Six Predictions in HR, Recruiting & Your Workplace in 2013

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

2013 HR and Recruiting Predictions 

Over the past few years Human Resources, particularly recruiting has slowly become socialized and professionals are reaching out to contacts in ways never even thought of 10-15 years ago. As I spend time working with vendors who develop provide the technologies for HR and recruiting while also working directly with practitioners every day, I see some exciting shifts emerge. These 6 trends in 2013 that operational managers and HR professionals must look out for in the coming year.

• Telecommuting will continue to grow. The lucrative idea of working from home will become an even bigger reality for the workforce in 2013. Employers continue to look for ways to not only cut cost, but also improve employee health and retention. Allowing for flexible work schedules and telecommuting has shown to increase employee moral. This trend will be on the forefront in order to source the best talent. 

• Video interviewing will increase. In order to find the perfect source of talent, HR professionals will begin recruiting and scouring the entire country looking for the perfect fit. In most cases it won’t be feasible both financially and realistically for a candidate half way across the country to come in for a formal interview, so most HR departments will be doing video interviewing. With this becoming a more popular trend, compliance issues are sure to rise. 

• Recruiting talent will be more local.  Meaning that as the economy improves, companies will and should begin evaluating individual local employment markets to draft hiring strategies that are specific to the local economy of the city you are hiring for.  Post and pray recruiting is no more as companies focus more on long term recruitment strategies and building talent networks.  

• HR will become more data centric. The trend in tracking, compiling, and analyzing data will be overrun in the Human Resources department in 2013. Metrics and measurement for HR will be more important than ever before.  In order to become a successful HR department you must learn to benchmark and hire the right candidate the first time around. It’ll be crucial for HR managers to sync employee data across multiple systems. This trend will be one of the bigger focuses on HR as companies get bigger and rely more on third-party systems for compliance, analytics, and hiring automation.

• HR will become more social. This is almost a “Duh?” type statement. Human Resources will no longer put all their weight in a resume submitted to them, but will scour the Internet to find anything and everything about potential employees. Checking everything from your tweets to what shows up on your LinkedIn profile. As privacy changes are being eliminated from the most popular networks, no one is safe. With everyone online is it safe to say the resume is almost dead? We’ll let you answer that question.

• Beginning of the Crowdsourced Review: As the workplace becomes more social it’s only natural that the employee review does as well. Managers spend one hour a year out of the 2,040 hours employees work to give them feedback that is suppose to last the entire year. As GenY enters the workforce in full swing that amount of time isn’t going to be enough. Crowdsourcing the employee review will create a more dynamic workplace that encourages open feedback and better employee engagement. 

Talent Retention and Sourcing Most Important 

As 2013 is already up in full swing there are trends and new technologies already coming out that HR and recruiting practitioners must stay on top of in order to create an environment that pleases great talent. In order to source the best talent you must be able to make sacrifices in areas that you would never have imagined. What are some trends you see in 2013? Do you agree with the above? Why or Why not?

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media.  She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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