The Top 3 HR Trends for Small Businesses in 2017

By Sam Thomas | 3rd January 2017 | 14 min read

In the first blog of 2017, we look at the top three trends which we believe will have the biggest impact on human resources and small businesses.

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2017 is set to be eventful to say the least. We have general elections across Europe, including France and Germany, two of the UK’s most important trading partners, whilst the U.S. gets itself a new President this month, as Donald Trump is sworn in to power. Closer to home, the Prime Minister still intends to trigger Article 50 and get Brexit underway, so with all of this considered, what can small businesses do to prepare?

This blog highlights three of the key HR practices we will see become more prominent throughout 2017.

Employee Development

As the working landscape continues to change all around us, the importance of training and then retaining your employees will become as important as ever. No matter the size of your business, having well trained and skilled workers can only be a benefit to you, so find new ways to help make this happen. Internal mentoring, skill swaps and filtering skills from the most experienced workers down to the newest are all easy ways to helping to ensure you have a workforce ready to tackle any problem.

Developing the Right Culture

Often overlooked, having the right culture within your workplace used to be regarded as a buzzphrase, something that wasn’t as important as other aspects of workplace management. These days, having the right culture in your business is crucial, and it starts right at the top. Put it this way, if you’re negative about the future, how can your employees be positive?

Making Use of Data

The benefits of Human Resources are continuing to become prevalent to smaller employers, as HR systems become comprehensive enough to create meaningful data. HR software can help your business to monitor performance, attendance, productivity and more, meaning both the business and employee sees the benefits.

The Perfect HR Software for Your Business

IRIS HR’s reporting suite can help to drive your HR strategy, and is available across a multitude of HR related areas. Reports allow you to analyse broad, top-level trends across your organisation down to more granular levels for deeper understanding. Additionally, quickly create Personal development plans with our performance management module. The perfect solution for managers and employees to identify skills gaps and create actionable PDPs that incorporate follow-up alerts for actions, reviews and progress updates.

Speak to us today about how self-service HR software can benefit your business, book your free, no-obligation demonstration of IRIS HR using the button below.

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