Pre-pandemic, many companies and organizations did not have the same focus on HR as they do presently. The quality of one’s HR impacts everything from a company’s stability and employee experience to its revenues. A lack of attention can harm growth, success, and reputation.
The ultimate responsibility of HR is to attract the best talent for the roles selected, build a positive work culture, and foster strong performance. This is not always easy, however. Here are the most common HR challenges and solutions.
Challenge #1: 1. Inability to Attract Top Talent
There is competition for the best talent. How you manage talent acquisition is key. Finding suitable candidates is easier said than done, but a company should constantly search for and hire talent for what they need.
HR Solution: Benefits Package
A competitive compensation and benefits package is necessary to secure the right talent. More than that, search for how to offer employees a meaningful experience working with your organization. Communicate your brand, mission, vision, and values. Work with an HR consultant to produce an appealing benefits package.
Challenge #2: Retaining Employees
If you are struggling with employee retention, this is evidence of a big problem. You’re losing critically skilled workers, and replacing an existing employee can cost double or more their salary. In addition, you’re investing time to train them, lowering work productivity and negatively impacting morale.
HR Solution: Retention Incentives
If you have this issue, figure out why employees are leaving. Consider what you can do to retain employees, such as flexible schedules, wellness activities, employee development and advancement programs, and providing positive feedback and recognition.
Challenge #3: Implementing Organizational Change
Handling structural, procedural, managerial, or geographical change within an organization can be a massive HR challenge. Employee morale can tumble. Employee resistance, lack of training, or poor management may exist.
HR Solution: Introduce Change Gently
The solution to implementing any change is to communicate early, frequently, and transparently before, during, and after. Be gentle in introducing change and ensure you equip your employees correctly to live with and overcome change as it’s about to occur.
Challenge #4: Managing Diverse Ages, Genders, and Ethnicities
Diversity in any workplace is important, yet it is a major issue brought forth in HR consulting by many organizations. Conflict can arise between employees of different ages, genders, nationalities, ethnicities, or backgrounds.
HR Solution: Awareness
From an HR perspective, awareness of this is key. Developing the resources to resolve conflicts and team-building can lead to natural integration between employees of different cultures, uniting them under your organization’s banner.
Challenge #5: Skill Gaps as They Apply to New Technologies
New tech comes along. New projects do, too. Employees may lack the skill to do the work or to provide value like they once did. This can result in poor performance, morale, and skill gaps.
HR Solution: Upskilling
To solve this, HR can focus on upskilling and reskilling, investing in the employees you already have by allowing them to learn new skills and competencies. Leverage training platforms and elements to deliver efficient reskilling projects, ensuring the new skills will provide your organization with value.
Challenge #6: Struggling to Build a Positive Work Culture
Maintaining a positive work culture can be a full-time job, generally. Conflicts can arise from job responsibilities, between employees, and also outward to external stakeholders.
HR Solution: Engagement
HR has to be engaged, listen, and be aware of what’s happening at all organizational levels. The earlier conflict is resolved, the better, and the more you can divert that energy into improving employee experiences, ensuring they’re feeling productive and valued, and building the organization’s culture from the ground up.
Challenge #7: Lack of Engaged Work Performances
Some employees lack engagement because the job is not challenging, is repetitive and dull, or lacks rewards. Disconnected employees waste productivity and can be a problem for others.
HR Solution: Recognition
Firstly, make sure employees feel heard their opinions followed, and make them feel essential. Show recognition of hard work and appreciation. Have open, transparent communication. Encourage an appropriate work-life balance. Treat every employee with dignity and respect.
Challenge #8: Struggling Leadership Refusing Development
Like lower-level employees, top management and leaders may occasionally lead HR assistance. A leader should receive training and learning opportunities, furthering their skills in employer-employee conflicts, making decisions, resolving disagreements, maintaining a healthy work environment, and more.
HR Solution: Innovation
HR must find new, innovative ways of developing and managing a company’s leaders and encourage them to pursue the skills to increase workforce engagement and lower employee turnover.
Challenge #9: Unwillingness to Adjust to New Market Conditions
Some HR executives use the same strategies today as they did a decade ago. The job market has changed and will continue to change. An unwillingness to change with the market will mean organizations falling behind and missing out on key talent they could be hiring or retaining.
HR Solution: Compensation and Benefits
With this in mind, HR has to closely evaluate what it offers in compensation and benefits, optimize how it reinforces a positive work culture, and adjust how it trains and develops its team. Learn how to respond to changing conditions.
