The legal, FMCG, transport and logistics, insurance, and third industries are the top sectors for compensation and salary increases for in-house HR professionals, according to the results of the new 2023 HR Insights Survey*. Property and real estate and the third industry are next in line. The worst off are the retail and consumer sectors, where only 27% of employees saw wage increases at their most recent pay reviews.

Three quarters (78%) of senior HR specialists see artificial Intelligence (AI) and people metrics as central to a more data-driven future for the HR profession, but admit to significant gaps in digital adoption, technology, people analytics and data analysis skills.

In 22 different industry sectors, including IT, financial, legal, and professional services, education, and retail, HR professionals in permanent full-time and part-time, contract and interim HR positions participated in the study. The majority (70%) of participants were at the "Business Partner" level or above.

Even though HR had an important function in organizations during the pandemic, just a third (33%) of HR professionals felt better appreciated post-Covid, according to the report, "2023 HR Insights: A focus on the future."

Just 41% of respondents are happy with their pay, but a thriving business culture and HR team are considered as essential and the reason for staying in a present position, highlighting their worth and significance for maximizing employee retention.

The report also reveals that just 17% of HR professionals believe that a career in HR would provide them with a clear path to becoming a company's CEO or MD.

The poll investigated the workplace's seismic transformation since 2019. Flexibility was rated as the top perk by 66% of HR experts as the most powerful incentive in the workplace. Despite this, the HR department has fewer part-time positions than is typical. In terms of advantages, hybrid working came in at number two, with 65% of HR professionals favoring this type of schedule. For HR professionals, the 4-Day Workweek and merely spending two days per week in the office are the greatest solutions for achieving a healthy work-life balance.

The study indicates that talent recruitment and retention are the leading "time stealers" for HR managers at a time when the nation is experiencing its greatest-ever skills and talent scarcity.

Indeed, according to HR professionals, the biggest problems they will continue to face until 2025 or 2026 are talent acquisition and retention, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and HR and people strategy. These three issues will be closely followed by organizational design and change management, HR and people strategy, culture, and pay and reward strategies.

The report directly addresses the idea that HR professionals only serve in an interim capacity as a "stop gap," dispelling it by revealing that the typical duration of HR interims ranged from a few months to eight years.

Darren Hayman (pictured), Managing Director of Macmillan Davies, comments on the HR Insights Report and the survey's results: "In recent years, the HR function has strengthened and reaffirmed its relevance. It is obvious that it is crucial for HR skills and actions to focus on embracing technology changes, with workforce data and analytics being especially important. This will allow HR to continue to make a strategic contribution to the business in addition to providing useful insights.

“To adapt to the future needs of our customers and people, businesses need a strong focus on the future of work, change management, data and analytics. Our research confirms the majority of HR professionals agree, and that AI and people metrics are highly important to the future of HR. However, work needs to be done to support HR professionals to develop and improve their technology skills, so that businesses can take full advantage of the understandings possible from people analytics and data analysis. These can help reduce human bias, improve efficiency, increase predictive data decision-making, drive results, as well as being a tactical and strategic asset to allow more ‘people time’ for HR.”

He adds: “The HR Insights survey also found a positive shift in how HR specialisms are perceived and valued, which is good news for the future of the HR profession. There has been a significant shift in the last three years by C-suite and HR professionals themselves in identifying skills such as employee relations, change and transformation, talent acquisition and development as ‘HR specialisms’ and not merely the tasks of a ‘HR Generalist’.

“Also interesting is the growing value placed on interim HR roles,” says Darren. “HR professionals have a high number of projects on which to deliver, but don’t always have the time or internal expertise for them. This is where interims are the perfect solution. They have the capability to parachute into an organisation and deliver solely on these specific projects. This is why there is a need for mindsets to shift from a traditional role / job-based approach to structuring people, to a more skills- and capabilities-based approach in order to create fluid, lateral role changes, particularly for internal mobility and career enhancement.”

*Macmillan Davies 2023 HR Insights: 2023 HR Insights: A focus on the future (mdh.co.uk)

Source: thehrdirector