And just like that, another year is upon us!

As always, with each New Year come new trendsetters, new movers and shakers, and new label-pushing ideas that drive progress. And, as with every year, some trends roll over, evolving as markets develop.

Each year we recap on the successes and failures of the past twelve months, and look ahead to new opportunities - and 2024 is tracking to be an epoch-changing year.

As the world begins the slow move away from economic insecurity, we find ourselves on the precipice of a New Normal - the age of AI, and understanding the true scope of digital illiteracy in the workplace. Coupled with that are the compounding effects of legions of workers demanding fairer workplaces and improved DEIB strategies, and the ongoing impact of the c-suite isolation. It’s never been more critical for HR leaders to be at the vanguard of these changes.

Staying Ahead Of The Curve in 2024

Leaders need to be emboldened to continue to think outside of the HR box, to use emerging tech rather than fear it, and to utilise the unique skills of a multigenerational workforce.

However, understanding what trends will drive the future of work is one thing - understanding how leaders put these trends into practice is the key to success. To help you on your way, we have put together some great examples of the top HR trends and predictions of 2024, and have provided some actionable tips on how to put them into practice.

As you can see, there is seemingly no end to how HR will evolve in 2024. Everything from leadership strategies to emerging AI, investment in skills, diversity, ethics, flexible work, it’s all there in the mix, being churned up as the HR world spins.

But if you look closely at each of the above HR trends, you’ll see there are some commonalities we all agree will have an outsize impact in the coming year.

1. Leadership and Management Development

The very best HR leaders understand change is inevitable and should be embraced. As research from Visier shows in their piece The New Rules of HR, change doesn’t need to be a technically-driven revolution. It can be as simple as changing perspective.

As Paul Rubenstein, Visier’s Chief Customer Officer says, “Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) must understand human performance, engagement, and productivity in combination with business data to meet today’s complex challenges”.

In 2024, HR leaders will be more than people leaders - they have to be intimately engaged with business strategy outside the rhythms of People Management to understand the context of their work parallel to the c-suite.

However, according to Gartner’s report on the Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2024, “73% of HR leaders confirmed their organisation’s leaders and managers aren’t equipped to lead change”.

To fix this, David Green prioritises empowerment of People Leaders, acknowledging their rising workloads - “75% of HR Leaders say that their managers are overwhelmed by the growth of their job responsibilities (89) while more than 50% of managers report feeling burned out”.

And with what Bernard Marr rightly points out, we need to be thinking of management and leadership development in the context of the next generation – but not just the next generation of leaders, but the next generation of the workforce. Culture Amp’s own research supports this, as they stress that “the generational power balance is shifting in our workplaces” – placing a significant importance on developing current and future leaders on regaining the trust of the demographics entering the workforce. This is especially true as reflect back on the current state of the ongoing mass resignations across the globe and ever important role of psychological safety in effective hybrid working teams.

So, from rebuilt habit management and pipeline adaptation to re-purposed workflows that hinge on unique manager skills (rather than expecting every manager to lead the same way), there are a raft of possibilities on offer that can truly revolutionise what it is to lead in 2024.

2. Organisational Culture and Hybrid Work

If you think flexible work is dead because a suite of bosses wanted people back in the office, think again. The age of hybridity has only just started.

Consider the points highlighted in David Green’s article on his prediction for HR opportunities in 2024:

•  “Eight out of ten CHROs say they have no plans to decrease the amount of remote work in the next 12 months”.

• “Since the pandemic, 90 percent of companies have embraced a range of hybrid work models”.

• “Most employees now work remotely over 25% of the time”.

All coupled with the fact that in October of 2023, nearly 30% of all paid days in the US were Work-From-Home days.

We now work in an era where HR leaders are the prime of place to lead how the entire organisational structure of a company develops in light of these changes.

HR leaders should use data and analytics to set better expectations in regard to role development and performance. This will also reduce a “one size fits all” approach to cultural development, and create what Visier calls an “increased certainty”. Indeed, when their research shows “One third of those companies enforcing office returns are having a tough time recruiting new employees”, it’s more vital than ever that we all put in place real organisational change that meets the needs of new employees.

David Green’s input on this focuses on “humane leadership” - centring wellbeing and personalisation of services at the core of people and business management - “building a fairer, healthier, and more humane organisation isn’t just the ‘right thing’ to do for the workforce, but that it drives business success too”.

Of course, it’s easier said than done - Gartner quotes that “47% of HR leaders don’t know

how to drive change to achieve the desired culture”. But does the fix lie in creating more meaningful experiences? Culture Amp continues this frame of thinking by highlighting how creating “commute-worthy experiences” is vital in maintaining team creativity and momentum.

Bernard Marr considers the impact of team cohesion and effective management in the era of hybrid working, which Mercer also focuses on as a high priority in their piece 5 HR trends for 2024: what can you do to stay ahead?, especially the idea of leading with a flexible mindset.

In summary, creating sustainable organisational change to workforce planning, career handling, office use and performance has to take stock of a variety of inputs such as tech, retention strategies, and employee listening - many more of which we highlight below.

3. Technology Integration and AI

Now we’re onto the real trend meat - AI, and the frontline of tech development.

It’s no surprise that every referenced piece of research above highlights AI (including generative AI) as the big horizon-changing shift of 2024. But AI isn’t culling millions from a career or suddenly closing companies in a mass analogue layoff. AI is changing tasks, not jobs, and helping workers develop AI-safe skills is what will keep people secure and happy in work in the age of AI.

From a productivity, engagement and business success point of view alone, AI is a gamer changer:

• Visier - “29% (of workers) indicate that generative AI tools save them between 30 minutes to an hour daily, while 18% save three to four hours”.

• Unleash - “76% of HR leaders are already discussing how to use AI in the workplace, and 38% are formally evaluating this emerging technology”.

• Gartner - “76% of HR leaders agree they will be lagging in organisational success if they don’t adopt and implement generative AI in the next 12 to 24 months”.

Success, however, hinges on something uniquely analogue in such an exciting corner of the digital HR space - knowing your limits. For example, we encourage every HR leader reading this to ask themselves the following:

• Do you understand the limits of your organisation's human/digital relationships?

• Have you audited the readiness of your workforce for digital change?

• Have you assessed what good change looks like, and do you know how to measure it?

• And finally, do you understand the AI vendor landscape - who’s making what, what does it do, and will it help you?

Start there, and you’ll have a better idea of how AI can help you.

4. Skills-Based Approach to Strategic Workforce Planning

“The number one challenge for transformation is lack of workforce capability and skills, yet only two in five HR professionals know the skills in their organisation” - Mercer, 5 HR trends for 2024: what can you do to stay ahead?

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) requires a tacit understanding that in and of itself strategy means being sensitive to the shifting mores of recruitment and retention of people, and that balancing the full suite of HR responsibility and potential to budgets means taking a long-term look at the processes of SWP.

This includes taking a more skills-based perspective to tech, especially in the age of digital transformation. as Visier highlights “86% of employees said their employer should take at least some role in reskilling to ensure they aren’t easily replaced by AI tools”.

Gartner considers the compelling impact of internal mobility as critical to success, with “66% of HR leaders (agreeing that) career paths within their organisations are not compelling for many employees”.

Creating a compelling workplace culture doesn’t cost the earth - it means attaching meaning to staff and business development and threading that perfect organisational needle that helps both businesses and individuals develop relevant expertise. And as David Green highlights, it means driving SWP from a basis of skills-based hiring and linking larger business goals to HR priorities, which Mercer confirms.

5. People Analytics and Enhanced Decision Making

What good is data if it cannot make an impact?

This is where David Green once again highlights usable intel on how People Analytics create a culture of enhanced decision-making at the CHRO level, which will centre on a revamped relationships between people analytics and CHROs,

“​​Insight222's fourth annual People Analytics Trends study, finds that (People Analytics) continues to grow in importance and influence with 22% of people analytics leaders now reporting to the CHRO”.

People Analytics leaders and CHROs both need to combine a host of disparate business priorities and data sets to drive personalised decision-making. This includes aligning the impact of ethics, data democratisation, data influence and business priorities under the umbrella of organisational transformation and success.

What this means is the best People Analytics professionals provide insight that can be scaled and put into production - which, as Visier highlights, is why so many smaller and emerging companies have a competitive age, as they can use the vast array of hyper detailed big data to create more compelling, incisive business decisions, in a more agile way.

6. Alignment With The Business

Alignment means many things to many people, but at its core, if HR are going to continue and elevate its value and ensure organisational agility then:

• HR and the C-suite need to be more connected.

• HR and Finance need to be more connected.

David Green leans on research by Insight222 to confirm the growing need for HR and Finance to be working in lockstep - “Of the 65 (out of 271 companies) surveyed who confirmed that they had built a partnership with finance, 99% reported that the people analytics team had delivered measurable outcomes over the last 12 months”.

Building a business case for HR analytics shouldn’t be something we have to do in 2024, but alas it will often be a central conversation to ongoing HR budgeting and investment.

The fix lies in telling the HR story using the most clear and obvious tools at your disposal - people and data. This symbiosis is what Visier’s research highlights, and suggests HR leaders shift their people management mindset to “HR as an operating system, not an operating model”.

7. Upskilling HR and the Workforce

The unending upskilling battle will continue to rage into 2024. But it will have its own flavour, coloured somewhat by the changing nature of HR investment, and the light-speed development of AI and new tech.

Bernard Marr’s unique insight on this describes the lay of the land - “Understanding how transformative technologies like generative AI will augment existing roles and what human qualities and abilities (strategic thinking, complex problem solving, creativity, emotional intelligence) are needed to complement machines”.

Human-Computer interface development will have a huge impact on how workforces reskill and upskill in the age of AI, as will general computer literacy and the ongoing evolution of UX/UI as digital natives take up more and more leadership roles. But when “44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted by 2028”, upskilling should be rightly pushed to the top of the investment portfolio priority list.

8. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB)

A pillar of the post-pandemic Great Resignation ecosystem was workplace equity - fairer working conditions, more work-life balance, better representation, and more inclusive workplaces.

In 2023, we felt that unlocking the power of DEIB was a key focus for HR leaders in the year ahead, utilising a mix of tools like analytics and sentiment analysis to improve hiring measurables.

So where do we stand now? Well, for all the hard work we’ve all done to bring DEIB to the fore, there is still work to be done, as per Visier’s research below.

There is a real risk of DEIB strategy losing focus. But remember - a company with a mature culture of diverse hiring, founded on an inclusive workplace, has a profoundly positive impact on everything from company performance to ESG. And as David Green reminds us, the majority of workers believe DEIB is a good thing and the business case for it is clear.

“Research by Insight222 found that in 2023 – for the third successive year - DEIB is the area where people analytics is adding the most business value”.

2024 should be the year we advance DEIB, maintaining momentum and driving positive change forward.

In short, stay the course - taking our foot off the gas now would represent a critical failure in long-term workforce planning (WFP) and improving opportunity for underrepresented communities.

9. New Approach to Staff Engagement and Retention

To top off our list, there are a host of new approaches to staff engagement that will define the year ahead.

2023’s unique economic hardship was a catalyst for some of the largest workplace walkouts in a generation in the UK, France, Germany and the USA, and widespread skills shortages continue to plague multiple industries.

Bernard Marr brings this shift from passive acceptance of poor working norms to action over the last few years into sharp perspective - “In 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers increased by nearly 50 percent over the previous year”.

Research via Unleash shows that performance and productivity have taken the top priority spot for 2024 for HR leaders, taking the crown from engagement. But in the hybrid era, you cannot have one without the other. Engagement is hard-coded into every facet of an organisation, and 2024 is the year this comes to fruition.

In 2024 we need to be driving productivity (and happiness) through real, meaningful engagement by strengthening the personalisation of employee experience through what David Green highlights as his 12th opportunity for HR to nurture the listening organisation. However, as Unleash highlights, “(do) not (just) focus on metrics from employee surveys, but also sharing employee stories to really drive home what the data means to executives”.

To that end, there should be a relationship between HR, staff and leadership that is built on ethical leadership, pay transparency (as Culture Amp rightly highlights) pay gap reporting, and, as Mercer highlights, worthwhile recognition.  

That linking of engagement to business and personal outcomes is critical. Chi Tran, Mercer’s salary survey and data business lead, describes this evolution perfectly.

“What worked for a pre-COVID workforce is not going to work anymore…Retention will be a focus, which means prioritising employee benefits around career paths, reskilling and upskilling. We also see employers putting a larger proportion of remuneration budgets into variable compensation, which can be adjusted in line with business performance”.

HR Trends for 2024 and Beyond

As that muse of HR leaders everywhere, Hung Lee, says in his piece 7 trends that will define HR in 2024 for Culture Amp,

“The employee experience cannot be understated – for many organisations, this will be a cultural revolution”.

Implementing novel strategies after the economic disruption of 2023 is going to be incredibly difficult, and buy-in across your organisation is key. By taking note of the above, we believe HR teams can ensure their organisation is taking a proactive approach to workplace performance, happiness, engagement and, critically, the retention of great staff.

And with that, here's to 2024 - a year of immense possibility!

Unlock the Potential of your People Analytics Function with Insight222 

At Insight222, our mission is to make organisations better by putting people analytics at the centre of business and upskilling the HR profession. The Insight222 People Analytics Program® is your gateway to a world of knowledge, networking, and growth. Developed exclusively for people analytics leaders and their teams, the program equips you with the tools, insights, and connections you need to create greater impact.

As the landscape of people analytics becomes increasingly complex, with data, technology, and ethical considerations at the forefront, our program brings together over one hundred organisations to collectively address these challenges.

Insight222 Peer Meetings, are a core component of the Insight222 People Analytics Program®. They allow participants to learn, network and co-create together with the purpose of ultimately growing the business value that people analytics can deliver to their organisations.