So, that’s it!
Goodbye 2023. Hello (almost) 2024.
But, as another year passes, what will be on HR professionals’ agendas for the coming year ahead?
Well, to say there’ll be a lot on HR’s plate in 2024 is probably an understatement.
The big macro-level event will – of course – be the presidential election at the end of the year.
Depending on the result, HR policies could well need re-writing, but ahead of all this, all the signs indicate there are more pressing concerns afoot – such as a predicted small, and slight recession. This will happen, argue experts, despite there being a red-hot labor market that’s still showing two job openings for every unemployed worker – the most since the 1950s.
But even if a recession still seems somewhat distant, 2024 will start much like 2023 did – with the ever-present concern about what HR should prioritize next, and whether this is what the CEO wants or what employees actually want.
And arguably this uncertainly is getting worse!
Talk to HR professionals – as Gartner recently has – and it will tell you that leader and manager development and organizational culture are the top priorities on HR leaders’ minds for 2024 – but the answers HR folk seek will not be clear-cut.
Why? Gartner argues that the key trend for next year will be what Mark Whittle, its vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice calls an “unsettled employer-employee relationship” – one that he argues will be characterized by “persistent skills shortage, transformative technology innovations and pressure to achieve operational efficiencies.”
This unsettledness was maybe why 2023 was characterized by so many high-profile strikes.
But according to Gartner, the issue was also about skills. It found 82% of the HR leaders it questioned thought managers were not equipped with the skills/tools they need to lead the change they need to do to get their organizations through 2024.
That’s tough, but to remedy it Gartner argues HR also needs to think outside of the box too – and not simply defer to spending more on development.
While skills investment always sounds like a very HR thing to do in response to a perceived skills problem, HR must resist this urge Gartner argues.
Says Whittle: “Providing managers with more training or more skills does not increase their effectiveness.” He adds: “Instead, organizations must focus on job manageability – making the manager job more manageable.” He adds: “Making the manager job more manageable is five times more effective than skills proficiency in improving manager effectiveness.”
Peter Ayken’s Gartner’s chief of research has even more to say on the matter – claiming “the road to a new model of work, leadership and employee engagement has been a bumpy one.”
He says: “In 2024 HR will combat opposing viewpoints when it comes to the value and importance of flexibility, productivity anxiety, a transformation deficit and pervasive sense of mistrust between employees and employers. HR must,” he says: “consider this current state in planning for broader organizational initiatives.”
Perhaps this message is a sort of rallying call in general for HR professionals to heed the year ahead.
Essentially it’s a plea to the profession NOT to default to what they’ve always done (for doing the same thing expecting different results is….well, the definition of madness) – but instead to think around the problem, and come at things from a new, potentially different perspective.
It won’t be easy. Just below leader and manager development and organizational culture in HR’s top priorities for 2024 is HR technology in third place, followed by change management and career management and internal mobility.
The latter may become increasingly important as HR professionals battle trying to maintain employees’ sense of career progression at a time when there may be limited roles to promote/move them in to.
So what else can we be certain will appear on most HR’s to-do lists in 2024?
Read Part 2 of our preview of 2024 tomorrow to find out.
In the meantime, here’s our round-up of happened this year:
