Top HR Priorities 2023
2022 has been quite a year in business travel. We are recovering as an industry and realigning our business to meet market forces, global demands and the after effects of the Pandemic.
Never has looking forward to HR trends been more important and *Gartner has published an excellent report, having surveyed more than 800 HR leaders across 60 countries and all major industries. The report identifies the priorities and key challenges for 2023, not least due to the continuing global economic squeeze and “scarce, expensive talent” :
- Leader and Manager Effectiveness
- Organisational Design and Change Management
- Employee Experience
- Recruiting
- Future of Work
These all make sense as corporate travel moves forward into the new year so we wanted to look at each one from our own industry perspective.
Leader and Manager Effectiveness
The employer-manager-employee relationship has changed and therefore leadership approach has to change. With employee expectations prioritising flexibility, shared purpose, wellbeing and individualised approach, the work environment must respond accordingly. Treating employees as individuals, understanding their needs and managing tailored HR responses will reap benefits. Having the best leaders will not only improve staff productivity and happiness, it is a key factor in staff retention. Leaders therefore need to lead with authenticity, empathy and flexibility. As specialist recruiters for the business travel industry, we see first-hand, every day, the absolute requirement for a company culture that is people centred. *And in partnership with our strategic training partner, Sirius is running a series of short, online, leadership training courses to focus managers on coaching their team members and how to have a coaching mentality/approach.
*Please contact us for more details.
Organisational Design and Change Management
Change fatigue is a real thing amongst employees. We have had, particularly in the business travel industry, huge pendulum changes not least due to the ongoing political and economic upheaval. Change fatigue means a drop in willingness to cooperate with further change so communication and effective change management are needed to lessen the double whammy of further workplace irritations. Consider adopting an employee participation change strategy, to achieve employee purpose and buy in for business changes. Sirius Talent Solutions’ own recent LinkedIn poll (October 2022 – 205 votes) showed a high level of intent to move on from current jobs in the short and medium term.
Stay in your current job 33%
Want to move on this year 58%
Will move but not this year 9%
Employee Experience
At Sirius Talent Solutions, we know only too well the reasons that people are looking to move on from their current jobs. Our own top 5 would be: no development opportunity (new challenge); flexible working (or lack thereof); not being heard or treated as an individual; remuneration (more around benefits than salary); poor individual/team/company leadership.
Active staff development and individual career mapping are imperative to staff retention. Understanding employee career goals and working together to identify or create fulfilment opportunities are key for retention.
Recruiting
There has been much said recently in the business travel industry around bringing talent into the industry through positive engagement with further education and apprenticeships. And there remains the need to have a more open approach to recruitment at a mid-level, recognising transferable skills and having effective training and onboarding practices in place to bring people up to speed to do a great job. Also, look inside your own company for the skill that you need- upskilling is a cost effective way of meeting both business and employee needs.
Future of Work
Human resource strategising must change to consider all of the key HR challenges. Today’s business realities call for empowerment, skills development, flexible working and in some situations, redistribution of responsibilities (enabled through skills development – you can see how this works!).
Sirius Talent Solutions is the leading travel recruitment specialist to the business travel industry and our services include bespoke outsourced HR and Training support. For an informal, no obligation conversation, contact us!