HRviews

Sometimes you decide to let the year end and only worry about the new one when it comes. This was my choice this time…I have been exploring HR trends and things to be mindful of throughout 2011. However, at the dawn of the New Year I realized that most of the predicted trends are probably going to take second place in priority and only a handful will most likely prevail throughout 2012, a year that is expected to be rather difficult.

The shift comes from the fact that more than 80% of organizations have undergone a major restructuring effort, and it’s not over. (as per the Corporate Leadership Council).  Businesses are faced with a dilemmatic situation in which they have to pay attention to both the economic crisis and also their employees. This becomes the number one challenge in 2012 and the question is: will business leaders and HR manage to find solutions to address this? On the one hand, the economic crisis will impose its own risks and limitations and with that in mind, on the other hand, organizations need to find creative ways to maximize employee performance and to focus on retaining and supporting talent.

It might so be that in the next year organizations will hire less, the training and education budgets will be somewhat downsized or temporarily frozen, organizations will focus more on transformation, on how to manage effectively and basically how to do more with less. Although in any crisis situation, the sense of emergency and panic might persist at first, most likely, strategic organizations will find the right model to pull them through this transformation. And as we have seen in the last few years, most success comes from knowing how to blend human change and organization change in the same bowl, rather than one following the other.