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More than half of all HR practitioners believe that they are not being adequately supported, with over 95% stating that their workload has increased steeply over the last 18 months.
The news comes as part of a study conducted by Breathe, which uncovered that, whilst wellbeing has been high on the agenda of all companies over the course of the pandemic, the majority of HR practitioners feel that they are unsupported.
The study polled 82 HR professionals to ascertain how the role has changed in this time, and what effect the revised workload has had on their own personal wellbeing.
Over a third of respondents noted that they are now working up to two hours extra per week, and that 92% believe that their core policies needed completely revising – adding to an already burgeoning workload.
Overwhelmingly, 82% noted concerns over the wellbeing of teammates in this time, which a quarter of businesses have reportedly not invested in additional training to tackle these concerns.
As a result, HR felt unequipped to tackle their broadening remit. 78% said that their duty of care has changed in this time. And whilst hybrid and remote working look set to be common fixtures of working structures going forward, 74.3% of HR teams feel unable to gauge staff wellbeing across remote teams.
Since March 2020, 21.4% of respondents to the study cited updating company policies and 17.3% cited recruitment related admin as the two key areas where they are spending the most time.
Maintaining employee records (15.8%) and furlough management (15.1%) came in as the next tasks.
“The truth is that HR teams have been a badly-hit part of many businesses,” noted Jonathan Richards, CEO at Breathe, who conducted the research. “It’s shocking to see the extent to which these professionals are feeling unsupported, and the varied tasks the past 18 months have thrown up at them.
“As we emerge out of this, I think a key area will be for businesses to check in on their HR teams more. Understanding where their pain points are and helping to alleviate them, be that through talking about problems or implementing software that helps to automate tasks, will be crucial to getting making HR teams feel best supported,” Richards concluded.
