The year that has just ended changed the ways of working and managing people. The different lockdown periods (stronger or lighter) have forced many employees at home who have done “smart working” as they call it in Italy, teleworking otherwise said, and perhaps will do so for another good part of 2021.

Let’s see 4 major changes that I hope will happen in 2021.

  1. New leadership styles. In recent years, a change in leadership has already begun with the new generations (millennials and generation Z). Young people no longer accept that their managers know everything and want to be actively involved in the decision-making process. Due to the Covid pandemic, this trend has intensified. For old-fashioned managers, getting rid of old habits while managing staff during teleworking was a challenge. I think leadership should develop in the direction of offering opportunities to staff as well as empowering them.
  2. Diversity and inclusion. The past year has also brought news regarding inequality. The “Black Lives Matter” movement, launched in the United States, was exported to Europe in no time. Some consider the refugee issue problematic but others consider it a solution to the problem of ageing. Gender equality, right to equal pay between men and women and among people regardless of their origin: these are some signals sent to us in 2020. Diversity and equality will therefore be the watchwords for human resources sectors. Companies that will adapt better to new circumstances will be the strongest.
  3. Evolution of recruitment. Recruiting new staff will never be the same. Recruitment in 2020 has been characterized by technology and artificial intelligence. Online applications have been the norm for some years already, but asynchronous interviews, such as those in which a candidate receives questions from a video recorded on an information system and replies via the system itself, are becoming increasingly popular. Candidates are also encouraged to leave their feedback to improve artificial intelligence tools.
  4. More committed employees. The use of surveys to assess the satisfaction of human resources policies will become increasingly important. Whether it is the integration processes in the workplace, the actions aimed at the well-being of employees or performance evaluation, the opinion of employees is increasingly important. Actually, a company that does not want to let its best talents leave will have to pay more and more attention to the satisfaction of its employees. However, not only they will have to listen to their opinions, they will also have to implement actions as a follow-up to the results of the surveys.

In your opinion, are these changes in the human resource management policies going to happen?

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