2023 is officially here! And with each New Year, comes a whole host of exciting HR trends and predictions. These include trends and predictions that may have been rolled over from the previous year, or brand new ones that may take the HR and people analytics world by storm.

And each year we recap on the successes and failures of the past twelve months, and look ahead to the new opportunities that await us. But this year feels particularly momentous, as the world faces a complex set of challenges, including economic downturns, skyrocketing cost-of-living, and a widening skills gap.

Staying Competitive in 2023

Now, more than ever, HR leaders will need to take bold steps in order to address these issues and ensure their businesses remain competitive. They must be ready to think outside the box, harness new technologies and strategies, and develop innovative solutions that will help them manage their workforce more effectively.

With so much at stake this year, HR's ability to drive organisational success through the capitalisation of the latest trends and predictions is a must.

But where to start, when there are so many trends and predictions in circulation?

To help you on your way, we have put together some great examples of the top HR trends and predictions of 2023. We then compiled six key themes that appear prevalent across the board, and have provided some actionable tips on how HR professionals can put them into practice and ensure that they go beyond just being a prediction and become reality.

Visier	HR Trend Institute	Gartner	The Work Innovation Lab	Cole Napper	David Green
1. HR goes to the C-suite	1. Supporting people in response to the cost-of-living-crisis (DEI)	1. Leader and Manager Effectiveness	1. Understanding productivity	1. People data democratisation	1. Tackling the recessions via 'people first' approach
2. Resignation/retention as yin/yang	2. The return of the unions	2. Organisational Design and Change Management	2. Workers will need to rely on new forms of connection to collaborate more effectively	2. Automating people analytics tasks	2. Solving the 'Productivity Paradox' of hybrid
3. Finding company culture in hybrid work	3. Knowledge workers are not the centre of the universe	3. Employee Experience	3. Companies will continue to lean on middle managers	3. Flexible-first - to be or not to be	3. Building the skills-based organisation
4. Lack of data insights gets costly	4. VR makes the metaverse a workplace reality	4. Recruiting	4. Reducing overwhelm will become even more important	4. Best HR tech emerges	4. Generating value with people analytics
5. Talent Acquisition gets an overhaul	5. Solving the productivity puzzle	5. Future of Work	5. Innovation depends on informal connections, which are in shorter supply than ever before	5. Psychological recessions and employee wellbeing	5. Amplifying the employee voice
6. Organisational empathy enters the DEIB chat	6. Watch out for TIA! (Talent Intelligence Agency)		6. Organisations need to reimagine ways to help employees to work across space and time	6. To higher engagement through in-person team trust-building	6 Humanising the work experience
7. Pay Transparency opens up	7. Agile HR role is now crucial			7. Tracking career pathing	7. Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion
8. Effective beats efficient	8. Time To Tackle the 'M' Taboos			8. Predicting mental health challenges	8. Fostering mental health and wellbeing at work
9. Always-on passive and active listening	9. Going Net-Zero			9. Building a financial case for non-core HR	9. Enabling purpose and ESG
10. Data informed ethical transformation				10. Diversity efforts become even data-driven	10. Upskilling HR
					11. Empowering managers, employees and leaders with people data
					12. Redesigning work

As you can see from the above table, which summarises 6 different perspectives of top HR trends and predictions of 2023, there is no shortage of ideas out there when it comes to ensuring the success of your HR initiatives.

However, if you look closely, you'll notice that these trends and predictions have 6 common themes:

1. Enhance the Employee Experience

According to 47% of HR Leaders in Gartner's research, 2023 is the time to take a closer look at the employee experience. This means ensuring employees have access to resources that are tailored to their individual needs, introducing new tools and technologies, such as virtual reality that can help make their jobs, training and onboarding easier, and offering additional perks such as private workspaces and finding company culture in hybrid work.

While all these benefits are great to enhance the employee experience, the challenge for HR is to ensure that these initiatives are connected and have a positive impact on the long-term success of the business.

To fully understand how to design your employee experience strategy, HR professionals need to have an in-depth understanding of the data and analytics that are connected to employee experience.

Just as Laura Stevens, Vice President of Global Strategy, Analytics and Employee Experience at DSM, stated in an episode of the D igital HR Leaders podcast, which aired in 2022:

''Employee experience is essentially about designing solutions and services with the human in mind''.

This means using people analytics tools such as surveys, interviews, engagement measures and more, in order to collect real-time data on employees’ behaviours, needs and preferences. With this information to hand, HR can then use predictive insights to identify areas where employee experience can be improved, and take action to enact these changes.

2. Creating a Data-Driven HR function

Across the board, whether its HR going to the c-suite, navigating organisational design to change management, amplifying the employee voice, or solving the productivity puzzle - data is key.

That’s why, in order to stay competitive, HR needs to become more adept at analysis and prediction of workforce data so it can support the business to make more informed decisions. This can include leveraging AI technologies, creating dashboards that display real-time data insights, and investing in predictive analytics that can help inform future strategies.

However, HR professionals need to go beyond the technical aspects. They must build a data-driven culture within their organisations where employees can understand how data is being collected and used, are comfortable with sharing their own insights, and have access to resources that will help them use analytics in practice.

If not, they risk falling behind. Our Insight222 People Analytics Trends report of 2022 found that out of the 184 companies surveyed, 85% have a CHRO who believe that data is an essential part of their HR strategy.

So, how do you build a data-driven HR function? You need to start by empowering your HR professionals with the skills and knowledge needed to interpret and act on data. Consider investing in people analytics training, as well as creating a team of analytics experts that can help you interpret and make sense of the data before you take action.

Finally, it's important to ensure that everyone in the organisation has access to the same data so that they can make informed decisions. This means breaking down silos, removing barriers between different departments and getting everyone on board with a culture of data-driven decision making.

3. Upskilling HR

Tying in with the previous trend on creating a data-driven HR, regardless of the amount of tools and technologies available, HR will only be as effective as the people behind them. And with Insight222 research finding that only 41% of HR professionals feel confident working with data - it is essential for HR professionals to stay ahead of the curve and develop their skills in line with the growing industry standards. This means upskilling and investing in programs that can help them better understand the data, technology and analytics space.

From gaining a better understanding of the various analytics tools available on the market, to developing a more comprehensive approach to interpreting and visualising data - HR must equip themselves with the skills they need in order to take advantage of today’s analytics solutions. Only then can they truly understand what their employees are saying and use this information to develop better strategies and solutions that benefit the entire organisation.

4. Unlocking the Power of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

From, enhancing collaboration between different teams, to addressing the disparities in recruitment practices, focusing on organisational empathy, to introducing new policies that can support a more inclusive work environment - diversity, equity and inclusion is an area HR must not shy away from in 2023.

To do this, HR needs to start investing in measures that can help them identify issues and areas of improvement. This includes gathering demographic information from employees regularly, using predictive analytics models to assess recruitment practices, and leveraging AI technologies - such as sentiment analysis - to measure the employee experience.

Saying all this, it comes to no surprise that our Insight222 People Analytics Trends 2022 report, Impacting Business Value: Leading Companies in People Analytics, showed that, for the second consecutive year, diversity & inclusion is one of the top three areas where people analytics adds the most value.

If we don’t know how to use data to our advantage in these areas - then we run the risk of not accurately reflecting the needs of our employees, and consequently miss out on opportunities that can help us build a better future, and becoming a workplace that truly fosters growth and inclusion.

5. Building a Skills-Based Organisation

The modern workplace is evolving, and so should the way we think about workforce planning and talent mobility. And as more companies move into the skills economy, it's becoming increasingly important for organisations to focus on using both internal and external skills data to create a skills taxonomy and gain a holistic view of the skill sets of existing employees and potential hires.

This means using data to better understand which skills employees have, what skills they need to develop and where these gaps lie. And with this, HR can build development paths that help identify the most suitable training programs and ensure a more efficient use of resources while motivating employees through personalised learning experiences.

But to set yourself up for a successful approach to a skills based organisation, you need to set the right foundations in place. As Andreas De Neve, CEO and Co-Founder of skills intelligence platform software, TechWolf shares on the Digital HR Leaders podcast:

''The foundation is essentially two things: one is the skills taxonomy, a language for skills that is fit for purpose, that is dynamic and synced with the labour markets, but definitely adjusted for your specific organisation and agreed upon with the business. The second big part is what I would call ‘the inventory of skills’. I think companies should have, before you start adding tools or before you start trying to leverage this skills information in many processes, I think organisations should be sure that they have a high-quality dataset on the skills and skill gaps of employees.''

In short, HR needs to start thinking about how they can use skills data to create a more agile organisational structure that takes into account the ever-changing skills landscape.

For a more comprehensive understanding on how to build a skills-based organisation, sign up to the course on the myHRfuture Academy on: Building a Skills Based Approach to Workforce Planning

6. Fostering Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work

The pandemic has presented numerous challenges to employers and employees alike, and with the rise of the cost-of-living, it is more important than ever for organisations to prioritise mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Whether it be supporting your employees with the ripple effect of sky rocketing food and energy prices, or creating an environment that encourages people to speak openly about their mental health needs - taking the time to understand and address these issues is essential for success in 2023.

But going off pure intuition and guesswork is not enough to ensure that you are addressing the issues of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

By leveraging data, HR can gain a better understanding of how different teams are dealing with stress and build targeted interventions to provide support where it’s needed most. This includes looking at trends in employee sick leave, using sentiment analysis to measure how employees are feeling, and understanding the impact of different wellbeing initiatives.

By gaining a deeper level of insight into employee mental health and wellbeing, HR can create tailored solutions that have an effective, measurable effect. This could include providing access to specialised services such as stress management training and counselling, or investing in an employee advocacy program to create more meaningful relationships between employees.

By taking advantage of the data at their disposal, HR teams can ensure that wellbeing initiatives are tailored to their team’s needs and goals for 2023 and beyond.

Data As The Common Denominator

HR has their work cut out in 2023, but the one thing that remains consistent between all of these trends is data. Whether it’s using analytics to better understand employee skills and needs, or leveraging data to boost mental health initiatives, HR teams need to embrace the power of analytics and start capitalising on these insights to create meaningful results.

Of course, in the digital age that we live in, there are tools and technologies available to help HR teams make the most of their data. From analytics platforms to AI-powered tools, organisations need to invest in technology that will allow them to gain better insights from their data and create more effective strategies for the future.

But no matter how sophisticated the technology, HR teams need to remember that data is only as good as their ability to interpret it. Without the right skills and knowledge, HR professionals will have a hard time translating data into meaningful insights that can be put into practice. In order to stay one step ahead in 2023, HR teams need to make sure they invest in the right people analytics training to ensure that their data is utilised correctly and effectively.

HR Trends for 2023 and Beyond

The 2023 HR trends provide an opportunity for HR teams to get ahead of the curve with data driven insights that will allow them to make more informed decisions and create better employee experiences. By implementing the trends discussed above, HR teams can ensure their organisation is taking a proactive approach to creating a successful future.

So, if you’re an HR leader looking to put the 2023 trends and predictions into practice, start by turning to data. It just may be the key to success in this New Year.

And with that, here's to a successful and prosperous 2023 for all!

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Six Ways to Put HR Trends and Predictions Into Practice in 2023