“In 2023 we must inject energy and enthusiasm into the workforce. We seea new movement of people sustainability."

Josh Bersin, Founder & CEO, The Josh Bersin Company

The last few years have been full of challenges on all levels of human society. From geo-political shifts due to war and global pandemic, to changes in the way we work, travel and interact, no aspect of our personal, social and professional lives remained untouched.

In the fields of human resources, work relationships and people development we are still trying to figure out how to function, move forward and thrive in this “new normal”. A source of interesting perspectives on what the near future might bring for HR and the related fields is in the latest report issued by Josh Berzin, an analyst, author, educator and thought leader focusing on the global talent market and the challenges and trends impacting business workforces around the world.

In the report “HR Predictions for 2023” published in January this year, Bersin and his colleagues present and analyse 15 trends that might significantly impact this field in the coming period:

1. A new, multifaceted workforce — diverse, aging, and scarce—will emerge.
2. Jobs and careers will be redefined by the convergence of industries.
3. Every company will get serious and pragmatic about skills.
4. Employee experience will be put to the test by hybrid work.
5. Organizations will move beyond employee experience and focus on “people sustainability.”
6. Every company will need to revisit its leadership model.
7. New models of performance management will take hold.
8. Organizations will seriously revisit their pay and rewards strategies.
9. CEOS and CHROs will increase their focus on wellbeing.
10. Productivity will become an essential measure of employee success.
11. Growth in the flow of work will become a new focus for corporate learning.
12. The role of the recruiter will become increasingly important.
13. People analytics will evolve into talent intelligence.
14. A new HR tech landscape will arrive.
15. HR organizations will move to a new operating model: systemic HR.

If some of them are not necessarily new (such as performance management, focus on productivity, impact of technology and people analytics on the HR functions or the role of recruiters), other trends mark the beginning of a new era. Among them are people sustainability, the need for significant updates of the leadership model, well-being becoming a focus area for the CEOs and making employees’ overall growth a priority for the learning and development programs.

Faced with post-pandemic challenges such as “quiet quitting” and the “great resignation”, organizations become more and more aware that:

“Hybrid work requires a focus on culture. First, managers and team leaders must learn to be comfortable with remote, disconnected teams and learn how to lead them, listen to them and help them. Second, senior leaders must trust that the “invisible workers” are really, in fact, working.”

Because of this, companies start paying more attention to what Berzin calls people sustainability (trend no. 5), which includes besides well-being programs, coaching and education, also health and safety, nondiscrimination, right of collective bargaining, freedom from sexual harassment, and the rights of employees to rest and have leave for their personal needs.

Another important change highlighted in the report is the increased importance given by the senior leaders to the well-being of the employees and the need to expand the well-being interventions beyond superficial activities (trend no. 9):

“While workforce wellbeing programs have exploded, we’ve now learned something new: “Productivity creates wellbeing,” not the other way around. So rather than push people to work more and lavish them with benefits, it’s time to simply make work easier. [...]

The focus on wellbeing has entirely changed. Once considered a “benefit” to be offered along with vacation and insurance, it’s now a strategy for corporate growth.”

As also determined by us at K.M.Trust Group, the report states unequivocally that “employee burnout is a management problem, not a personal issue for each worker”. And it emphasizes that “Human beings, unlike machines, need time to rest, reflect, learn, and grow. When people are overworked, their performance suffers”.

Through our portfolio of services, we support the leadership teams to link people sustainability (including the holistic well-being of the employees) with the company’s business objectives. As the Berzin report concludes:

“In 2023 it’s clear that the wellbeing issue is not only a problem of benefits or insurance programs; instead, it’s a design issue. When we design the company for productivity, employee wellbeing will flourish.”