees are as diverse as the company’s products or services. “Employees are unique in their character or work roles, seniority levels, and personal conditions at the workplace. Personalization of HR refers to providing solutions that seek to meet the unique personal needs of the employees. It can include individual career management programs, a special menu of benefits, or more working conditions,” says Graham Grieve, Founder of A1 SEO. From this perspective, called SWOT, HR can identify each worker’s needs and contribute to making the workplace more tolerant and diverse.

4. Leveraging Data to Understand Employee Needs

Using data analysis in managing human resources makes this tool an effective way of managing employee needs. Aleksander Nowak, Research Analyst at Highticket.io, asserts, “The human resource management professions can better understand what makes employees tick next to the gaps that require shoring up by gathering and crunching data on employee behavior, benevolence, and productivity. Methods such as questionnaires, feedback applications, and performance analysis help to quantify the results attained by employees and changes in the strategy accordingly.” Using analytics assists in identifying the necessary adjustments regarding the fulfillment of the staff’s demands, determining new tendencies, and managing possible risks and failures.

5. The Role of Employee Feedback in Shaping HR Policies

Surveys and other forms of feedback are essential since they help to get insight into what the employees require and what they expect from the workplace. “Employee surveys, one-to-one meetings, and suggestion boxes help collect employee satisfaction information and identify problems. This feedback will be helpful for HR in developing policies and initiatives that fulfill the needs of the employees. For instance, if the employees of an organization require more training and development programs, HR can bring fresh plans like training programs and or mentorship programs,” shares Vladimira Ivanova, Psychologist at The Diamond Rehab Thailand. HR can effectively make the organization more responsive and adaptive to employees’ needs simply because they pay attention to and act on it.

6. Supporting Employee Well-being and Mental Health

Overall, wellness has become essential in managing people at the workplace as organizations seek to promote their employees’ physical and mental health. “Realizing the well-being needs of employees entails availing resources and appropriate necessities within the workplace that you are employed in ahead of time to enhance the balance between your work life and other activities. Such measures may include employees’ mental health support, providing opportunities for professional counseling, health promotion programs, and work schedule accommodations,” says Robbin Schuchmann, Co-Founder of Employ Borderless. Thus, HR has the potential to bring change to reduce burnout, enhance morale, and build personal and company sustainable well-being.

7. The Impact of Technology on Understanding Employee Needs

Technology is quickly changing the role of HR professionals in how they approach and deal with employees. “Technology empowers HR to obtain and process information faster regarding analytics tools and automated employee service platforms,” says, Shamsul Duha, CTO & Digital Marketing Expert at CarrierBagShop. Some ways that technology has improved the employee experience include virtual reality training, chatbots, which help answer queries from the human resource department, mobile applications for benefit management, and others. As such, by adopting technology, HR can offer timely and relevant practical solutions to the new and emerging needs of the workforce.” says Scott Dingman, CEO of Structured Settlement Company

8. Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

So you, appreciating the needs of employees is a never-ending process and thus needs to be institutionalized. “This practice means that HR should periodically update the strategies depending on the feedback given, performance indicators, and any changes in the workforce. It is through this approach that the success of HR initiatives implemented is checked so that they can continue to meet the needs of the employees,” says Gerrid Smith, Chief Marketing Officer at Joy Organics. A culture of improvement allows an organization to be flexible and prepared to meet the landscape changes regarding issues or opportunities. It indeed supports the employees but, at the same time, is also a recipe for the sustainability of the business.

Conclusion

A more comprehensive HRM approach that recognizes employee requirements is crucial in forming a healthy organizational culture. Translational human resource management needs to be adopted by organizations to achieve decent levels of Workforce engagement, motivation, and productivity, which can be enhanced through the adoption of data as well as personalization and well-being strategies that are fundamental to the enhancement of this kind of HRM.

Given this viewpoint, it can be argued that the role of HR is a never-ending process of learning and adaptation to discover new ways in which the organization can not only be responsive to the changing needs of its employees but also work to surpass expectations simultaneously. Thus, it is possible to bring organizational success and maintain a favorable organizational climate for every employee.

Guest writer.