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Trends to watch out for

Over the past few years, job market has grown exponentially ensued by the increasing interests of investors. Having wooed foreign…

Trends to watch out for

Representational image (Photo: Getty Images)

Over the past few years, job market has grown exponentially ensued by the increasing interests of investors. Having wooed foreign companies to set base in India, the human resources industry practices have undergone major transformation. Amalgamating with overseas practices using technology, this sector will continue to enhance the overall experience.

The trends make it apparent that demand for more flexible work environment will continue and the industry will witness emergence of practitioners with new skills, including people analytics, Internet marketing, branding and knowledge on new technologies like virtual reality and wearables.

Major economies and business across the globe have been focused on creating better employment experience for job seekers. Following that, the workplace trends will have reflections and impact how companies recruit, retain, train and structure their workforce for the future. Treading on these line-of-thoughts, the top workplace trends for 2017 include:

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Branding businesses to attract talent: There are certain significant job roles that have always suffered substantial demand and supply gap. While it has always been relatively easier to find job seekers but finding a quality candidate has always been a treasure hunt. With a firm finger on the market pulse, this year—companies will be seen making great sales pitches to attract quality candidates using social media like Glassdoor, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Recruitment marketplaces will go big: Manpower heavy industries mostly hire in volumes and quality candidates have been a challenge for ever now. While floating requirements to multiple consultants simultaneously, has been a standard practice to speed up the hiring process, it was tedious and relatively fatiguing, till it was done offline. The last few years have already seen the rise of recruitment marketplaces and following the trend will see the industry flourish. These recruitment marketplaces connect employers to recruitment consultants using a digital platform. Industry players like Quezx, CBREX, PiQube, RecruitLoop make the entire process fast, more scalable and better tracked.

Tech to become indispensable in HR procedures: One of the major challenges that have plagued talent acquisition for years is screening resumes efficiently and time-effectively. 

Almost 52 per cent of talent acquisition experts are of the opinion that identifying right candidates from a large pool of applicants is the hardest part of the entire process. Therefore, this year will see integration of technology to make life easier for hiring professionals, starting from AI chatbots to do just about anything, such as predicting who is looking for jobs by crawling social web.

Video interviews and assessments become pervasive: While the concept in itself is not new, the industry has always wanted a customised version of Skype for job interviews. The coming year will see the rise of such video technology, largely to solve issues of accessibility. Such websites help in keeping a documented record to review later, live problem solving and candidate rating. Considering the trends, this technology might be taken a notch higher to automatically rate videos based on objective hiring parameters. 

Rise in task based jobs and work from home jobs: With gig economy being on the rise, companies want talents for short term tasks and reward them instantly for their work. This has taken various industries by its strides and creating ripples in the market, nevertheless, the long term salaried employment still remains unperturbed by the trend. Despite that, it will see companies modelled around freelancing and task based jobs, rise majorly.

Rise of industry training: No matter how meritorious a fresh graduate is—fresher recruitment has been a challenge globally. This is mostly because they are not really trained for industry. Along with drawbacks like lack of professional approach, they also lack the skillset required for a particular type of job. Owing to such weaknesses, industry-training tie-ups are on the rise in India. Fresh graduates have to go through a tailor made training programme before being deployed at the corporate.

Technology in background-check to gain prominence: There has been a history of candidates misinforming employers during hiring processes, which makes background verification a mandatory step towards a successful hiring. The coming year will observe emergence of technology that will enable faster and more automated way of doing background verification. 

Companies like InstaVeritas, Idfy, and Better Place are doing some exciting work in this space. Using technology, huge online repositories of background verification have been created that is also timely updated.

Office attires to become more casual: Several years ago Richard Branson made news with a picture of cutting his tie with a pair of scissors, which was published by Forbes magazine. With the rise of younger generations, it will see continuation of such trends, with more employees demanding to drop their suits and ties, in exchange for jeans and shirts.

Employee engagement to gain prominence: This as a concept has been in the market. However, there were very few who understood the significance of such activities. With the rise of demanding Gen Z employees, this year will see more companies engaging their employees to establish a connection with them, bringing the performers in them.

Enhanced performance management and appraisals: The Indian job market has grown and has evolved the roles and responsibilities of managers. They will be seen focusing on creating development plans for employees that support their career goals and interests. Appraisals will be linked to the overall development rather than simply hitting their targets.

The writer is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Asaanjobs.com

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