Four HR Trends Your Enterprise Needs To Tap Into To Get Ahead The top four HR trends, which, when tapped into, can help your business perform at the peak of its ability.

By now, just about everyone acknowledges the fact that our world is changing at lightning speed. From technology to education to health and even to the way we dress, there is hardly anything that isn't changing. And that includes the world of human resource management. Some changes are liked and embraced, while others create fear and anxiety. How are hiring and retention practices going to change? What will be used and prioritized tomorrow? How are future generations going to change the workplace? These are questions going through everyone's minds in all businesses and organizations. From developments in technology, to the transformation of the modern-day workplace, it's enough to make an employer's head spin.

Hard-copy CVs and traditional tests and assessment centers have long ago transformed into professional online profiles and AI-powered online video assessment platforms. Employers need to start looking into the future, thinking forward and thinking of new strategies that can aid in facilitating a flexible organizational culture that can appropriately adjust to the constant changes of the world of HR, and ultimately make the most out of an organization's most valuable asset: its employees.

Here are the top four HR trends, which, when tapped into, can help your business perform at the peak of its ability:

1. EMPLOYEE ENABLEMENT

People's approach to work is changing. Professionals are now exposed to many new work arrangements and are able to take their professional development into their own hands. However, more often times than not, employers lack the time, tools, and potentially the knowledge, to effectively enable and empower their employees. This can be considered a major drawback to productivity and employee satisfaction, as most of today's workforce takes their own personal development extremely seriously. Seven in 10 respondents to the Bayt.com On-The-Job Training in the Middle East and North Africa Poll state that aside from salary, "training and development opportunities" at work is considered most important factor when considering a job. Also, 91.4% of respondents to the same poll state that they deliberately look for companies with clear training and development programs during their job search and selection.

Many employers have come to realize the importance of training and development for enablement, and have started implementing various dynamic employee enablement strategies. But before any employer can actually start effectively enabling their employees, they must acknowledge the fact that they'll need to utilize an employee-centric approach. Employers need to put their employees first, and foster a culture where employees feel valued and empowered. But most importantly, employees should feel that their employers truly do care about their professional development and that they have the potential to transform their jobs into fruitful careers.

One way of enabling your employees is by simply focusing on feedback. Listen to their input, their ideas, and their contributions, which all funnel in building a stronger and more wholesome strategy. You can do this through the use of structured listening processes such as conducting monthly "town hall" meetings focused on sharing and receiving feedback from all employees in all offices; daily huddles to provide a quick way to update small teams on urgent matters and resolve pending items; and weekly meetings focused on performance of last week, plans for coming week, and any bottlenecks or opportunities or strategy revisions that need to be discussed. Structured communication helps ensure that everyone has a voice and is recognized. This meeting rhythm is an integral part of Bayt.com's internal communication, and we have found it to be very useful for even delivering information to employees across the board.

2. PERSONALIZATION

Employees are becoming more and more empowered by the day. They know what they want. They know what they need. And they expect you, as an employer, to meet them half way. Now, each employee or group of employees can desire different things. So, how are you to cater to their different wants and needs? The answer is simple: personalization.

It is of no surprise that HR tends to implement standardized strategies in their talent management practices, where they focus solely on the wants and needs of the organization instead of that of the existing or prospective employee. When onboarding, for example, employers usually prepare a process where the new joiner can learn more about the company and how things are done there, but give little to no opportunity for the new joiner to engage and give their input.

One great way that employers are starting to tackle this issue is through utilizing online onboarding platforms such as Bayt.com's AfterHire. This tool is specifically designed with the intention of revolutionizing the painstaking process of talent onboarding, and ensuring that newly hired talent are efficiently assimilated to the company, fully productive in their new job roles, and engaged with their new employer and team. Employers can also configure and personalize this process to best suite each and every new joiner's unique situation.

Certainly, personalization goes beyond onboarding and extends to matters like working hours, office space, dress code, type of work and projects, learning and development, etc. Adopting a personalized approach starts with a simple one-on-one discussion between the manager and the direct report, based on the outcomes of which certain adjustments can be made where possible.

Related: AI: The New Engine Of HR

3. EMPLOYEE'S EMOTIONAL WELLBEING

Back in the day, employers and HR managers disregarded the emotional health of their employees at the workplace, and mainly just focused on keeping high morale through monetary benefits and incentives. However, things are changing rapidly; emotional health at the workplace is becoming a hot topic that is gaining a lot of attention.

One way to promote employee emotional well-being at work is through providing your employees with the right type of training and resources to deal with stress, anxiety, and various emotional and mental health issues. Even physical health discussions play an important role in this, as a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

A simple idea that we have found to be useful at Bayt.com is brown bag sessions. These are very popular education and motivation sessions with key guest speakers that can be conducted over lunchtime, with the general objective of empowering the participants to increase self-confidence, communication skills, attitude, morale, wellbeing and work-life success. The great thing about them is that they are casual in nature, and we've had brown bag sessions covering everything from nutrition to creativity.

Employers can also consider offering flexible working arrangement, as wellbeing is not just tied to physical health, but their employees' overall quality of life. By offering flexible working hours, your employees can alter their working habits to fit their lifestyle needs, where they can also focus on things that add meaning to their lives such as family, faith and hobbies.

4. INCLUSIVE HIRING

It is no secret that access to employment opportunities varies greatly by various factors and demographics. But organizations worldwide are working relentlessly in an attempt to try to find a solution for unequal access to work opportunities and the lack of diversity in certain work environments. And they might have just found one: artificial intelligence (AI). It's reliable, it's efficient, and most importantly, it isn't biased.

Employers are determined to have a diverse workforce and culture and have now resorted to AI-backed technologies for their hiring practices such as candidate selection, interview and assessment, and screening tools. These solutions can help in expanding and diversifying the candidate pool to include candidates solely based on their qualification, without taking their gender, race, age, or class into account. Likewise, many companies have been greatly benefiting from the disability self-identification option available on Bayt.com, to help them grant career opportunities to people with disabilities. Such tools can help companies increase diversity, and focus on hiring top talent who can contribute great value to their place of work.

Related: 10 Year Challenge: The Evolution Of Work (And What's Next)