What comes to mind when you think of Hu­man Re­sources? Most peo­ple con­nect the role to “hir­ing and fir­ing” and more re­cent­ly, in our ex­ist­ing eco­nom­ic cli­mate, re­trench­ment. There are so many mis­con­cep­tions that sur­round what an HR Pro­fes­sion­al ac­tu­al­ly does, how­ev­er, while “hir­ing, fir­ing and re­trench­ment’ are el­e­ments of HR, one of HR’s strate­gic role is to de­vel­op peo­ple in a way they sup­port the over­ar­ch­ing goals of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, bridg­ing the gaps be­tween staff and the mis­sion of the C-Suite. Ac­cord­ing to the So­ci­ety for Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment (SHRM), “strate­gic hu­man re­source man­age­ment in­volves a fu­ture-ori­ent­ed process of de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing HR pro­grams that ad­dress and solve busi­ness prob­lems and di­rect­ly con­tribute to ma­jor long-term busi­ness ob­jec­tives.”

In re­cent years, amidst the present health cri­sis sit­u­a­tion of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic which plagued the world solid­ly for ap­prox­i­mate­ly two years and con­tin­u­ing, and now, the high pos­si­bil­i­ty of the mon­key­pox virus mak­ing its way around the world, HR is crit­i­cal­ly re­quired to sup­port lead­er­ship in many ways. HR lead­ers were forced to plan and adapt to work-from-home (WFH) arrange­ments, with a high ex­pec­ta­tion of sup­port from lead­er­ship and ex­ec­u­tives, in prepar­ing ac­tion plans, cre­at­ing poli­cies, ne­go­ti­at­ing the al­ter­ation of terms and con­di­tions with em­ploy­ees and Unions, where there were Rec­og­nized Ma­jor­i­ty Unions (RMU), all in con­strict­ed time­lines. This proved that HR not on­ly sup­port­ed lead­ers and de­ci­sion-mak­ing but was re­quired to get in­volved in the fore­cast­ing of op­er­a­tions. There has been a shift where­by HR is seen by more or­gan­i­sa­tions than ever be­fore, as a strate­gic busi­ness part­ner.

While most or­gan­i­sa­tions em­ploy HR Man­agers, they were tasked with solv­ing em­ploy­ee prob­lems, man­ag­ing labour re­la­tions, and keep­ing em­ploy­ees ‘hap­py’. To­day, HR lead­ers are act­ing as coach­es for ex­ec­u­tives who re­quire the sup­port of deal­ing with the chal­lenges of the cri­sis sit­u­a­tions; this was es­pe­cial­ly seen with the sud­den in­tro­duc­tion of cur­fews, safe zones and Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions which forced the clo­sure of many busi­ness­es, lead­ing to men­tal health is­sues ex­pe­ri­enced by C-Suite and staff alike. In many cas­es where the bur­den fell on HR to show care and em­pa­thy through ac­tions tak­en and de­ci­sions made, who was there to sup­port HR?

At present, and fu­tur­is­ti­cal­ly plan­ning, pro­gres­sive HR lead­ers are now heav­i­ly fo­cus­ing their at­ten­tion, strate­gi­cal­ly and op­er­a­tional­ly through the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al plans geared to­wards “The Fu­ture of Work”. It is im­per­a­tive to con­sid­er what the fu­ture of work would look like as many or­gan­i­sa­tions are still un­clear of whether to main­tain the hy­brid work en­vi­ron­ment or to re­vert to the ar­cha­ic in-of­fice work sched­ules. Ac­cord­ing to De­loitte’s spe­cial re­port on Work­force strate­gies for post COVID-19 re­cov­ery, “Or­gan­i­sa­tions’ first pri­or­i­ty has been cri­sis re­sponse.

Now, as or­gan­i­sa­tions be­gin to emerge from this re­sponse phase, lead­ers are fo­cus­ing on the next set of work­force chal­lenges as they plan for the re­cov­ery.”

In con­sid­er­a­tion of the fu­ture of work, Havard Busi­ness Re­views ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled “11 Trends that Will Shape Work in 2022 and Be­yond” point #7 al­leges that “The com­plex­i­ty of man­ag­ing a hy­brid work­force will dri­ve some em­ploy­ers to re­quire a re­turn to the of­fice.” In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have seen this re­turn to in of­fice work, and while this is re­quired in some sec­tors, it is high­ly pos­si­ble to main­tain the hy­brid work arrange­ments how­ev­er, with­out the right tools and equip­ment to mon­i­tor per­for­mance lev­els and the right tech­nol­o­gy and in­fra­struc­ture, there may be sig­nif­i­cant risks to or­gan­i­sa­tions. More im­por­tant­ly, the right at­ti­tude and be­hav­iours must ac­com­pa­ny these hy­brid work arrange­ments to sup­port its ef­fec­tive­ness and per­for­mance lev­els to en­sure sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The dis­rup­tions we have wit­nessed are in­deed a chal­lenge. How­ev­er, we see it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for HR to lead the way for their or­gan­i­sa­tions. The fu­ture of work is not on­ly about hy­brid work­ing arrange­ments but rather it is al­so the abil­i­ty to lever­age strat­e­gy and tech­nol­o­gy to em­pow­er HR to sup­port, flex­i­bil­i­ty, work-life bal­ance, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­struc­tur­ing & re-or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­view of op­er­a­tions and di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty & in­clu­sion (dei).

The chal­lenge is on, as the race has be­gun for or­gan­i­sa­tion to adapt and plan for the fu­ture of work. At­tract­ing the right can­di­dates for po­si­tions will al­so be­come more com­pet­i­tive as can­di­dates will be as­sess­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions’ work styles and adap­ta­tion to new and emerg­ing trends which al­lows for flex­i­bil­i­ty, work-life bal­ance and oth­er fac­tors. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, em­ploy­ees and po­ten­tial em­ploy­ees will al­so be re­quired to adapt to new re­quire­ments for po­si­tions, as or­gan­i­sa­tions are now fo­cus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments and will seek to at­tract em­ploy­ees who are tech­nol­o­gy-savvy, flex­i­ble to re­mote work op­tions etc.

Job-seek­ers and stu­dents can ex­pect to see an in­crease of jobs and po­si­tions in the field of tech­nol­o­gy, ap­pli­ca­tion de­vel­op­ment, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and sim­i­lar fields.

Giv­en the mag­ni­tude of the tasks that lie ahead, what will the fu­ture of work look like? Who will lead the race and set the stan­dards? As the or­ga­ni­za­tions of the fu­ture takes shape, HR will be the dri­ving force for many ini­tia­tives: map­ping tal­ent to val­ue; mak­ing the work­force more flex­i­ble; pri­ori­tis­ing strate­gic work­force plan­ning, per­for­mance man­age­ment, and reskilling; build­ing an HR plat­form; and de­vel­op­ing an HR tech ecosys­tem.

For oth­er ini­tia­tives, HR can help C-suite lead­ers push for­ward on es­tab­lish­ing and ra­di­at­ing pur­pose, im­prov­ing em­ploy­ee ex­pe­ri­ence, dri­ving lead­er­ship and cul­ture, and sim­pli­fy­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Are you ex­cit­ed yet?

About HRMATT: The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the Hu­man Re­source Pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic fo­cused on Hu­man Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment. To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by HRMATT’s Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer and Hu­man Re­source and In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Prac­ti­tion­er, Kim­ber­ly Chan, MBA, AM­ABE. Learn more about HRMATT by vis­it­ing all our web­site: www.hrmatt.com. Fol­low us on Face­book, LinkedIn, In­sta­gram and Twit­ter. Con­tact us: 687-5523 or via email: sec­re­tari­at@hrmatt.com