It’s the holidays, and while most people want to spend time decking the halls, jingling all the way and fa-la-la-la-ing, for business owners and executives, it’s about wrapping up the year and wondering what they’ll face in the new year.
From the HR perspective, don’t just worry about employees causing a lawsuit at the company holiday party, but you’ll also want to think about if you see any potential issues coming up in 2019.
If you’re a loyal reader, you might have picked up on what I see as the 5 big people trends to watch for in the coming year, and you can expect to hear even more about them next year.
So do yourself a favour and get ahead of potential problems by learning more—and then you might feel more like you checked your list twice.
There’s no denying it anymore: more than 61 million millennials are in the workforce mix nowadays. They are not coming…they are here.
That number means the Gen Y “kids” surpassed the Gen Xers, who are in the prime of their careers, and Baby Boomers, who haven’t retired yet. And don’t forget, Generation Z is aging up too, with more than 9 million falling in the working age zone.
We touched on the generational issues this summer with tips for dealing with the different ages in the workforce however with 5 generations now in the workplace, leaders need to be confident in how to effectively manage.
4 Tips for Employers to Help Manage Multiple Generations
We’ve got good news and bad news. Social media can be an excellent tool for companies to promote what a great place to work it is, available jobs and events. However, on the flip side, companies need to worry about employees’ use of social media—from misuse of resources to conflicts of interest. So keep thinking about how to best monitor and look for more to come on this important trend.
By perhaps the biggest important trend is the need for constant feedback that is a result of social media. You can receive instantaneous and multiple feedback within minutes of posting on social media which is also driving a replicate requirement back in the workplace.
If you have started thinking about how to build an open feedback culture then you better start. A big clue, however, is you need to establish a culture of trust first.
Drugs, alcohol and mental health can be 3 confronting things for employers to deal with if they are not armed with the tools and policies. With more and more staff members taking “mental health” days, looking at how you manage traditional processes such as sick leave in your business may need to be looked at.
The younger generations have helped to lift the stigma around discussing stress, depression and other mental health problems. However, as employers you need to know how to manage these conversations.
Not only finding the right person, but getting them to accept and actually start in your business will be one of the most difficult challenges for businesses (and possibly the most impacting). Depending on how many positions you’ve had to fill this past year, you might have noticed how much recruitment has changed (type and number of candidates applying, candidates showing up for interviews and methods for find them ie social media). There’s been a major shift away from people automatically accepting an offer—you can’t count on saying yes to someone and expecting they will say it back.
Now, businesses need to woo the person and hope that person is in the right frame of mind to join the team. Check out just one blog where we discussed this issue this past year:
[SOLVED] recruitment (become a great place to work)
Office politics is a tough issue, and certainly not something to be ignored. But while most executives might be watching for males harassing female employees or men bullying other guys. However, what they might not be looking for are the female bullies—especially women picking on other women. It’s one of the fastest-rising problems in the workforce, and we are receiving more and more calls from clients wondering how best to deal with this sticky situation.
On this and all the other people trends, expect to hear more from me with advice on how best to approach these issues in 2019.
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