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The skills of today help realise the successes of tomorrow. That said, rapid advancements and shifts in the world of work mean it can be hard to know which skills will be most essential to succeed in HR today.
In this article, we profile what we see as the top four skills we think HR professionals should have in 2024. By leveraging a host of expert opinions and helpful resources, we hope it sets you and your entire organisation up for success this year.
Read more about what’s in and what’s out in our latest HR trends piece for 2024.
1. Leveraging generative AI more effectively
2023 was considered a breakout year for AI, but in 2024 the ability to interface and truly benefit from generative AI is only going to become more important for HR teams. That’s been buoyed by recent data showcasing the heightened demand for AI skills from employers.
As the baseline level of AI skills increases in an organisation, teams across the business — and not just those primarily focused on technology — will need to find efficiencies through the use of AI. Not only how to simply use it, but how to leverage it in further steps.
In our recent report titled “Playtime is over: AI has reinvented HR,” we found that 84% of HR managers have seen an appetite from senior leadership to adopt AI. That adoption means that teams will need to figure out how to use what AI can produce in a beneficial way.
As AI expert Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic puts it, “AI is good at turning data into insights, but going from insights to action requires sound human judgement, experience, and strategic thinking.” The skill of optimising the outputs of AI is the new priority.
We created an immersive course to help HR leverage the power of AI today.
2. Properly navigating a skills-based economy
The role of skills in an organisation is becoming more important, not less. While it might seem a bit like a hat on a hat, HR teams will need the skills required to navigate a skills-based future for their organisations. That comes down to understanding your options.
Whether upskilling, reskilling or embracing skills-based hiring or other practices, HR professionals will need to think about where skills-based anything can have the greatest and most tangible impact on business goals.
The first step you can take is running a skills audit. Teams that have a really strong handle on how to identify skills gaps will be better able to identify and invest in programmes that help organisations become more skilled at skills.
3. Using transparency for effective communication
Some may be quick to regard transparency as yet another corporate buzzword, but your average UK employee disagrees. Our research found that employees who report their organisations as ‘very transparent’ (5% of all employees) have:
Higher rates of productivity (91%)
Higher levels of satisfaction (90%)
Higher likelihood or staying around (75%)
The ability to be transparent is a skill in and of itself. As Luke Sondelski, Personio’s Director of Reward, explains that “being transparent doesn’t always need to involve showing the numbers. It should instead focus on showing a fair and thoughtful philosophy, guideline and process to increase your employees’ understanding.”
In terms of skills, HR teams need to prioritise understanding how to communicate a message and how to showcase things like data visualisation to executives as well as the company at large. Both will be pivotal skills for long-term success.
4. Balancing the entire employee lifecycle
A major risk that employers don’t know they’re taking is fundamentally prioritising certain stages of the employee lifecycle over others. The most critical skill for 2024 is knowing how to effectively balance each stage of the lifecycle in tandem.
Think about it like this: Some organisations may excel at hiring, but fail at onboarding. That inconsistency creates fault lines in an organisation’s ability to retain the talent they’ve worked so hard to recruit. On their first day, employees are already soured.
Another way of thinking about it is through performance. You may be able to run a seamless performance cycle, with great reviews, but if your salary reviews are not as streamlined, all of that work engaging your employees may be for naught.
A massive skill for 2024 is knowing how to balance the life cycle to prioritise each stage, without getting bogged down on the administrative work required to run. The skill is in creating a flow that uses one stage to complement the next, rather than focussing on simply running them.
Unlock the power of your people
The best organisations focus on developing the right skills, not just any skills. For your HR team, any of the above could be massive opportunities to move the needle for your organisation.
Personio's all-in-one HR software provides a single source of truth for all your people data, offering an essential foundation for efficiently managing HR tasks and building the skills of your HR team and organisation.
