As we close off those first few busy weeks of the new year, it’s important to take a bit of time to focus on broader goals for the coming months. Here are six resolutions to get you started for 2020.

1. Stay Strategic

The role of HR professionals is evolving in this new decade. By becoming the recognized experts on all things human in our workplace, we have the opportunity to connect the performance of our people with the bottom line of our organization. As we step out of our old supporting roles to take centre stage as strategists, we need to find new ways to stay focused.

This year, look for automation, advanced analytics and business process experts that allow important transactional work such as payroll and benefits administration to function efficiently. This will help keep your team focused on strategic work around engagement, talent management, employee experience, workforce planning and long-term growth.

2. Review Your Tech

Despite the promise of big data and cloud computing, four in ten HR departments are still using multiple platforms to manage payroll, benefits, learning and other key tasks. No wonder nearly 25 percent of HR’s time is spent managing records. Making matters worse, many organizations are using systems that date back years or even decades!

Now is the perfect time to take a good look at your HR technology to identify those productivity killers. By applying a strategic, rather than an operational lens to your technology assessment, you can find benefits that go well beyond efficiency. For example, how does your current technology support your organizational strategy? What performance insights can guide succession planning? Can we connect investments in talent to the broader business scorecard?

Modern human capital management (HCM) solutions support other enterprise systems such as finance or sales management, and can harness emerging technologies incuding artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to provide more strategic insights. Be sure you ask your technology vendors how their solutions integrate core HR functions and work across the organization.

3. Build Future-Ready Talent

In this challenging labour market, more employers are turning to training and development to address their talent shortages. But how do you ensure leaders and team members are actively creating and managing growth opportunities?

Effective talent management systems support the workforce of the future with built-in transparency and accountability so employees can clearly see their growth trajectories and play an active role in managing their careers. As you plan your future-ready talent, consider how you can combine great user experience with actionable data that supports broader workforce strategies.

4. Keep the Learning Going

A future-ready workforce is one that is continuously reskilling. The majority of HR leaders prefer to invest in training than hiring to build new skills, which means more reliance on technology than ever before. Look for solutions that offer new ways to build skills, including gamification, augmented reality, micro-learning modules and, of course, the ability for employees to learn anywhere, anytime using mobile devices.

Millennials will comprise 75 percent of the global workforce in just five years, which means user experience will be key. Top solutions will provide consumer-like experiences, based on relevance, personalization and interactivity.

5. Succession Success

Did you know the majority of organizations don’t have a succession plan? And many that do, include only senior managers and executives. This year spend some time considering how you can build a succession strategy that anticipates both expected and unexpected changes, while including those crucial middle managers and individual contributors.

Data is at the heart of effective succession planning. With the right workforce analytics you can understand your employees’ skills and interests and easily rank future leaders so you can invest in their development and track who will be ready to step up when the time comes.

6. New Ways to Wellness

Investments in the physical and mental wellness of your workforce pay off in healthier employees, better engagement and increased productivity. Yet benefits costs continue to rise, as does the amount of time workers take off to access healthcare for themselves and their families.

One area to consider this year is virtual care. This innovative approach connects patients to healthcare practitioners 24-hours a day by video conferencing or phone. When employees can access the care they need, on demand, outcomes improve and the costs of absenteeism and presenteeism can be controlled. In fact, some organizations can see savings of more than $600,000 per year using virtual care.

There are never enough weeks or months to get it all done, but if you can tick off just one of these resolutions this year, you’ll be adding strategic value and setting your team and your organization up for greater success.

At TELUS we’re proud to support more than 200,000 Canadian employees through our Employer Services practice.

Let’s talk about how can we help you keep your resolutions this year.

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1-855-699-0573