The Top HR Issues Facing Employers

09 October 2023

Today’s HR experts are no longer just administrative personnel, they’re strategic partners. They bridge the gap between employers’ needs and employees’ aspirations.

By offering tailored consultancy, facilitating effective communication, and introducing innovative ways to retain, engage and reward talent, these experts are revolutionising the employment landscape.

With HR’s involvement, strategic thinking, innovative approaches, and a touch of creativity, employers can navigate the challenging economic waters they’re facing effectively, by ensuring the employee lifecycle is not just efficient but also economical.

Regardless of the industry or size of a company, an organisation is likely to encounter challenges when managing its employees. HR has become pivotal for organisations as they realise the importance of why they need to handle their workforce to influence growth and success of their business.

ZEDRA’s Assistant HR Manager, Amie Crowther-Bali, shares her insights on the top HR issues facing employers based on the support she and her team are increasingly providing to clients.

Talent acquisition, labour shortages and retention

Finding and retaining top talent can be challenging in a competitive job market especially in the current climate where some industries face labour shortages due to demographic shifts or economic conditions.

Employers need to invest in employer branding, offer competitive compensation packages, provide opportunities for career growth, look to re-skilling and up-skilling their employees and maintain a positive workplace culture.

We are regularly called upon to help uncover and define the employer brand, mission, vision, and values that make up a company’s culture, helping employers to attract and retain talent.

Sometimes, something as straightforward as a salary benchmarking exercise – whether for individual roles, roles within specific departments or looking across the company- can help to establish whether you are competitive within your industry or within the general marketplace resulting in an increase in candidates and retention of existing team members.

Training employees so they continue to learn, develop and expand their skills through areas such as leadership training, presentation skills and coaching is another great way to help demonstrate your commitment to employees and the career progression opportunities available.

Meaningful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

Ensuring diversity and inclusion in the workplace is one of an employer’s top priorities and is a challenge to implement without structured DE&I policies and training programmes. Employers often come to us seeking guidance on how to promote inclusive leadership and hold leaders accountable for DE&I goals.

We can help provide DE&I guidance as well as create an inclusivity calendar for the entire year for your organisation so that you are aware of what is coming up and have enough time to work on initiatives throughout the year.

Employee engagement

Disengaged employees lead to decreased productivity and higher turnover rates. This is an ongoing concern for employers. HR professionals are finding innovative ways to increase morale and motivate employees and to bring the spark back into the workforce.

We encourage regular feedback gathering exercises to help create a supportive work environment and provide opportunities for professional development and growth.

Looking at the existing ways you gather employee feedback, we can work with you to create useful employee surveys and analyse common factors, areas of improvement, what’s working well and how to better facilitate a healthy feedback culture.

Analysing the health of the company usually highlights training and development opportunities for your workforce too, leading to confident employees, increased productivity and lower turnover.

Remote work challenges

Managing remote or hybrid teams presents unique challenges, this can include communication and productivity issues. In order to remain competitive and attractive in the market, employers should make it as easy as possible for employees to collaborate and remain connected regardless of where they sit. Employers should establish clear communication protocols and offer flexible work arrangements when possible.

With the myriad of remote work technology available, we are often called upon to provide guidance on remote work technology and help train managers who have remote employees. We also produce policies and documentation around best practice and flexible work arrangements for employers.

Employee wellbeing

Employee stress and burnout have become a major concern for HR professionals. According to Greatmindsatwork.com, work-related stress can have a significant impact on an individual.

A 2022 survey revealed that 67% of professionals are experiencing stress at moderate to high levels and that almost 35% of employees report the stress they experience at work is having a negative impact on them.

Promoting work-life balance, offering wellness programmes, and encouraging open discussions about mental health are important considerations for employers who want to avoid talent acquisition and retention challenges.

Carrying out an overall HR health check and establishing what policies and processes you have in place is a great starting point. Employee surveys are another useful tool for evaluating how your employees are feeling.

Compliance and Regulatory Changes

HR laws and regulations are constantly advancing, making it challenging to stay compliant and keep up with the changes.

We provide legal and compliance updates regarding HR matters as and when changes come in force. We also regularly carry out HR audits and provide advice on issues such as termination, performance management, settlement agreements, disciplinaries or grievances.

Technology Integration

HR technology is advancing rapidly, and integrating new systems can be complex. Investing in modern HR software, provide training to HR staff, and ensuring IT support for technology integration can be time consuming in the short term but will inevitably lead to long term gains.

Ensuring you choose a Human Resources Information System that can help support your growing organisation and simplify and automate processes requires careful consideration. We can help guide you through the options and implementation process.

Succession Planning

Identifying high-potential, high-performing employees, and those that are critical to your business early on can help you avoid talent gaps.

Creating development plans, looking at training for your workforce and rewarding your employees by introducing pay/merit cycles to encourage promotions at the right time, and establishing who the successors are for key employees ensures continuation. Having a clear promotion plan also leads to an increase in morale, higher productivity and reduction in turnover rates.

We can work with you to create your talent management process, establish the 9-box exercise and provide training to your managers, create your merit cycle review and establish a plan on for the successors in your organisation.

We can also support in designing your career path structure for the entire organisation.

Employee Data Privacy

Safeguarding employee data is critical with increasing data breaches and privacy concerns. Implementing strict data privacy policies, training employees on data security, and complying with data protection regulations are of paramount importance.

In addition to the protection of employee data, some locations and industries have mandatory training requirements for employees. Understanding any requirements impacting your organisation or your employees in respect of data privacy and other legal matters is something we can help guide you through.

How ZEDRA can help

To get on top of these HR issues, organisations should develop proactive strategies, invest in HR technology and training, foster a culture of continuous improvement, and adapt to changing circumstances and employee needs. This is where ZEDRA HR can come in and help to solve these issues organisations are facing.

We can provide valuable insights and guidance and become an extension of your existing HR team to bounce ideas, be their sounding board or act as your fully outsourced external HR function and take care of all HR matters for you.

Please contact Amie Crowther-Bali to find out how we help.

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