Human resources departments are meant to serve the needs of the company and the employees working there. Contributor Kamy Anderson, Ed-tech enthusiast.

Whether it is all about hiring new candidates for the required positions or fulfilling the needs of existing employees. In the past few years, HR departments have been looking at the performance issues of the current employees and the lags in working environment. Now, it’s high time they need to step forward and focus more on implementing new technologies and organising helpful training for the non-performing employees. All this can be achieved in 2018 by following the popular worldwide HR trends mentioned in this blog post. Take a look.

Remote Hiring
Hiring remote employees is one of the best ways to get your job done in a low-budget. That’s the reason, HR departments of different organizations are following this particular trend of raising the talent. Remote hiring not only helps businesses to gather a huge talent but also benefits the existing employees in reducing the stress and excessive pressure.

If you are planning to start a business and do not want to exceed the planned budget, hire remote employees. By hiring such talent, you can save your money as you need not to set-up the in-house workforce and arrange the working space for the same. All you need to do is make use of evolving technology so that employees can access their work system from anywhere irrespective of their location. In addition, there are plenty of online communication and collaboration tools using which the employees can communicate with you.

Passive Hiring
Passive hiring through social media platforms has become a new HR trend. The main objective of hiring passive candidates is that they are efficient and experienced enough to understand your job requirements. However, it doesn’t mean that the businesses do not consider active employees, it’s just that they look for experienced talent. By using several social media platforms, recruiters can easily find potential candidates with excellent skill-set suitable for the required job profile. If these candidates are looking for a job change, they can consider your job postings.

Blind Hiring
In the past years, HR departments were biased and the selection criteria of the candidates were based on certain demographic data. However, now the new trend of blind hiring is followed in which the candidates are selected irrespective of their demographic data. Blind recruitment is an excellent hiring process to promote diversity in the workforce. It means that HRs are more focused towards the candidate’s skill-set and achievements rather than depending on factors like age, gender, race, or schools or universities. Thus, blind hiring significantly reduces bias nature of the HR departments and diversify the workforce.

Millennials Hiring
Millennials make up a large portion of the world’s labor market. They are considered as the generation of digital entrepreneurs and innovators. According to the report by ManpowerGroup, millennials are expected to make up 35% of the global workforce till 2020. That’s the reason, millennials hiring has become a booming trend for HR departments to grow and improve their own business. HRs are not only placing millennials on the high priority list but also providing them additional benefits.

Gamification
Gamification has slowly found its way into a number of different industries, as it can greatly enhance the engagement of existing employees and improve several business processes such as hiring, marketing, and training. Gamification help HR departments to gain more insight into everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, knowing exactly when to conduct further training. In addition, HR’s not only get skilled candidates, but the candidates also improve their recognition while the hiring process is going on in the organization.

Transformed Workplace
Most companies are now transforming their workplace and are majorly focusing on providing a healthy environment for the employees. The transformation of the organization’s workplace must be such that it inspires employees to become better at what they do, thereby maximizing their productivity and retention.

All you need to do is transform your personal offices into cool cubicles where employees can sit together, communicate and collaborate better. Employees must be given freedom of work, flexibility in their office timings, and tea breaks for refreshment. This way, you will not only enhance their productivity but also attract their attention towards employee benefits.

Online Training
Online training is an excellent HR trend that you can follow in 2018. Online training method not only enables continuous learning of the employees but also help them to know where they actually stand. The quizzes, games, interactive media, and use of other elements provide employees valuable training experience. Companies are now making use of employee training software to create such training courses which in return, provide employees better opportunities for learning and development.

It is advisable for every organisation to make use of online employee training software through which you can create and customize online training courses according to your requirements. The best part of using this software is that the employees can access the training material from office as well as from the comfort of their own space. This is especially because online training can include quizzes, games, interactive media, and lots of other elements that create an immersive training experience.

The Bottom Line
More and more HR trends are certainly going to emerge in 2018, but these seven are definitely the essential ones that HR professionals should keep an eye on. If you too want to see your business reaching the skies, all you need to do is ask your HR department to conduct a bit of research and plan a strategy that can help your organisation in finding the hidden talents. Once you are ready, implement the changes and feel the difference.