With a raft of new technology, workplace culture and leadership trends on the way, HR in Australia is changing and businesses will need to reset and refocus to get the best out of their workforce in 2024, explains Neal Woolrich, Director, HR Advisory, Gartner

The annual Gartner HR Priorities Survey highlights the top five areas that will be vital for building positive employee experiences and fostering productivity and retention in the new year.

The HR trends you need to prioritise

Topping the list of HR priorities is leader and manager development, followed by a focus on organisational culture, HR technology and reevaluating the approach to change and career management.

Priority #1: Leader and manager development

The way we work is constantly changing, but is it change for the better? More than three-quarters (76 per cent) of HR leaders have noticed that managers are overwhelmed by the growth of their duties. Many are juggling more responsibility than they can handle, with 73 per cent saying they are not equipped to lead through change.

At the same time, Australian employees are placing increased importance on manager support. According to Gartner’s latest Global Talent Monitor (GTM), manager quality remains firmly at the top as the key driver of attrition in Australia, as it has for the last four consecutive quarters.

The job of the manager has now become “unmanageable”. In this environment, traditional manager development programs are insufficient. Instead, leaders should look to evolve the role to minimise burnout and maximise efficiencies. This can be done by resetting expectations, rebuilding manager pipelines, rewiring manager habits and removing unnecessary processes.

Priority #2: Organisational culture

After years of hybrid working and less time in the office, employees are experiencing culture differently. Instead of the “macro-based” cultural experience pre-Covid, which was driven largely by the organisation and physical proximity, workers now experience culture more at the “micro” level through their teams and emotional proximity.

The survey reveals 41 per cent of leaders believe employee connection to organisational culture has been compromised by remote working.

When staff are indifferent, it can cause team conflicts, tension and a reduction in engagement and performance. To remedy this, leaders need to invest in their teams by aligning and connecting employees to workplace culture, driving emotional proximity between workers and their organisation’s outcomes, and ensuring teams are equipped to create healthy microcultures.

Priority #3: HR technology

This year businesses have seen the advance of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, particularly generative AI. How these technologies can improve productivity, the employee experience, and the delivery of HR services and interactions has dominated workplace discussions.

However, factors such as data privacy, security concerns, bias and compliance, have slowed the adoption of AI among HR leaders. Developing a framework that assesses risks, ethics, readiness, and governance applications will help organisations determine which technologies are right for their business.

Prioritising HR technology isn’t just important for productivity, it may also be key to retaining top talent, with GTM data showing just 14.9 per cent of Australian employees categorise their workplace as innovative.

Priority #4: Change management

 According to Gartner, 30 per cent of employees have experienced fatigue or burnout since the pandemic, with much of this attributed to ongoing workplace change. The volume and pace of change around evolving hybrid arrangements and ongoing digital transformation projects have overwhelmed workers, affecting productivity and retention rates.

Organisations should focus on reducing the risk of change fatigue by adjusting their strategies and prioritising building trust with employees who have become disengaged.

Priority 5: Career pathing and internal mobility

According to the survey, 86 per cent of HR leaders believe conventional career maps no longer fulfil business or employee expectations as they are either too rigid or unclear.

Instead, it’s essential to design agile professional development paths that identify or nurture transferrable skills. Included in this should be a plan on how managers can support employees, tools to navigate progression pathways, and a range of experiences, such as external rotations.

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