By | David Green | Co-Author of Excellence in People Analytics | People Analytics leader | Director, Insight222 & myHRfuture.com | Conference speaker | Host, Digital HR Leaders Podcast
As the playlist turns festive (cue Stop the Cavalry, Fairytale of New York and U2’s storming rendition of Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)), it’s time to perform my annual ritual of reflecting on 2021, dusting off the crystal ball and looking forward to what’s in store for HR in 2022.
In many respects 2021 continued the path wrought by the onset of the pandemic in the preceding year. A mixture of the good (in the shape of vaccines), the bad (new variants and lockdowns) and the ugly (staggering levels of ineptitude from some of our political leaders).
2021 also exposed the growing chasm between executives and their employees on return to office and the shape of the future hybrid workplace. This only magnifies the importance of the human resources field. Most experts believe that the future of work has been accelerated by 5-10 years, but the pandemic has elevated the role of human resources too – especially where these functions are data driven, experience led, and business focused.
What does this all mean for 2022? Well, just as I highlighted in last year’s predictions, I subscribe to Douglas Adams’s (who penned The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) view that: “Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game.” Adams also conceded that it is a game we all have to play given that: “the world is changing so fast and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future’s actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.” Given the times in which we live, it’s difficult to disagree.
I have varying levels of confidence whether the predictions that follow will prove to be accurate, but I can at least advise that they are informed by data, research, the experience of working with close to 100 global organisations as part of the work we do at Insight222, and conversations with colleagues, peers and guests on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. Whether any of this helps, we’ll have to wait 12 months to find out!
