This article discusses the impact of employees as advocates, 15 real-life employee advocacy examples you can take inspiration from, and how to develop an effective advocacy program.

Contents
What is employee advocacy?
Why employee advocacy is important
15 employee advocacy examples to inspire you
7 steps to develop an employee advocacy program

What is employee advocacy?

Effective employee marketing results in employee advocacy, which refers to employees voluntarily sharing positive stories about their organization’s brand on social media and within their professional circles.

It replaces traditional ads with authentic, personal recommendations that build your company’s image and attract talent. The goal is to create a culture where sharing these stories feels natural and rewarding.

Why employee advocacy is important

Employee advocacy is essential for various reasons, including increased brand awareness and trust, enhanced employee engagement, improved talent attraction, greater social media reach, and higher sales and lead generation.

Employees sharing content adds a real, human touch that makes your employer brand more relatable and trustworthy, because employees act as insiders who truly know the business. Advocating for the company can also give employees a sense of ownership and pride, boosting motivation and retention.

Additionally, a positive organizational culture shared through employee stories sends a strong message to potential candidates, making the organization more attractive to top talent. And as more people increase their digital footprint, employee advocacy extends the business’ presence on a variety of platforms to reach a broader audience.

At the same time, authentic employee endorsements help build relationships and increase brand recognition, which can lead to more sales and quality leads.

15 employee advocacy examples to inspire you

Here are 15 real-life examples of companies with successful employee advocacy programs to help you better understand employee advocacy and give you ideas on how to encourage it.

Example 1: Adobe

Adobe’s employee advocacy program (EAP) aims to empower the company’s staff to engage on platforms like X and LinkedIn. The organization offers its employees extensive training and tools to ensure they are well-equipped to create and share business-related content aligned with Adobe’s brand values.

Example 2: Cisco

Cisco’s EAP uses Sprinklr to give its employees access to a curated library of branded content, which they can choose from to share on their personal social accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, and Facebook. Over 3,000 employees joined the program within its first four months, generating $196,000 in estimated market value.

Example 3: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola’s employee advocacy efforts center around its Coca-Cola Ambassador program, which encourages its employees to share their personal stories and moments of the brand with their respective social networks. The purpose of doing so is to build a deeper connection between the company and its consumers.

Example 4: Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies encourages its employees to share content related to the company’s innovation, sustainability, and corporate responsibility. With the help of dedicated advocacy tools, Dell employees are well-equipped to play key roles in extending the organization’s thought leadership and public reputation.

Example 5: HubSpot

HubSpot weaves its EAP into its company culture, encouraging its employees to post content that aligns with its inbound marketing principles. The organization has also created an internal tool and platform to make advocacy easier and more accessible to all its staff, enabling them to share content more conveniently.

Example 6: IBM

IBM’s EAP includes social media and internal communications and gives employees tools and incentives to share content highlighting its tech innovation. It also categorizes advocates into three tiers: Tier 1 consists of executives and senior leadership, Tier 2 socially active influencers, and Tier 3 anyone wanting to be an advocate.

Example 7: Informatica

Informatica’s EAP encourages staff to share content on social media, with the goal of making the company a thought leader in the technology industry. In empowering employee advocacy with curated content and recognition, Informatica has continued to see a significant boost in its social media presence.

Example 8: KPMG

KPMG uses employee advocacy to raise awareness of its sustainability initiatives, encouraging staff to post content on corporate social responsibility. Less than a year after its EAP started, employees’ social media posts attracted over 12,900 clicks and 10,900 reactions. This has helped position KPMG as a thought leader in business ethics and sustainability,

Example 9: MuleSoft

MuleSoft promotes employee advocacy by encouraging its team members to share their experiences with the organization, whether through testimonials or by showcasing the company products they use. MuleSoft also incentivizes employees by recognizing and rewarding them for their engagement.

Example 10: Randstad

Randstad encourages employees to become advocates for their staffing services through its Randstad USA Advocates program. The program focuses on creating content that highlights Randstad’s culture in order to help the company attract top talent and new clients. It now has over 2,000 brand ambassadors across its different business lines.

Example 11: Reebok

Reebok drives employee advocacy by encouraging staff to share their personal fitness journeys on social media, aligning with the brand and the products and lifestyle it endorses. Reebok also asks staff to post brand-related content it may share on its official pages and hosts regular ’employee takeovers’ on Instagram.

Example 12: Salesforce

Salesforce provides employees with social media toolkits and encourages them to share company successes, product updates, and community involvement. The organization’s EAP has seen at least 25,000 employees become social brand ambassadors and a 2,033% return on investment (ROI).

Example 13: Starbucks

Starbucks champions employee advocacy by encouraging employees (which it calls “partners”) to share their experiences on social media to boost brand reach. The company supports this with clear guidelines and creative campaigns like the White Cup Contest, making employees feel involved and heard.

Example 14: T-Mobile

Through its DreamTM EAP, T-Mobile empowers its 50,000 employees to be brand advocates by giving them easy-to-share content and encouraging personal storytelling. The company supports this with strong employee programs like tuition assistance and a focus on inclusion, showing that employees are key to its brand identity.

Example 15: Zappos

Zappos is known for its unique company culture, which encourages employees to share “insider” content and customer service stories. The company believes good customer service and effective advocacy begins with happy employees and urges them to share their work experiences on social media to show what makes Zappos special.

7 steps to develop an employee advocacy program

In addition to building a positive reputation and employer brand and recruiting top talent, an employee advocacy program is also a great way to close the digital talent gap. If you’re ready to develop such a program for your organization, follow these seven steps to help you get started:

1. Set clear goals: Establish the “why” and “how” of your program. Define the specific goals you want to achieve, such as increasing brand awareness, improving employee engagement, attracting top talent, or generating leads.
2. Select the right platform: Determine where your target audience is most active and select the platforms where your employees should share content. Which platforms or industry sites you focus on will depend on your business or industry.
3. Train employees: Ensure employees understand the program’s goals and how to use social media effectively to advocate for the brand. Provide training on the basics of social media, business communication, content creation, and industry trends.
4. Create engaging content: Prioritize relevant content that resonates with both your staff and target audience. Provide easily accessible shareable content employees can customize, review suggested content, and offer support as needed. 
5. Recognize and reward advocates: Acknowledge employees who actively participate in the organization’s EAP. Offer incentives, employee recognition, and rewards to encourage participation and help keep staff engaged.
6. Encourage authenticity: Encourage employees to share content that comes naturally to them, such as posts about personal experiences and insights. Personalized staff social media posts can generate 64% more engagement than non-personalized content.
7. Monitor and optimize: Regularly track the performance of your employee advocacy program using engagement metrics, KPIs, and employee feedback. This is critical to refining and optimizing your strategy. Remain up to date with industry trends, employee preferences, and communication channels.

How to measure the success of your employee advocacy program

After implementing your EAP, be sure to measure its effectiveness regularly. This will help you determine how well it’s working and if it needs any adjustments. Here are some key metrics to track:

• Engagement: Look at actions such as likes, shares, and comments on content shared by employees. This helps you gauge how well the EAP is resonating with your audience.
• Reach and impressions: Monitor your content’s reach. Greater reach and impressions indicate successful advocacy, while limited reach requires you to reassess the EAP.
• Employee participation rates: Track how many employees actively participate in the EAP. High participation rates suggest it’s engaging and valuable to your workforce.
• Website traffic from social media: Determine if employee-shared content drives traffic to your website, focusing on content that attracts higher website traffic.
• Lead generation and conversions: Analyze how much company-related content employees share contributes to conversion rates (new sales or business).
• Employee sentiment and feedback: Gather employee feedback on their experience with the EAP to get valuable input and even suggestions to enhance the program.

To sum up

If your organization is not running an employee advocacy program, it could be missing out on a significant amount of potential reach. Employee advocacy is a good way for employees to share their enthusiasm for their company’s brand with their network, helping them become brand ambassadors.

It’s also an organic form of marketing that can create awareness in a way that leads consumers to naturally embrace and trust the brand. This way, you can help foster a positive company culture and drive a strategic marketing plan to support long-term growth.

The post 15 Employee Advocacy Examples To Guide Your Own Program appeared first on AIHR.

This article explains what a leadership development strategy is, the 13 different strategy types, and how you can create one to meet your organization’s needs.

Contents
What is a leadership development strategy?
Leadership development strategy: Key characteristics
13 types of leadership development strategies 
How to create a strong leadership development strategy 
3 real-life examples of leadership development strategies 

What is a leadership development strategy?

A leadership development strategy is a plan that aims to help an organization’s future leaders increase their capacity to effectively guide, inspire, and influence others in the company. 

Leadership development focuses on cultivating key leadership competencies, such as strategic thinking, decision-making, emotional intelligence, and communication. It highlights aspects such as self-awareness, personal growth, and the ability to empower and motivate others.  

An effective leadership development plan provides a structured approach to empowering potential leaders to confidently take on their future roles, navigate a constantly changing business landscape, and drive organizational success.

Leadership development strategy: Key characteristics

There are some elements every leadership development strategy framework should include, such as:

• Alignment with business goals: Effective leadership development must support long-term business objectives by helping potential leaders align their professional growth with company goals.
• Personalization: These programs should also be tailored to individual leadership styles and career paths as much as possible to encourage, facilitate, and support diverse perspectives among leaders.
• Practical experience: 75% of leadership development professionals estimate that under 50% of what they train in is actually applied on the job. Effective leadership development training should focus on the practical application of knowledge and skills.
• Continuous learning: Concepts that leadership adopts significantly influence a company’s culture. Leaders modeling continuous learning will also help build a culture of continuous learning throughout the rest of the organization.       
• Measurement and assessment: A leadership development strategy should have clear, quantifiable goals aligned with organizational objectives. You can use HR smart goals to track the progress of your leadership development efforts and their return on investment (ROI).  

13 types of leadership development strategies 

There are various types of strategies you can use as part of your leadership development plan. You can combine a few strategies to create a well-rounded development curriculum. Examples include:

1. Mentorship programs

Mentoring is usually a long-term, relationship-based process between two people. In this process, a more experienced employee (the mentor) provides their mentee with support, guidance, and advice. Mentoring focuses on career development and personal growth and provides an excellent opportunity to transfer knowledge and skills. 

2. Coaching

Coaching is a more structured, goal-oriented process focused on achieving specific results within a predetermined period of time. Leadership coaching is a collaborative process designed to help potential leaders improve their leadership skills, overcome challenges, and reach other specific outcomes.

3. Formal training programs

A formal training program consists of workshops or structured training sessions to help enhance specific leadership competencies and skills. It can include online courses, in-person classes, certificate programs, and more. These programs suit companies that prioritize long-term succession planning or leadership development.  

4. On-the-job training

This involves leaders undergoing coaching or a formal training program while performing their existing leadership duties. Often, new leaders find themselves managing teams of people without completing (or even receiving) leadership training. On-the-job training helps them develop their leadership competencies while performing their duties.

5. Job rotation

Job rotation is a practice where employees (including potential leaders) move between different roles or departments for a certain period to develop diverse skills to prepare for future leadership. Job rotation also allows employees to better understand different business operations as part of their preparation for leadership positions.

6. Cross-functional projects

These projects help potential leaders better understand inter-department relationships and individual roles. It also helps them develop and enhance leadership skills, such as adaptability and collaboration. Additionally, they can build stronger connections with key stakeholders across different departments and teams.

7. Action training

This strategy involves leaders collaborating to solve real business challenges through practical experience and group discussion. This allows participants to develop skills that are directly applicable to their work. Action training aims to enhance problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking skills while also delivering tangible business results. 

8. Leadership workshops

A leadership workshop is a structured session that focuses on developing and enhancing the leadership skills of its participants. Leadership workshop sessions typically involve exercises that teach key leadership concepts, facilitate interactive activities, and drive discussions.

9. Succession planning

Succession planning involves identifying potential leaders to ensure the continuity of critical roles and business operations in an organization. An effective succession plan must provide a structured approach to preparing the next generation of leaders to move the company forward.

10. 360 degree feedback

If you want to identify leadership skills gaps and promote self-awareness among your company’s leaders, 360 degree feedback can be highly useful. It gathers input about a leader’s performance from different sources, including peers, direct reports, and supervisors, offering a well-rounded picture of their capabilities and potential. 

11. Shadowing senior leaders

Job shadowing is a form of on-the-job training where, in the context of leadership development, a future or potential leader learns from an experienced leader by observing them as they go about their day-to-day work duties and responsibilities. This allows them to ask important questions and model beneficial leadership behaviors.

12. Soft skills training

Soft skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and decision-making are all key leadership competencies. A leadership development plan should prioritize building and developing interpersonal skills in order to be successful at preparing future leaders for their roles.  

13. Networking opportunities

Building and maintaining connections with peers across different industries and levels of experience gives leaders an excellent opportunity to enhance their ability to lead effectively. Networking is also a great way to identify potential talent and stay current on the latest industry trends.

How to create a strong leadership development strategy 

The following seven steps below provide a simple guide for you to start creating a strong leadership development strategy. 

Step 1: Identify business objectives

Before anything else, you must have a thorough understanding of your organization’s business goals. This will help determine the kinds of behaviors, capabilities, traits, and skills you must focus on in your leadership development strategy framework.

Step 2: Identify key leadership styles and competencies

Depending on your company’s culture and business needs, it may require one or more leadership styles. It’s crucial to identify key competencies for the company’s success, as they’ll form the foundation of your leadership development plan. 

Step 3: Assess current leadership capabilities

To understand what your leadership development strategy needs, you must assess your current and future leaders against the key leadership styles and competencies you’ve established. One tool you can use for this is the Training Needs Analysis (TNA). 

Step 4: Select the right leadership development methods

The results of the assessment mentioned in the previous step will show you the skills gaps among your company’s future leaders. You can then use this to determine the most suitable leadership development methods to help close these gaps.

Step 5: Design your leadership development plan

Your development plan should combine your selected learning methods to create an engaging learning environment. For instance, the strategy could feature a combination of formal training, action training, job shadowing, leadership mentoring, job rotation, and soft skills training.

Step 6: Encourage continuous feedback and assessment

360 degree feedback is an excellent tool to monitor people’s progress during their leadership development training, and their readiness for leadership after completion. Examples include the OPM Leadership 360™ and the RightPath 360 assessment.

Step 7: Measure, adapt, and improve

For your leadership development strategy to succeed, you need to collect and analyze data and then measure it against the goals you’ve set. KPIs for each goal will help you measure progress, so you know what to keep doing and how to improve your strategy.

3 real-life examples of leadership development strategies 

Below are three real-life company examples of leadership development strategies you can use to inspire your own approach:

Example 1: General Electric

General Electric (GE) has multiple leadership development programs, one of which is the two-year Operations Management Leadership Program. Its participants rotate three times across the business to gain experience within the supply chain, and take on assignments to help build a foundation in supply chain and leadership.  

Example 2: Intuit

One of Intuit’s leadership development programs involves cohorts of five to seven VPs undergoing two months of training before deciding how they’d teach the company’s directors about leadership from their own perspectives. The directors also undergo the same program and share their learnings with their managers to create a cycle of knowledge through teaching.

Example 3: IBM

Extreme Blue is IBM’s three-month leadership program for future tech and business leaders. It welcomes talented individuals with established leadership skills and technical abilities. The program aims to provide participants with an experience that emphasizes innovation, growth, and collaboration.

To sum up

An effective leadership development strategy is vital for a company’s and its people’s success. It is key in empowering (junior) leaders to fulfill their roles with confidence, and successfully navigate others in the organization through a constantly changing business environment.

Companies that prioritize and continuously refine their leadership development strategies are better positioned to drive innovation, improve employee engagement, and sustain long-term business growth.

The post How To Create a Leadership Development Strategy (Plus 13 Strategies) appeared first on AIHR.

What is lean HR, what are its benefits, and how can you implement it in your organization? Let’s take a look. 

Contents
What is lean methodology?
What is lean HR?
Lean HR practices in action
What are the benefits of lean HR?
Implementing lean HR at your organization
Lean HR tools

What is lean methodology?

Lean methodology is an agile management approach that aims to create more valuable outcomes by refining workflows. It eliminates wasteful or redundant actions by gauging quality at each step so that every function of the organization operates as efficiently as possible. 

In organizations that use the lean methodology to manage their operations, stakeholders are well-connected in the decision-making process, creating a culture of continuous improvement that streamlines processes and leverages talent. 

Using lean principles to manage the business enables companies to make modifications quickly and smoothly. Minor adjustments are more feasible to achieve and more tolerable for employees than implementing sweeping changes. Organizations that operate in a lean fashion can hence foster significant improvements, making them more innovative and effective.

Elements of the lean methodology

The lean philosophy has three core pillars and five key principles. Its pillars are continuous improvement, eliminating waste, and respect for people. The premise of the lean methodology is to target unprofitable activities (waste) for elimination. Waste is any procedure that doesn’t contribute to the value of the end product or service.  

Lean management requires viewing each stage of a business process to distinguish between value and waste by applying the five lean principles:

1. Define value: Determining what is valuable from the customer’s perspective to focus efforts where they matter most.
2. Map value stream: Identifying all activities contributing to customer value and eliminating those that don’t add to it.
3. Create flow: Ensuring workflows remain smooth by removing inefficiencies and preventing delays.
4. Establish pull: Maintaining just enough resources to keep processes efficient without unnecessary excess.
5. Pursuit perfection: Embedding continuous improvement into the organization’s culture, making it a fundamental mindset.

Undoubtedly, removing any steps that offer no value is the simplest way to redesign processes and improve the workflow and outcome.

What is lean HR?

Lean HR applies lean principles—a methodology focused on efficiency and continuous improvement—to Human Resources. It’s about streamlining HR processes, reducing waste, and ensuring that HR services add real value to employees and the organization.

The ultimate goal of lean HR is to continuously eliminate redundancy and waste in HR processes and improve service delivery. To achieve this, HR departments need to partner with leadership to promote a lean mindset for the entire organization. At the same time, they must operate their own services as efficiently as possible, striving for continuous process improvement.  

Even though HR doesn’t produce a physical product, its services—like hiring, onboarding, payroll, and employee support—can be optimized to better serve employees and the business. So the question is, how can we apply the lean methodology in HR to ensure long-term success?

Lean HR management assesses the value of its service environment by asking questions, such as: 

• Is there a process in place for the tasks of each service?
• Is the process being followed?
• Are there ways to alter it or steps that could be eliminated to make it more efficient?

For example, lean concepts can be applied to the following HR functions:

• Recruitment and hiring: Are we currently following the most direct route to source candidates and secure new employees?
• Onboarding: Can we streamline paperwork and orientation activities to get new hires operational and ready for action sooner? 
• Compensation and benefits: Are employees well-informed and aware of their benefits and how to qualify for pay raises and bonuses? Could more effective communication help in clarifying the topic of rewards?
• Performance management: Are managers and employees currently spending excessive time setting goals, measuring progress, and assessing performance? Can we condense this process?

Lean HR practices in action

Suppose you’re applying the principles of lean in HR. What do so-called non-value-adding elements look like then?

Here are eight examples of waste that HR professionals can identify and remove following the lean methodology: 

Inventory

In an HR context, inventory can mean storing redundant or obsolete data. Consider, for instance, candidate and former employee (payroll) data. Look for ways to effectively purge expired information and reduce the need to keep hard copies of employee/candidate files, etc. Also, find a way to automatically purge terminated employee files once the legally required period for keeping those records has passed. 

Waiting

Where do people still have to wait for specific information or actions from others in the organization to complete their part of the process, leading to stalled work?

Review required signatures and approvals to standardize only those necessary. Also, consider cross-training employees so they can cover for each other and maintain workflows.

Another remedy is to increase the level of autonomy in the workplace. At Ritz-Carlton, for example, employees can spend up to $2,000 per guest to resolve client issues autonomously without involving (and waiting for) a manager.

Recruitment is another area where delays often occur, and it takes time to move applicants from one stage of the selection process to the next. For example, instead of trying to manually coordinate availability for interviews, companies can use automated scheduling tools, allowing candidates to self-book interviews in available time slots. This reduces unnecessary back-and-forth communication and helps move candidates through the hiring process more efficiently.

Excess processing

As an HR department, are there still tasks or data that you are handling that don’t add value for the organization or its employees? Examples include redundant (employee) data or unnecessary waiting for others, which we have mentioned above. If so, identify them and then look for ways to avoid needless approval layers, reports, and data re-entry.     

Motion

Physical movement is another element to optimize in a lean HR approach. It refers to the needless moving of people, goods, or objects. Placing ergonomic equipment, an easily referenced file and supply system, and keeping team members in close (virtual) proximity can go a long way in saving people time between tasks. 

Transportation

What HR processes involve traveling through too many connections? Where are you, for example, still providing hard copies or attaching many documents to your emails?

As an HR team and as an organization, you can avoid this type of waste by streamlining report routing, omitting or reducing the distribution of hard copies, or reducing email attachments.

Talent

In this context, talent refers to the underuse of employees’ abilities. It’s hard to say something useful about identifying and optimizing this in just one short example, so we’ll stick to the absolute basics.

Provide people with the tools, training, and resources they need to do their jobs well. Give them the autonomy they need to implement process improvements within the scope of their responsibilities, and ensure they know you’re always open to their input and feedback about improving things further.

Defects

What errors do you encounter in your various HR processes? Are there any structurally negative outcomes that need revamping? Consider, for example, a lack of standardized work procedures that leads to data entry errors or a substandard hiring method that results in unnecessary high turnover and needs reworking.

Overproduction

Are there HR workflows that generate information that is unnecessary or never used? Are there processes that provide more of something than needed or before it’s required? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you’re dealing with overproduction.

To pinpoint (and eliminate) this type of waste, you can:

• Assess the use and value of all the information and reports the HR department produces and distributes
• Establish standard operating procedures for each process.

What are the benefits of lean HR?

Applying the lean methodology to create lean HR processes creates significant advantages for organizations. It enables HR teams to identify bottlenecks and then find ways to remove or reduce them. Other benefits include: 

• A better employee experience: When processes are continuously refined and optimized, work should become easier and more enjoyable for employees. In an organizational culture that fosters continuous improvement (one of the pillars of lean), leadership encourages open dialogue. It allows employees to suggest changes, turning the frustration of a problem into an opportunity to craft a solution.     
• More efficient processes: True to the philosophy it is built upon, lean HR seeks to constantly eliminate waste, improve practices, and respect the organization’s people in the process. As a result, processes should become more efficient. For example, based on not-so-great feedback from recent onboardees, a thorough analysis of your current onboarding process finds that new hires must perform 54 tasks during their onboarding. After you apply the five lean principles mentioned above, your onboarding process now counts no more than 32 tasks, making it significantly more efficient and appealing to new hires. 
• Cost reduction: Cutting waste inherently saves money. Think of the earlier example about people having to wait for their colleagues to move forward. Time quite literally is money in a business environment, so cutting out this ‘waiting time’ as much as possible will save the organization a considerable amount of money.      
• Fostering a learning culture: The most famous (or most-used) example of a company ‘going lean’ and what that can look like comes from the already mentioned Toyota. At Toyota, employees can literally stop the production line if they notice a defect. This creates:
  • An environment where people focus their thinking on seeking change for the better
  • An environment where people aren’t afraid to speak up, share their views, and give feedback, and; 
  • An environment of being open to progress and taking pride in adding value with one’s work.   
• Increased agility: Efficient, streamlined HR processes create a more responsive HR function that can better adapt to changing business needs.
• Quality enhancement: A mindset of ‘where do we still see room for improvement’ helps optimize workflows and reduce errors. This creates an enhanced employee experience, which, in turn, will lead to better-quality products or services for the organization’s customers.

Implementing lean HR at your organization

We’ve gone through the theory and philosophy of lean methodology, but what does it take to implement lean HR in your organization? Consider the following steps to get started: 

1. Identify key HR processes

Start by targeting the HR processes where applying lean is quantifiable and makes the most sense. Typically, these include the recruitment and selection process, learning and development, onboarding, and performance management. 

2. Build knowledge of lean principles within your HR team

Before you can start to apply lean principles in your HR function, the HR team needs to understand what they are and have a basic understanding of how to use them in practice.

There are various ways to go about this, depending, among other things, on your available budget. Options include: 

• Inviting a peer from a company that already uses lean HR to give your HR team a session about what it is and how they are using it
• Taking a course, for example, Lean Management within AIHR’s HR Manager Certificate Program
• Hiring a lean HR consultant for a session (or perhaps several sessions) about lean HR, how it works, and how to get started.   

3. Apply a problem-solving model

Follow a structured plan to execute the lean principles we mentioned earlier. The following two are commonly used:

The Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycle

This method examines the current process, reflects on it further, makes revisions, and repeats the cycle. 

Follow a structured plan to execute lean principles. Here are two that are commonly used:

Another strategy often used is the Define Measure Analyze Improve Control (DMAIC) model. Officially, it is part of the Six Sigma initiative, but it is also often used in the lean approach.

Here, the process is as follows:

4. Measure the success of lean HR

As we’ve seen in both problem-solving models discussed above, applying lean principles involves determining the metrics for measuring progress and tracking this data. 

After all, how else are you going to assess whether your efforts are successful and whether you have actually eliminated waste and optimized HR processes?

5. Consider hiring a lean HR consultant

Implementing lean initiatives within your HR department can be complicated, especially if this is completely new in your organization. This is why you may benefit from hiring a consultant who can oversee the effort or help you formulate the plan, at least the first time.  

A consultant can help guide the lean transformation within your organization’s HR function and aid your HR team in developing the behaviors and competencies necessary to navigate the lean environment. 

Lean HR tools

Lean methodology uses certain tools to facilitate the process on a daily basis. Examples include: 

• Kanban boards: A Kanban board is a tool that enables teams to visualize and manage the various tasks related to a project. Tasks are represented by cards (or post-its) placed in columns, and as the project evolves, they move through different stages: To Do, In Progress, and Done.
• Daily standups: A daily standup is a short meeting, ideally no more than fifteen minutes. The idea is that team members exchange relevant information and updates on the projects they’re working on. If any issues prevent them from moving forward, the standup is the time to share this and ask for support. Quick team check-ins help HR stay aligned on priorities, resolve roadblocks, and improve responsiveness.
• Value Stream Mapping (VSM): This process is about the structured identification of inefficiencies in processes like recruitment, payroll, and performance management to eliminate wasted time and effort. In lean HR, employees are considered the “customers” of HR services. By mapping out each step of a process from their perspective, HR teams can identify which activities add real value—such as clear communication and timely responses—and which create unnecessary delays or redundancies. Steps that don’t contribute to a smoother, more effective experience (like excessive approvals or manual data entry) can then be streamlined or removed to improve efficiency.
• Standard work documentation. Streamlining HR processes requires standardizing work documentation using templates, checklists, and HR SOPs. An HR Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), for example, provides the HR team with clear, step-by-step instructions regarding the processes they need to follow. This ensures the entire team performs HR tasks consistently, legally compliantly, and in line with the company’s goals.   
• 5S Methodology: The 5S methodology is known for its ability to create a more productive and organized workspace. Originally developed by Toyota in the 1950s to improve agility in manufacturing, 5S principles apply just as effectively to HR, helping streamline processes, reduce clutter, and improve overall productivity. The five S’s stand for and what they can translate to in HR:
  • Sort: Eliminate outdated paperwork, redundant policies, and unnecessary HR tasks to focus only on what adds value.
  • Straighten: Organize employee records, digital files, and workflows to ensure easy access and smooth operations.
  • Shine: Maintain a clean and structured digital and physical workspace, improving efficiency and clarity.
  • Standardize: Create clear SOPs for processes like hiring, payroll, and onboarding to ensure consistency and reduce errors.
  • Sustain: Regularly review and update HR systems, policies, and work habits to maintain long-term efficiency and improvement.

The impact of a lean HR approach

Given the impact of your organization’s HR processes on the functioning of the rest of the company, simplifying and making them more effective should be your top priority. Adopting a lean HR approach can be an excellent step in the right direction.

Even if senior management has not yet embraced lean principles, HR can lead the way as an example for the entire organization.

The post What Is Lean HR? Examples, Benefits, and How To Start appeared first on AIHR.

This article discusses AI’s growing role in HR, how an AI course can be useful to you, and which 11 AI for HR courses you should consider to aid you in your upskilling journey.

Contents
The growing role of AI in HR
Why take an AI course for HR professionals?
11 best AI courses for HR professionals to consider
How to choose the right AI course for HR professionals

The growing role of AI in HR

The role of AI in HR is rapidly expanding, and reshaping the field of HR at the same time. Key areas of AI’s impact on HR include:

• Automation of time-consuming tasks such as data entry, payroll processing, scheduling, employee records management, and providing HR services
• Streamlining recruitment by sourcing, screening, and assessing candidates more efficiently and quickly
• Enhancing employee management with engaging onboarding experiences
• Improving employee engagement through individualized performance management
• Empowering data-driven decision-making in resource allocation, workforce planning, and long-term growth strategies.

Why take an AI course for HR professionals?

AI skills are quickly becoming a must-have for HR professionals who want to stay ahead of the game. Dabbling in basic tutorials or experimenting with tools is a great way to start—but if you’re ready to take your expertise to the next level, formal courses and certifications are the way to go.

By joining an AI program designed for HR, you’ll level up your data literacy, sharpen your technical skills, and learn about the ethical use of AI. You’ll also learn how to tackle risk management, use AI to minimize hiring bias, and establish yourself as a go-to expert in HR tech. Plus, you’ll gain the tools to guide your HR team and the organization in upskilling for the future of work.

11 best AI courses for HR professionals to consider

Ready to kick off your AI learning journey? Check out these 11 must-try AI courses designed specifically for HR professionals:

1. Artificial Intelligence for HR Certificate Program (AIHR)

• Format and duration: Online and self-paced; 35 hours over 12 weeks.
• The program covers: Enhancing HR practices with AI, mastering prompt design for HR, using Gen AI in HR, and AI strategy for HR.
• Cost: $975
• Find out more: Artificial Intelligence for HR Certificate Program

2. Gen AI Prompt Design for HR (AIHR)

• Format and duration: Online and self-paced; 3.5 hours.
• The program covers: High-quality prompt techniques, applying them to craft prompts to yield productive results, and best practices for operating Gen AI safely and securely.
• Cost: Available as part of AIHR’s Full Academy Access ($1,625)
• Find out more: Gen AI Prompt Design for HR

3. Generative AI in HR certification (CHRMP)

• Format and duration: Online classroom; one class per week over seven weeks.
• The program covers: Gen AI models, using AI tools and platforms to automate tasks and improve decision-making, and personalizing employee experiences.
• Cost: $429
• Find out more: Generative AI in HR certification

4. AI for Human Resources course (CIPD)

• Format and duration: Online; two consecutive days.
• The program covers: Practical AI and Gen AI skills, how to use AI tools for real-world HR tasks, and designing AI policy to meet organizational needs.
• Cost: $1,285
• Find out more: AI for Human Resources course

5. AI Applications in People Management (Coursera)

• Format and duration: Online and self-paced; nine hours.
• The program covers: AI and machine learning in HR management, using blockchain tech to reduce bias, and HR data analysis.
• Cost: Included in a Coursera Plus membership (€56 per month or €384 per year)
• Find out more: AI Applications in People Management

6. Generative AI for HR Professionals Specialization (Coursera)

• Format and duration: Self-paced; three courses of six to 11 hours each.
• The program covers: Using Gen AI for L&D, recruitment and onboarding, performance reviews, and workforce and succession planning.
• Cost: Included in a Coursera Plus membership (€56 per month or €384 per year)
• Find out more: Generative AI for HR Professionals Specialization

7. HR Skill UP: Leveraging AI in the Workplace (HRPA)

• Format and duration: Online and self-paced; five modules.
• The program covers: AI foundations, implementation, emerging trends, ethical considerations, and governance policies.
• Cost:  $395 for members and $495 for non-members
• Find out more: HR Skill UP: Leveraging AI in the Workplace

8. AI + HI Specialty Credential (SHRM)

• Format and duration: Live online seminar; six hours.
• The program covers: AI in talent development, employee wellbeing and engagement, legal and ethical concerns, and cybersecurity.
• Cost:  $1,855 for members and $2,130 for non-members
• Find out more: AI + HI Specialty Credential

9. AI Governance & Compliance for HR Professionals (Udemy)

• Format and duration: On-demand video; seven hours.
• The program covers: Creating HR automation systems, executing a risk-free AI recruitment process, and building and leading an AI governance team.
• Cost:  $44.99
• Find out more: AI Governance & Compliance for HR Professionals

10. Complete Advanced AI Automation for HR (Udemy)

• Format and duration: On-demand video; one hour.
• The program covers: AI tools to automate HRM operations, the best ChatGPT prompts, ATS-integrated talent CRM strategies, and predictive analysis.
• Cost:  $19.99
• Find out more: Complete Advanced AI Automation for HR

11. Generative AI for HR Professionals (Udemy)

• Format and duration: On-demand video; one hour.
• The program covers: deploying AI for HR solutions responsibly, protecting data privacy, and promoting ethical AI practices.
• Cost:  $44.99
• Find out more: Generative AI for HR Professionals

How to choose the right AI course for HR professionals

Here’s what to consider when deciding on which AI courses for HR professionals you might want to invest in:

Evaluate your career goals

Consider your career ambitions and which HR topics interest you. Then, determine how AI-savvy you need to achieve your goals. Is basic AI familiarity enough? Do you need more advanced AI knowledge to specialize in AI-driven HR analytics, or is your goal to understand how to develop an AI strategy for business?

Assess course content and outcomes

Look at which topics each course covers to ensure it contains sufficiently comprehensive information, and which course includes other areas you’re specifically interested in. Additionally, consider if you’ll get any credentials upon course completion if these are relevant to your aspirations.

Consider the delivery format

The course you pick should suit your schedule and learning preferences. Also, find out how the course material is facilitated. Look for programs that incorporate various instructional techniques, such as interactive components, practical applications to real-world scenarios, self-paced learning modules, and access to supplemental resources.

Measure cost and your needs

While there are free or shorter and cheaper AI courses for HR – these often only cover very basic AI insights. More in-depth (longer) certificate programs will provide you with a deeper level of insight into how to use AI in HR, risk mitigation, and implementation strategies so that you can use it effectively in your HR team and also guide your organization on AI adoption.

Before selecting the course that best suits your needs, be clear on what level of expertise you want to gain from it, how much time you can dedicate to it, and what your learning and development budget may be.

Did you know?

Many AIHR members have successfully had their employer sponsor their AIHR membership – even without a formal training budget. Follow these three steps to help you ask your employer to sponsor your certificate program.

Take a structured approach

Finally, whichever course you take, be prepared to make informed decisions about risk exposure in adopting AI by executing AIHR’s AI Risk Framework. This structured approach can ensure your organization is able to monitor and mitigate the risks associated with AI use.

To sum up

AI is transforming HR, making upskilling crucial. Taking an AI course will help you understand AI tools, improve decision-making, and integrate AI into your HR processes. The courses recommended in this article cover key areas like recruitment, employee engagement, and data analysis, preparing you for the future of HR.

Be sure to pick the right course based on your career goals, learning style, and personal and work schedules. This ensures you’re able to commit the necessary time and effort to the most useful courses. With the right training, you’ll be ready to use AI to stay competitive in HR.

The post 11 AI Courses for HR Professionals To Future-Proof Your Career in 2025 appeared first on AIHR.

This article explains how continuous feedback benefits both organizations and their employees, how HR can implement it effectively, and the key elements of a continuous feedback model.

Contents
What is continuous feedback?
The benefits of continuous feedback
Continuous feedback vs. traditional performance reviews
6 key elements of a continuous feedback model
Continuous feedback tools for HR
Best practices for HR on implementing continuous feedback
7 tips for creating a culture of continuous feedback in the workplace
Continuous feedback examples

What is continuous feedback?

Continuous feedback is an ongoing process where employees receive real-time input from their managers and colleagues. Unlike traditional feedback, which is given annually, biannually, or quarterly, continuous feedback can happen at any time. Its purpose is to improve employee engagement, performance, and growth.

This approach fosters open communication between employees, peers, and managers, making it easier to share feedback regularly. It also enhances employee motivation, leading to better performance and productivity.

The benefits of continuous feedback

Continuous feedback offers several key benefits for companies:

• Faster skill improvement: Regular feedback helps employees address issues quickly and develop skills faster. For example, senior software engineers can improve their coding with timely input.
• Higher employee engagement: Consistent feedback helps employees feel valued and clear about their roles, boosting motivation, performance, satisfaction, and employee retention.
• Reduced performance anxiety: Frequent, clear feedback replaces the stress of annual reviews by giving employees regular updates on their progress and guidance when needed.
• Improved teamwork: Consistent feedback resolves misunderstandings quickly, keeping teams aligned and on the same page.
• Stronger focus on goals: Feedback shows employees how their work contributes to the company’s success, keeping them motivated and aligned with organizational objectives.

The role of continuous feedback in performance management

Continuous feedback is essential for performance management, helping employees grow, stay motivated, and align their goals with business objectives.

Instant feedback allows employees to quickly identify and fix problems, ensuring their work stays on track with company goals. For example, a sales executive can immediately adjust their pitch to meet targets based on timely feedback.

Providing constructive, supportive feedback in real time also boosts confidence, encourages strong performance, and makes employees feel comfortable asking for help when needed. Regular updates help employees address their weaknesses without waiting for yearly reviews.

Continuous feedback vs. traditional performance reviews

Continuous feedback differs from traditional performance reviews in a few key ways. Here are the main differences between the two:

6 key elements of a continuous feedback model

Below are six key elements every continuous feedback model should have:

1. Real-time feedback culture: This encourages managers and employees to share feedback immediately after events like project completion or milestones, allowing business mistakes to be nipped in the bud. 
2. Two-way communication: Employees are empowered to share their opinions with their managers and peers. As such, they have the opportunity to give and receive feedback, and managers don’t have a monopoly on knowledge. 
3. Goal alignment: In this system, feedback is typically tied to both personal and company objectives. This ensures workforce alignment with organizational goals, supporting long-term retention and business success.
4. Recognition and reinforcement: A continuous feedback model recognizes top performers and rewards them accordingly. This positive reinforcement motivates them to continue giving their best. 
5. Coaching and development focus: Under this model, managers often act as coaches, and their constructive feedback can help employees improve their performance more promptly and consistently.
6. Integration with HR systems: The model connects feedback with tools like HR dashboards, learning platforms, and employee recognition programs, making it easier to track progress.

Continuous feedback tools for HR

We’ve compiled a list of several useful tools for implementing continuous feedback at your organization. These include tools for performance appraisal, project management, employee engagement, instant messaging, and 360-degree feedback.

Performance management software

• 15Five: 15Five’s AI-powered continuous feedback software enables managers and employees to provide objective feedback. It also makes turning feedback into standardized ratings easy, allowing for equitable pay and promotion decisions.
• Lattice: Lattice facilitates feedback among peers, between direct reports and managers, and across teams to offer employees actionable insights to improve their performance. This builds a culture of continuous improvement and open communication. 
• Betterworks: Betterworks allows users to give and request feedback at any time, view historical and 360-degree feedback, include personal recognition in the feedback system, and use customizable feedback templates for groups. 

Employee survey platforms

• Culture Amp: Culture Amp’s continuous feedback system facilitates 360-degree feedback and one-on-ones to help managers and employees collaborate and monitor performance. It also offers templates to help users provide meaningful feedback.
• SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey allows you to conduct regular pulse surveys and 360-degree feedback surveys. You can also use SurveyMonkey to create anonymous surveys to encourage employees to share their honest opinions.

Business instant messaging apps 

• Slack: Managers can create dedicated channels on Slack to facilitate open, transparent feedback, and recognize outstanding staff in public channels. Slack also features ‘huddles’, which allow real-time feedback without having to schedule formal meetings. 
• Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams features private and group chats that managers and employees can use for instant feedback. Managers can give real-time guidance via one-on-one chats, and teams can use group chats for quick project feedback. 

360-degree feedback tools 

• Qualtrics: Based on employee feedback, Qualtrics triggers actions like stakeholder notifications and training resources. It also has a self-initiated 360 feedback feature to ensure continuous and relevant insights throughout the employee lifecycle.
• Reflektive: Reflektive offers features like Conversation Starters to help managers engage employees meaningfully. It also allows users to customize questions to suit different conversations, and target feedback and reviews by department and location.

Project management tools with feedback features

• Asana: Asana allows employees to create tasks specifically to request feedback from managers and peers. Managers and peers can then leave comments on these tasks, facilitating real-time input on ongoing work. 
• Trello: Trello’s board-based workflow makes it easy to set up a dedicated feedback board. Users can add cards under columns like “To Review”, “Feedback Given”, and “Implemented”. They can then move cards to the different columns as they receive and address feedback.
• Jira: Jira’s commenting system allows users to leave feedback directly on tasks, and tag (@mention) others regarding relevant feedback to ensure accountability. The system keeps feedback within the workflow, minimizing the need for back-and-forth emails.

Best practices for HR on implementing continuous feedback

Here are some best practices you should follow to effectively implement a continuous feedback system within your organization:

Create a culture of trust

Employees should feel comfortable giving and receiving feedback, both from their peers and managers. Normalize the idea that feedback is not something to fear or worry about but is instead an opportunity to learn and grow professionally.

Train managers to provide constructive feedback

Coaching is key to effective feedback. Feedback should focus on improvement, not criticism. For example, instead of saying, “Your report was unclear,” a manager should say, “Next time, try including more data in your report to make it more detailed and credible.”

Use multiple feedback channels

Combine 1:1 meetings, peer reviews, and surveys to meet employee needs. Some may favor face-to-face conversations, while others prefer providing anonymous feedback. For best results, you can implement one-on-one meetings between managers and employees, peer appraisal for collaboration among team members, and annual anonymous surveys for the whole company.

Encourage peer-to-peer feedback

Employees learn not only from their managers but also from their team members. This makes their peers’ perspectives just as critical as the manager’s, especially when it comes to collaborating on a project or trying to solve a recurring problem.

Tie feedback to performance and career growth

Feedback should not apply only to meeting targets or performance evaluations. It is also necessary to track individual progress and learning regularly. This helps you spot any issues employees may be facing and address them promptly. It also ensures the company can provide the tools and resources needed to help improve performance and drive career growth.

Use continuous feedback software

Continuous feedback software helps you track performance in real time, spot skills gaps early, and align employee efforts with company goals. It also streamlines performance reviews, and provides data that can help you tailor training programs and boost retention.

Monitor and refine the feedback process

Continuously evaluate and improve the feedback process. Identify what’s working and what needs improvement, and make adjustments. 

7 tips for creating a culture of continuous feedback in the workplace

An effective continuous feedback model requires a culture that supports it. The following seven tips will help you create this culture of feedback and drive long-term business and workforce success:

1. Lead by example: Leaders should give, request, and act on feedback regularly to show its value. Seeing management model this behavior makes employees more receptive to feedback.
2. Encourage open communication: Create a safe space for honest feedback, using anonymous channels if needed. Frame feedback as a growth opportunity instead of a negative exercise.
3. Make it a regular habit: Encourage employees and managers to practice giving and receiving feedback regularly to reinforce learning. Even a quick message can help correct issues early.
4. Provide training on feedback skills: To help employees get more confident and effective at giving feedback, teach them simple models like SBI or Start-Stop-Continue.
5. Use technology: Tools like 15Five and Lattice can help record feedback and monitor progress. You can also automate pulse surveys via SurveyMonkey to gather real-time insights.
6. Recognize contributions: Reward those who consistently offer quality feedback. Peer recognition tools like Bonusly or Kudos can be useful in this aspect.
7. Link feedback to career growth: Show how feedback can help employees advance in their careers. This will motivate them to participate more actively in giving and receiving feedback.

Continuous feedback company examples

Companies that have successfully implemented continuous feedback within their organization include:

Adobe

Adobe replaced its annual performance reviews with Check-in, which consists of face-to-face dialogues between managers and employees that can be accessed anytime. Check-in’s dashboard allows employees to record their goals, track their progress, and document their learnings based on feedback from their managers and colleagues.

It also has a Career Discovery tool to help staff explore new opportunities in Adobe, based on the career journeys of other employees in similar positions. In addition to giving feedback, managers also discuss the support employees need to advance in their careers and do their best work.

Netflix

Netflix practices 360-degree feedback, which employees and their colleagues conduct face-to-face. The company also observes the 4A Principles of Feedback, whereby both managers and team members must remember that any feedback they give should assist and provide actionable advice.

At the same time, when receiving feedback, the receiver should acknowledge and appreciate the insight, and assess whether they will accept or reject it. For instance, an employee may choose to temporarily reject feedback that isn’t highly relevant to their role, and accept feedback that can help them get better results in a project they’re involved in.

Typeform

Typeform promotes a continuous feedback culture through one-on-one meetings, rewards, 360 feedback, and workshops. Rather than focus only on tasks or projects, managers address employees’ challenges and goals. Employees can also reward each other with ‘type coins’ via Bonus.ly, which they can trade for merchant credits, or donate to their preferred charities.

The company also uses 360 feedback, which managers discuss with each employee in one-on-one meetings. At the same time, it organizes feedback workshops to help make the feedback process more manageable, increase the frequency and quality of feedback, and promote feedback as part of a culture of trust and ownership.

To sum up

Continuous feedback keeps employees engaged, improves their skills, and strengthens teamwork. Unlike traditional performance reviews, real-time input helps employees grow professionally while keeping company goals on track.

To make it work, companies need open communication, well-trained managers, and the right tools. When done right, continuous feedback boosts employee retention, improves collaboration, and turns performance management into a driver of long-term business success.

The post Your Ultimate Guide To Continuous Feedback (Plus Tools To Use) appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
1. Employee leave request form
2. Time off request form
3. Vacation request form

1. Employee leave request form

An employee leave request is a general form for employees to request any type of leave, including vacation, sick leave, parental leave, personal leave, or other absences. This ensures proper documentation and approval before taking time off.

This free leave request form (Word doc) provides a flexible template that you can modify to align with your organization’s leave policies.

2. Time off request form

A time off request form is typically used to allow employees to ask for short-term absences, such as a personal day or a few hours off, in a clear and structured way. It helps managers track time off and ensure proper staffing.

Need a simple way to manage time off requests? This free Word document provides a structured format that can be tailored to fit your company’s scheduling needs.

3. Vacation request form

A vacation request form is designed specifically for employees to request vacation leave, ensuring clear communication and approval before finalizing travel or other plans. It helps employers manage schedules and avoid conflicts.

Use this free template as a starting point and adjust it to match your organization’s vacation policies.

The post [Free] Ready-To-Use Leave Request Forms appeared first on AIHR.

This constant change can create “change fatigue,” making it harder for employees to adapt. HR professionals play a key role in helping teams successfully manage these transitions.

This article breaks down 11 essential change management skills that HR practitioners should develop to better support their workforce during ongoing organizational changes.

Contents
Why change management is essential for HR 
11 crucial change management skills and how to develop them
Examples of change management skills in practice

Why change management is essential for HR 

Change is a constant in most organizations. For these changes to succeed, it’s important to prepare, equip, and support employees so they can adapt and embrace new ways of working. This process is called change management, and HR plays a key role in managing the people side of change.

To guide employees through change effectively, HR needs strong change management skills and knowledge. This includes:

• Monitoring and evaluating the process, and improving strategies if required
• Communicating clearly and addressing concerns
• Supporting both leaders and employees as needed
• Ensuring the change aligns with the company culture
• Providing training and development for employees.

Why do change management skills matter for HR?

Today’s workplaces are experiencing change—rapid advancements in AI, shifts toward remote and hybrid work, and economic changes are just some of the current challenges organizations face.

This puts HR teams front and center in understanding and effectively managing change within the workplace. However, to succeed in this role, HR professionals need strong skills, knowledge, and expertise in managing change.

So, what exactly are change management skills? These are the abilities needed to guide, support, and implement change effectively. They help HR leaders manage transitions, keep employees engaged, and drive business success.    

11 crucial change management skills and how to develop them

Let’s examine some essential change management skills for HR professionals. We’ll also discuss their relevance and how to start developing them.

Skill 1: Communication

Communication in change management means delivering clear, consistent, and engaging messages about organizational changes. It involves explaining the reasons for change, providing regular updates, addressing concerns and resistance, using the proper communication channels, and ensuring open communication.

Why it’s an important skill:

• Reduced uncertainty and builds trust: Employees feel more secure when they understand the change process, strengthening their confidence in leadership.
• Minimized resistance: Employees are more likely to support change when they understand its benefits, not just for the organization but also for themselves and how they handle their day-to-day work.
• Enhanced engagement: When people feel heard and included, they are more motivated to engage with the company and adapt to organizational change.

  How to develop this skill:

• Practice active listening: Encourage employees to share their concerns and ideas and address their feedback promptly to show them their input matters to the company.
• Ensure clarity and simplicity: Avoid jargon or overly technical terms, and use simple, direct language to facilitate understanding. You can also break more complex messages into smaller, more digestible pieces.
• Adapt your communication style: Assess employee preferences and company culture to determine the best communication style for your audience while maintaining the organization’s voice and intent.
• Tap into storytelling: Share real-life examples of how the change has benefited others, and use narratives to make it feel more relatable and less intimidating.

Skill 2: Adaptability

Adaptability in change management refers to people’s ability to (quickly) adapt to changing circumstances or situations in the workplace. Although always handy, this skill is particularly useful in periods of change as things can evolve rapidly.

Why it’s an important skill:

• Enables smoother transitions: HR leaders who act quickly are likelier to make the change happen and drive a smoother transition during organizational change.
• Willingness to take risks (and fail): Adaptable people aren’t afraid to take (calculated) risks. They’re open to trying alternative approaches and potentially failing; if they fail, they learn and grow from that experience. 

  How to develop this skill:

• Work on your growth mindset: Be open to trying and learning new things. If you find this hard, find an accountability partner to help you.  
• Develop self-awareness: Self-awareness is about knowing your strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs. Knowing this about yourself will help you identify how you react to change and detect potentially limiting beliefs that negatively affect your adaptability.    
• Build resilience: Learn how to better deal with setbacks and challenges and grow stronger because of them. 

Skill 3: Problem-solving and decision-making 

Problem-solving and decision-making skills in change management enable people to identify the source of an issue during a change process, brainstorm and find one or more solutions, and make the necessary decisions to solve it.    

Why it’s an important skill:

• Ensures a smooth process. Change is rarely linear; unexpected roadblocks are likely to pop up. Problem-solving and decision-making are important change management skills, as they allow one to assess situations from multiple perspectives and devise creative ways to address them.   

  How to develop this skill:

• Learn about problem analysis techniques: Finding the right solution to a problem can be complicated. However, knowing about and using the correct problem analysis technique can streamline the entire process.    
  The following techniques provide teams with a step-by-step procedure to recognize and solve potential difficulties:
  • Problem tree analysis 
  • Root cause analysis 
  • CATWOE analysis 
  • Kepner Tregoe analysis 
  • SCAMPER analysis 
• Practice: Once you understand the different problem analysis approaches, you can start practicing conducting a problem analysis, for example, by following the steps mentioned in our article about problem analysis in HR.

Skill 4: Collaboration

Collaboration is about working well with others. In a way, it is the combination of someone’s ability to communicate, adapt, problem-solve, and achieve goals with others. 

Why it’s an important skill:

• Necessary for a successful process. Organizational changes usually affect many, if not all, the people in the company. Effective collaboration is, therefore, crucial for success; without it, it is very unlikely that the planned change will take place, let alone have the desired effect.   

  How to develop this skill:

• Work on your communication skills. Communication is an essential part of collaboration. Focus on improving your active listening, communication style, and use of jargon. 
• Build your problem-solving skills. As mentioned earlier, learn about the different problem-solving techniques, practice, and train yourself to see every potential issue as an opportunity to learn and grow. 
• Develop your adaptability. Successful collaboration requires adaptability from those involved. Things won’t always go as you pictured them, so be open to other perspectives and willing to change course.

Skill 5: Leadership 

Leadership is the ability to lead, influence, or guide others. Strong leadership offers clarity and stability, both much needed during periods of transformation and change that often come with uncertainty. 

Why it’s an important skill:

• Provides stability and clarity. Organizational change can create uncertainty and fear for its participants. Strong leadership gives them the reassurance, context, and direction they need to guide them through the transition.  

How to develop this skill:

Developing leadership competencies involves: 

• Assess strengths and weaknesses: Take a leadership skills assessment to pinpoint areas for improvement.
• Choose a development method: Select the best way to build your skills, like coaching, mentoring, formal training, workshops, or job shadowing.
• Build a development plan: Create a personalized and structured leadership program. 

Skill 6: Negotiation

Negotiation in change management refers to someone’s ability to communicate with various stakeholders and come to an agreement.  

Why it’s an important skill:

• Ensures effective change. Every organizational change involves different stakeholders with different interests. Finding a solution that guarantees an outcome where all parties can find themselves is crucial for success. 

How to develop this skill:

• Remember the 5C’s. As a negotiation rule of thumb, remember to communicate, collaborate, compromise, stay calm, and embrace change. 
• Develop the skills related to the 5C’s. To become good at negotiating, work on your communication, collaboration, adaptability, and resilience, as described in this article. 

Skill 7: Resilience

As we’ve seen earlier, things happen, problems occur, and circumstances evolve during a change process. Resilience helps you better deal with the unexpected and navigate a quickly changing environment.     

Why it’s an important skill:

• It improves your wellbeing. Resilience is mandatory during a time of change. It is the basic attitude for anyone involved in change management, as without it, most people’s (mental) health risks deteriorate. 
• It inspires others. Another reason resilience is one of the most important change management skills for leaders is that it inspires other people in the organization to become more resilient themselves, which is good in any situation but even more so in periods of change. 

How to develop this skill:

• Develop self-awareness. Once you know how you react in certain (unexpected and) difficult situations and why, you can work on this to better deal with them – and even grow from them – in the future. 
• Take care of yourself. The better your overall health is, the better you will be able to navigate hardship if it occurs. Get at least the basics right: eat well, go outside, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep.  

Skill 8: Cultural awareness

Cultural awareness in change management means understanding the company’s behaviors, values, and norms and how they will affect the change process.  

Why it’s an important skill:

• Choosing the best strategy. Your change strategy and process may differ depending on the organizational culture. Change management will look very different in an adhocracy culture (dynamic and entrepreneurial) than in a hierarchical culture. 
• Minimizing resistance. Cultural awareness enables you to choose a change strategy that best fits the organization and, as a result, minimizes the chances of people resisting the proposed change(s).  

How to develop this skill:

HR plays a key role in understanding and maintaining a company’s culture. They ensure that candidates learn about the organization’s values and cultural traits right from the application process.

• Conduct a company culture audit: Learn how to conduct a culture audit and analyze the data to understand the current company culture and assess where improvements are required.
• Measure culture: Continue to measure the company culture to understand if the changes required are happening or where there may be other areas to address.

Skill 9: Coaching and mentoring

Coaching and mentoring are important to change management leadership skills. Especially when it concerns organization-wide change processes, the change management team depends on the support and involvement of managers to create the desired change.   

Why it’s an important skill:

• Managers need support: Managers often have a lot on their plate, and leading their teams through organization-wide changes adds extra work and stress. They need guidance and support from HR to follow the process effectively.
• Creating change advocates: Managers are key to helping their teams understand and embrace organizational changes. Their role is critical in getting everyone on board. HR needs to support managers in becoming advocates for change.

How to develop this skill:

• Experience coaching yourself. As Ozlem Sarioglu, Founder of Digital coaching platform SparkUs, said in our All About HR Podcast: “If you haven’t received coaching yourself, you don’t really grasp what it means to be coached, what it feels like when you hear a powerful question to search inside yourself and find an answer. So to become a better coach, you need to be coached first.”  
  The same goes for mentoring. Before becoming a mentor, find one first and experience what that is like. 
• Get proper training. Find someone with experience, specifically coaching managers during organizational change, to give you the appropriate training.

Skill 10: Data analysis

HR data analysis skills allow for a more informed and strategic approach to organizational change management, allowing the organization to make data-driven adjustments where needed.      

Why it’s an important skill:

• Track progress: Data analysis helps you to track the progress (or lack thereof) of your change initiatives. 
• Identify potential problems. Tracking your change management metrics helps you detect potential issues and optimize the change process. 

How to develop this skill:

Develop your skills in tracking and measuring the right HR analytics for your change management initiatives:

There are, however, some things you can do:

• Understand which metrics to track: Check out our article about important change management metrics to track and how to analyze them.  
• Take a certificate program: Learn how to measure and analyze HR metrics by taking a course or program, like the AIHR People Analytics Certificate Program.
  

Skill 11: Crisis management

Crisis management in a change process refers to people’s ability to effectively navigate and respond to unexpected situations and emergencies during a planned organizational change.   

Why it’s an important skill:

• To minimize the damage: Staying calm in a crisis and, if possible, following processes for calamities is essential to reassure everyone in the organization and reduce damage (e.g., employee safety, a loss in productivity, a drop in employee engagement, a data breach, etc.). 

How to develop this skill:

Crisis management relies on many of the same skills as change management, including communication, collaboration, problem-solving, decision-making, adaptability, and resilience. To be well-prepared, it’s important to anticipate potential crises and create clear action plans ahead of time.

By adding these strategies to your change management plan, you can respond quickly and effectively to challenges.

3 examples of change management skills in practice

There are various ways for HR professionals to put their change management knowledge and skills into practice. Examples include: 

Example 1: Managing digital change

When a company introduces new HR software, the HR team must manage the digital change that comes with it. This includes clear communication and fostering resilience. These change management skills help to:

• Effectively introduce the new HR software through clear communication
• Encourage behavioral changes and build resilience among employees.

Example 2: Writing change, communication, and crisis plans

HR’s expertise in change management is essential for planning and guiding organizational transitions. This includes creating clear communication strategies to make the process smoother. HR is also key in preparing crisis plans to handle any unexpected challenges that might come up during the transition.

Example 3: Guiding people through mergers and acquisitions

When one company acquires and merges with another, effective change management is essential at many levels. Here are a few key areas to consider:

• Organizational culture: How well does the acquired company’s culture align with the acquiring company’s? What steps can you take to successfully merge them?
• Employee engagement: How do employees from the acquired company feel about the transition? Are they concerned? What’s the impact on their morale and engagement? How can you keep these positive?
• HR tech stack: Does the acquired company’s HR tech stack integrate smoothly with the acquiring company’s systems?

To sum up

Focusing on key skills such as clear communication, adaptability, problem-solving, collaboration, leadership, negotiation, resilience, cultural awareness, coaching, data analysis, and crisis management can help guide your organization through transitions more smoothly.

Investing in these areas not only enhances your professional growth but also strengthens your organization’s ability to lead change successfully, reducing employee resistance and boosting overall agility. As the pace of change continues to accelerate in organizations, being well-equipped with robust change management capabilities positions you to lead your teams effectively, ensuring sustained growth and competitiveness in today’s business landscape.

The post 11 Change Management Skills for HR To Develop in 2025 appeared first on AIHR.

As an HR professional, how are these trends going to disrupt your world? 

This article explores 4 emerging work models, and the opportunities and challenges each presents so you can determine which model best suits your organizational needs.

Contents
Market uncertainties impacting the way we work 
Trend 1: Triple peak days
Trend 2: Top sharing
Trend 3: Unilever’s U-Work assignment-based work model
Trend 4: Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
The future of work is here – is HR ready?

Market uncertainties impacting the way we work 

Employers and employees alike have learned that it is possible to work remotely and still be productive and efficient. COVID-19 also had a far more momentous impact than simply showing that hybrid work is a real possibility. It proved that different people are productive at different times and that employees expect more flexibility and agency in designing how and when they work.  

What does this mean as markets continue to evolve and face new uncertainties and challenges? Organizations have the opportunity to harness these new findings and support employees in ways that let them bring creativity and efficiencies to the business, or they can hold on to old ways of doing business and risk losing key talent.

Most workers are working shifts, answering the phone or customer emails, and don’t have the luxury of working in their own hours through flexible models. Trends are shifting, but HR should still decide what’s best for the organization first. This is the balance that will require innovation and considering new ways of working while still supporting business goals.

Erik van Vulpen, Founder of AIHR

As an HR professional, you can help your organization navigate the future of work and embrace new model trends that help both the business and the employees continue to deliver results. Let’s review what these new trends are and how they can be leveraged and supported by HR professionals and managers.

Trend 1: Triple peak days

As new ways of working continue to emerge, like remote and hybrid working, it is becoming increasingly clear that the traditional 9-to-5 model will soon be replaced. Data from Microsoft’s research proves this trend to be true. 

At the start of the pandemic, Microsoft tracked that Microsoft Teams chats increased significantly outside of ‘traditional’ work hours, particularly between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Where there used to be two peak periods during a work day (just before and just after lunchtime), a third emerged amongst its employees. Interestingly, post-pandemic, this way of working continues to remain.  However, the question is raised whether this is people adopting flexible working or an attempt to catch up after a busy day.

There is no doubt that ‘out of office’ hours were amplified during the pandemic. According to Microsoft’s Work Trends Index, time spent in Microsoft Teams meetings more than doubled globally since the 2020 lockdowns and remote working began, with the average meeting increasing by 10 minutes and the average Teams user sending 45% percent more chats, and 42% more chats per person after hours.

This data clearly indicates that the lines between ‘work’ time and ‘home’ time have blurred and continue to blur. HR should consider the benefits and drawbacks of the third peak and how it can support employees to ensure engagement and productivity remain unaffected. 

Benefits and challenges of triple peak day

Benefits

When you’re working from home and living in Zoom and Teams meetings, it’s natural for the work/home life lines to begin to blur and for some people to hit their keyboards later in the evening. This allows for less interruption and more concentrated bursts of focused work, as illustrated by Microsoft’s research – with a 30% evening spike in keyboard activity.

So, what are the benefits of this new peak?

• Increased flexibility: Employers can accommodate the needs of their employees by offering flexible work arrangements. This is especially beneficial for employees who have family or other personal commitments that they need to juggle with their work life. According to SHRM, 55% of employees cited work-life balance and flexibility as very important aspects of their job satisfaction.
• Attracting top talent: Businesses embracing hybrid work and the realities of triple peak times have access to a much larger talent pool as geographic locations are no longer important. In addition, employees who value flexibility and autonomy will be drawn to the emerging work model. Autonomous employees are often natural top performers.
• Increased collaboration: Teams that work across different time zones can collaborate as long as all team members are comfortable with the arrangements.
• Reduced stress levels: When employees can design their work schedules, stress levels can potentially be reduced.

Challenges

Ideally, work-life balance should achieve productive work hours while also leaving enough time for personal pursuits and family. However, according to one study by the Harvard Business Review, 94% of employees reported working more than 50 hours per week, and nearly half said that they worked more than 65 hours per week—which is the opposite of carving out more time for loved ones.

Here are the cons that HR professionals should be aware of:

• There is still room for traditional models: Not everyone wants to work outside the normal 9 to 5 work day. Many people still want to work during the day and do not want their work to encroach after hours.
• The lines become blurred: Accepting evening work runs the very real danger of an ‘always on’ work mentality, which reduces (and even eliminates) work/life balance.
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach: Some employees want work-life integration and are happy to stream meetings from the breakfast table. Others want work-life balance and a clear delineation between work-life and home life.
• Some employees may have difficulty adjusting: Companies choosing flexible work models should be aware that employees who are used to a traditional work week may have difficulty adjusting to a more flexible schedule. Training, support, and clear structures will be required for a smooth transition.

Flexibility and freedom is not the same. I firmly believe employees want more choice around how they work and how work fits into their lives, but this does not necessarily imply that they never want to be at the office.

Dr. Dieter Veldsman, Chief Scientist (HR & OD), AIHR

Triple peak days work model: What HR should be considering

Working late isn’t something new. People have worked late for decades. However, the triple peak day can either support productivity, flexibility, and new ways of collaborating, or it can open the door to extremely unhealthy work-life practices if all limits to how and when we work are removed. The answer to the future of work lies in finding the right balance.

Here are three key guidelines HR professionals should consider when designing new work models that support triple peak working.

1. Define flexibility policies

Use a top-down and bottom-up process to define flexibility policies:

HR should survey employees, listen to their needs, and set expectations. The hybrid working model supporting three peaks must be co-created, and the business should commit to iterating as everyone learns what works and what does not work.

The best work model for a company largely depends on its organizational context and the needs of its employees. HR professionals should understand the implications of each approach on the business and employees, as well as other factors like job requirements and organizational culture.

Linda Shaffer Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

HR and managers must encourage employees to be honest with their needs and feedback:

Based on this exercise, set company objectives and goals and create a framework that will deliver on the business’s core strategy and revenue goals. The goal is to find a balance between flexibility and consistency.

Communicate with employees that, while the business wants to support flexible working, it is important that individual, team, company, and customer requirements are met.

Share the framework and invite employees to choose the flexible working option that suits their needs. This is a critical step – the company provides the framework, so you will need to carefully think through your options, including:

• When work gets done
• How work gets done
• How teams can collaborate
• When there should be meetings and when there should be no meetings
• How outcomes are defined and measured
• The equipment each employee needs to do their job
• Supportive performance-management systems
• The platforms you will use.

Finally, be ready to iterate. This is a new way of working, and it won’t be perfect to begin with.  

A new work model is not a ‘set and forget’ activity. It starts with listening to your people to understand what they need to thrive and determining which principles and guardrails are important to you. Then you test and learn, get feedback, tweak, and repeat.

Jolanda Rotteveel, Future of Work Consultant

2. Solve for work encroaching on personal time

• Set core hours and availability limits. This will involve determining how many hours per day employees are expected to work, how those hours are captured, and where there is flexibility.
• Empower employees to manage their flexibility by giving them the tools to capture when they work and what they are working on.
• Determine communication guidelines, including when a chat tool/email can be used for communication instead of meetings, remove the pressure to respond immediately to messages, and encourage employees to turn off channel notifications in the evenings when they are doing focused work.
• Workers who use the after-hours third peak should also schedule their emails to be sent only the following morning so that they do not encroach on the personal time of their colleagues or clients.

It’s perfectly fine if the employee wants to work from nine to five. It’s equally fine for an employee to pick their kids up at 3pm and catch up on work at nine. Employers need to be less prescriptive and more accommodating to the personal situation of each employee without allowing the personal preferences of colleagues to damage each others’ work life balance.

Erik van Vulpen, Founder of AIHR

3. Make wellbeing a priority

• In a flexible model, it is important to stop valuing presence over performance. Instead, managers should sit with their teams, set clear performance targets, and then measure their team’s progress.
• HR’s role is to review how managers measure their teams to ensure that all core business objectives are being met without employees working longer hours than expected.
• To avoid burnout, employee wellbeing must be considered, which is why average work-week hours should be carefully monitored against output.

Trend 2: Top sharing

Job sharing is not a new concept. For decades, government and private organizations have used the job sharing model to mitigate the risks of too much knowledge residing with one person, address skills shortages, and provide some individuals with more flexibility. However, it is a work model that has not been widely explored or adopted—until now. 

Top sharing is similar to job sharing but at a leadership level, something much newer and the result of how the way we think about work—and the future of work—is changing.

Most industries are currently facing the perfect storm:

• An aging labor force with a wealth of leadership and institutional knowledge
• A tight labor market and skills shortages
• Younger employees who are expecting flexible and hybrid work models
• Tight economies
• Market uncertainties.

Leadership and highly expert or technical roles tend to be the biggest costs to a company. These are where most of a business’s experience and institutional knowledge sits, and organizations are struggling the most to fill them. Businesses facing these challenges could look at a top-sharing model as a solution.

Traditionally job sharing hasn’t reached top-level positions because there has been an expectation that if you work fewer hours, your career won’t progress. However, according to Fast Company, Switzerland has seen great progress in top sharing over the past decade – even reaching CEO level. In fact, one-third of the Swiss workforce does not work full hours – including C-Suite and highly skilled individuals.

So, who is top sharing typically for?

• Managers and leaders who are nearing retirement but want to still work part-time and share their knowledge while also having the freedom to travel and pursue other activities
• Younger managers who bring tech knowledge and fresh perspectives
• Individuals who are leaders but are passionate about other areas in their lives as well and would prefer to work fewer hours.

Benefits and challenges of top sharing

Benefits

While top sharing may not be for everyone and will rely on finding two individuals who can work well together and trust each other, there are key benefits to this new work model.

These include:

• Access to more skills: Two people naturally bring more skills and knowledge to a role than one person.
• Innovation and creativity: Diversity in the workplace increases solution-building because different mindsets and experiences are brought to the same problem. Cross-generational top shares, in particular, increase diversity in the workplace.
• Supportive of the hybrid model: One of the challenges of the future of work is finding ways to offer employees increased flexibility while delivering higher productivity and improved decision-making to the organization – top sharing potentially offers both.

Challenges

The future of work may be flexibility and finding innovative solutions to challenging market conditions, but it’s important to remember that not every solution will suit an organization’s needs.

Here are a few cons to top sharing that HR should consider:

• There are added costs: Even though the salary is shared, hiring two employees instead of one will cost the company more in terms of complexities and benefits.
• The business could lose talent instead of attracting it: If a potential candidate does not want to top share, they won’t be interested in the position.
• There is potential for conflict: Top sharing requires a high level of trust, collaboration, and the ability to relinquish control. It is not for everyone.
• Lower salaries can be a problem: Not everyone wants flexibility at a lower or shared salary range.

Top sharing work model: What HR should be considering

“I believe that top sharing is one of the models businesses can utilize a lot more than they currently are to provide employees with broader flexibility regarding work arrangements,” says Dr. Dieter Veldsman, Chief HR Scientist at AIHR. “We are seeing more portfolio careers with employees also seeking time and opportunity to pursue other interests. Job sharing is a way to create some of those opportunities.”

With this in mind, HR professionals should consider the following key elements to ensure the success of top sharing.

1. Ensure compatible individuals top share

• Top sharers must be able to communicate, collaborate, and disagree with each other
• It may take multiple interview rounds and even a trial period to ensure two people are compatible
• Compatibility does not mean two people who have the exact same qualifications and experiences—in fact, diverse skills and backgrounds are a plus in top sharing because the position requires a broader skill set and a keen ability to see all the angles
• Be clear about why the business has considered top sharing for this specific role, and make sure the candidates have candidly shared their reasons as well. This is crucial to everyone understanding and respecting each other’s boundaries
• As the HR professional, work with the two people who are top sharing to help them discuss, define and capture the ways they want to work that will suit them both.

2. Effective work is built on clearly defined roles

• Begin by clearly capturing what the role entails and the expected outcomes of the position
• Next, capture the skills and experience of your top sharers
• Work with the top sharers to align the duties and responsibilities of the position with their talents and expertise
• Co-create the position with them, ensuring they each take accountability for their specific and clearly defined roles.

3. HR must remain involved

• Do not simply design the shared role and then leave it up to the top sharers to manage themselves
• If they have a manager, ensure that their leader has adequate coaching and mentoring to be able to supervise top sharers without favoring one over the other
• If the top sharers are C-Suite executives, put mechanisms in place that track that both top sharers are equally invested in their deliverables
• Ensure the entire organization understands the roles and responsibilities of each top sharer and where there is overlap
• Entrench communication and collaboration channels to ensure accountability, and transparency and to solve any issues before they arise.

“Top sharing requires a clear purpose, sound principles of how work gets done, and the individuals involved must be clearly equipped on how to manage the requirements of collaboration, boundaries and outcomes,” Dieter explains. “Job sharing is not about competing with my counterpart who I share the role with. It is about being able to deliver on job expectations in a more flexible manner.”

Trend 3: Unilever’s U-Work assignment-based model

If you’ve been paying attention to the top HR trends shifting the future of work, you’ll have seen mention of Unilever’s U-Work. The contributing factors to this new work model should be all too familiar: aging workforces, the need for upskilling and reskilling, an increased focus on care roles and responsibilities, and of course, employees who are looking for far more flexibility in their lives.

According to Forbes, the idea behind U-Work was triggered when Unilever realized almost a third of its UK workforce was eligible for retirement within the next five years. Additionally, there are employees in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who have parental responsibilities, and Gen Z is also expecting a highly flexible and hybrid work model. 

The company realized that a new work model was required that could address the demand for flexibility from three different segments of today’s workforce.

The solution? U-Work; an assignment-based work model that Unilever has implemented to solve all these challenges and more.

“This is not a Unilever-specific initiative,” says Erik van Vulpen, Founder of AIHR. “Organizations are increasingly moving towards an agency model, where different individuals form temporary teams to solve problems and run projects, only to dissolve after the problem has been solved or the project has been completed. They then join a new project and start again.”

This system keeps overheads low and increases the talent pool because full-time resources do not need to be hired to solve short-term problems or deliver time-sensitive projects.

Inside U-Work:

People in the U-Work model don’t have a fixed role. They work on varying assignments, and between assignments are free to do other things that are important to them. They get a monthly retainer and specially designed suite of benefits whether they’re working on an assignment or not. They can design work patterns that suit them – anything from a few days a week for a few months, to short, concentrated bursts of full-time with breaks in-between. And they get paid for each assignment when they’re working.

Benefits and challenges of U-Work

Benefits

According to Dr. Dieter Veldman, there are a number of key benefits to this new model:

• Work has become more human, with the balance between employers and employees shifting towards partnership rather than previous patriarchal models. 
• U-Work, and other innovations regarding flexible marketplaces, assignment-based stretch projects, and gig-working, give employers access to more diverse skill sets while still being cognizant of growing overhead/headcount costs.
• For employees, assignment-based work offers more flexibility within their job requirements, expands individuals’ interests and skills, and helps people build their portfolios.
• Challenging work is a big driver of employee engagement, especially among early career builders, and this type of approach allows employees to move between challenging assignments. 
• On the other hand, we are also seeing organizations harness the wisdom of their more experienced employees, who are looking for new late-stage career opportunities yet do not want the rigidity of traditional line management functions.

Challenges

While U-Work offers flexibility, it also presents challenges that HR and organizations must navigate:

• Workforce planning complexity: Managing a workforce with fluctuating availability requires careful planning to ensure the right talent is available when needed.
• Job security concerns: Some employees may feel uncertain about their long-term stability without a fixed role or guaranteed assignments.
• Cultural integration: With employees cycling in and out of work, maintaining a consistent work culture and a sense of belonging and engagement can be difficult.
• Performance management: Traditional evaluation methods may not apply, requiring new ways to assess contributions and career progression.

U-Work assignment-based work model: What HR should be considering

Redefine employment structures

HR must rethink traditional employment contracts to accommodate assignment-based work while maintaining clarity on expectations. Unlike standard full-time roles, U-Work requires flexible agreements that define compensation, availability, and career progression for participants.

Balance flexibility and stability

One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that business continuity isn’t disrupted while offering employees the flexibility they seek. HR must develop workforce planning strategies that ensure critical skills are always available, even as employees cycle in and out of assignments.

Manage compensation and benefits

Since U-Work doesn’t follow a standard pay structure, HR must design fair and competitive compensation models. This includes determining how pay for assignments is structured and what benefits employees maintain between projects to ensure financial security.

Foster engagement and belonging

Maintaining a strong company culture can be difficult for employees who work on short-term assignments and move between projects. HR should create touchpoints like mentorship programs, regular check-ins, and community-building initiatives to keep employees engaged even when they aren’t actively working on an assignment.

Support career growth and development

U-Work allows employees to explore different roles, but HR must ensure structured upskilling opportunities so they continue growing. Providing access to training, mentorship, and professional development will help employees stay competitive and motivated.

Trend 4: Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)

A Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) is a work model in which employees are evaluated solely on their results rather than the hours they work or their physical presence. Unlike traditional models that rely on fixed schedules or location-based work, ROWE gives employees complete control over when and where they work—as long as they meet their performance goals.

This model is best suited for knowledge-based industries, including technology, marketing, consulting, and creative fields, where success is measured by deliverables rather than time spent at a desk. For example, software developers working in sprints, content creators with defined output goals, and sales teams with revenue targets can all operate effectively without strict time constraints. It’s also increasingly used by performance-driven organizations that prioritize autonomy and trust.

However, ROWE isn’t ideal for all roles—jobs requiring real-time availability, such as customer support or healthcare, often need more structured scheduling.

Benefits and challenges of ROWE

Benefits

• Increased productivity: Employees work during their most productive hours rather than being confined to a rigid schedule.
• Better work-life balance: ROWE eliminates unnecessary meetings and allows people to structure their work around personal commitments.
• Higher job satisfaction: Giving employees autonomy fosters engagement and motivation, ultimately resulting in increased job satisfaction.
• Attracts top talent: Flexible, performance-driven environments appeal to high performers who value results over routine.

Challenges

• Requires clear performance metrics: Without well-defined goals, measuring success can become ambiguous.
• Not suitable for all roles: Jobs that require real-time collaboration or customer interaction may struggle with a fully flexible approach.
• Potential for disengagement: Without structured touchpoints, some employees may feel disconnected from their teams and company culture.

ROWE work model: What HR should be considering

Shifting from hours to outcomes

HR teams must transition from tracking time worked to measuring work outcomes. This means defining clear performance indicators, using OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or other goal-setting frameworks to ensure accountability. Managers need training to evaluate employees based on deliverables rather than time spent online or in the office.

Building a culture of trust

ROWE only works if employees feel trusted to manage their own time. Organizations must foster a culture that values results over micromanagement. Regular feedback loops, transparent communication, and leadership buy-in are essential to creating an environment where employees feel empowered but still accountable.

Keeping teams connected

Since ROWE eliminates set schedules, companies must be proactive in maintaining team collaboration. Encouraging asynchronous communication through tools like Slack, Notion, or Trello can help. HR should also establish regular check-ins and virtual team-building activities to prevent isolation and disengagement.

Ensuring fairness and inclusion

HR should be mindful of potential inequalities in a ROWE model. Some employees may thrive with full flexibility, while others might struggle without structure. Offering optional in-person or scheduled collaboration time can help balance different work styles. It’s also important to ensure that promotions, raises, and recognition are based on actual performance outcomes, not just visibility or responsiveness.

The future of work is here – are you ready for it?

For many HR professionals, these shifts and new work models can be daunting. There are multiple clear benefits, but designing new processes, systems, job roles and outcomes can be complex. However, organizations ignore how the world is shifting, what employee expectations will be moving forward and how innovative businesses are leveraging these trends for competitive advantage at their peril.

What was considered impossible a few short years ago is now the norm, and the bar keeps shifting. For example, USA Today reports that the non-profit organization 4 Day Week is six months into a four-day work week trial with 70 British companies, and almost all respondents say that despite losing an entire day, productivity is not down. In fact, some have even reported significant improvements. Unilever is beginning its four-day work week trial in Australia, and other companies are following suit.

Key takeaway

For HR professionals, the most pertinent questions to be asking right now are:

• Is our business considering the future of work, and do we have a plan to address flexibility and hybrid working expectations?
• What are our competitors doing, and what will it mean for their productivity, innovation, and employer brands?
• Where are the red flags and danger areas if we do not get this right? As we’ve seen, flexibility and hybrid work is far more complex than sending people home with their laptops. The entire way we look at work is changing, and work models need to evolve accordingly.
• Are we using this opportunity to design a new way of working that supports our employees, customers, and business?

The post 4 Emerging Work Models: How HR Can Prepare appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we explore what reskilling is, how it differs from upskilling, why reskilling employees matters, and how to successfully reskill your workforce as jobs continue to be disrupted by market forces and evolving technology trends.

Contents
What is reskilling?
What are the benefits of reskilling your employees?
Why are companies failing at reskilling?
Reskilling examples
How can your organization build a successful reskilling program?
FAQ

What is reskilling?

Reskilling is the process of employees learning new skills to transition into a different job or career, typically in response to changes in the job market or workplace needs. Unlike upskilling, which builds on existing skills for career advancement, reskilling prepares employees for roles that may be in entirely different fields—frequently in emerging areas like AI, cybersecurity, or renewable energy.

For example, a retail sales associate who trains in logistics to shift into supply chain management, or a factory worker who learns machine learning fundamentals to move into an AI-driven quality control role.

Research by the University of Queensland estimates that people entering the workforce today will take on between 16 and 17 jobs over five to seven different careers, with each career change potentially requiring employees to build a new skill set. Therefore, it’s essential that employers prepare for the future world of work now and create and implement training programs to successfully reskill their employees.

Although the process of reskilling can appear daunting, rapid advances in artificial intelligence and generative AI are making (and will continue to make) many roles and responsibilities redundant. Businesses must align with these changing demands and help employees remain relevant and useful in their careers.

Reskilling vs upskilling

The terms “reskilling” and “upskilling” are sometimes used interchangeably as there is a lot of crossover between these two concepts. However, there is one primary difference. 

Reskilling is the process of training employees in new skills and capabilities to help them transition into a different role, either within the same organization or in a new industry. Upskilling, on the other hand, focuses on developing employees’ existing skills to help them adapt to changes in their current role or advance within their field.

• Example of upskilling: An HR professional completes a course in digital HR and automation to help analyze, optimize, and automate HR processes in their organization to increase efficiency and reduce errors.
• Example of reskilling: A school teacher trains in instructional design and corporate learning strategies to transition into a role as a corporate trainer, delivering professional development programs for businesses.

Employees can upskill through various forms of training and education, such as online courses, webinars, workshops, seminars, professional certifications, and industry publications. They may also pursue formal education by earning a degree or diploma, enrolling in intensive boot camps or training programs, or gaining hands-on experience through internships or part-time work.

Reskilling, which involves learning entirely new skills for a different role or industry, often requires more in-depth training. This can include structured programs such as career transition courses, employer-sponsored retraining initiatives, apprenticeships, or immersive boot camps. While the methods for upskilling and reskilling are often similar, upskilling is typically easier to do on the job, as it builds on existing skills rather than requiring a complete career shift.

Organizations often use both reskilling and upskilling strategies to support internal mobility and equip their workforce with the skills needed for the future.

What are the benefits of reskilling your employees?

The rapid growth and adoption of technology have significantly changed how businesses operate, and the future of work is hard to predict. As the use of generative AI, chatbots, virtual assistants, machine learning, natural language processing, and automation increases, some roles will become obsolete, but this will give way to new occupations with a larger focus on human-centered skills such as creativity, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence.

According to a McKinsey Global Institute report, as many as 375 million workers may need to switch occupational categories by 2030, hence why reskilling programs must be taken seriously by organizations and rolled out sooner rather than later. Reskilling helps manage change and navigate future workforce planning efforts by retraining your workforce for what lies ahead and putting employees’ talents to use in crucial new roles.

Reskilling has benefits for both the organization and its employees. Let’s take a look at these in more detail. 

Improves employee retention

The current job market is highly competitive, and job-hopping is a widely acceptable way to advance a career. The opportunity to learn and grow in a position helps employees stay focused on their current employer instead of contemplating new prospects.

Investing in skills training shows workers they have present and future value within the company. Employers need to provide ample development opportunities to attract and retain top talent.  

Reduces the cost of filling new roles 

Recruiting expenses and lost productivity affect your company’s bottom line. Filling openings internally helps reduce these costs.

Reskilling increases employees’ value by preparing them for an alternative role within your organization. When a new position opens up, someone in your workforce will have the skills needed to step in and keep operations running smoothly. 

Drives productivity and profitability

According to a report by TalentLMS, businesses with a healthy training ecosystem are 52% more productive, 92% more innovative, and 17% more profitable than competitors. The message? When employees receive effective training they are hungry for, they are more effective in their jobs and contribute more to business objectives. 

Attracts new talent with a growth mindset

A Gallup report revealed that 59% of millennials rank learning and growth opportunities as extremely important to them when looking for a job. Your organization’s dedication to improving employees’ skills can be an advantage when sourcing and hiring motivated applicants.

Your current employees who appreciate the benefit of a learning culture will also fortify your employee brand when they speak highly of their experience. Their positive feedback can result in desirable candidates applying for your open positions. 

Supports employee engagement

When employees feel overlooked or disconnected from the organization, they become disengaged from their work. Providing opportunities for skill development helps them expand their expertise, collaborate with other departments, and feel more integrated into the company.

What’s more, gaining insight into different roles fosters empathy and camaraderie, reducing siloed thinking and an “us versus them” mindset.

Gives employees a vision for advancing with you

Reskilling opportunities are steps forward on a career path and provide your workforce with new talents they can utilize in emerging roles. You’re giving employees a clear vision for growing and advancing within your organization, which is a priority to many, and building a strong internal pipeline for promotions and lateral moves. 

Boosts employees’ confidence and morale

Employees who are confident in their skills and abilities are more likely to be proactive, voice new ideas, and devise creative solutions to problems. A study showed that 80% of employees believe their confidence had improved from reskilling training.

Building confidence in certain employees can also tap into underutilized talent. Introverts, or those who fall into underrepresented groups, may be overlooked but will often have much to offer when they feel assured in their abilities.

Increases employability

BCG data shows that 68% of workers are already aware of the looming disruptions in their respective fields and are willing to reskill to remain valuable and competitively employed. Reskilling helps employees stay current in their industry, boosts their value to employers, and allows them to become increasingly flexible, which is a valuable skill. 

Reskilling employees will help increase their employability now and in the future. 

Satisfies employees’ desire to learn and grow

71% percent of employees want to update their skills more frequently, while 80% think their employers should increase their investment in reskilling and upskilling. The majority of the workforce is eager to learn and grow, and providing reskilling opportunities meets this desire while future-proofing the organization for changes and disruptions to roles.

Discover the nine steps to take to reskill your workforce for the future in this Learning Bite!

Why are companies failing at reskilling?

A report by TalentLMS found that organizations tend to be better at upskilling than reskilling, with employee satisfaction levels at 73% when receiving upskilling versus 62% for those who participated in reskilling initiatives. 

This suggests that while roles (and the skills needed for them) are evolving, many organizations are not yet taking steps — or are struggling — to transition employees into new roles. Let’s explore some of the challenges businesses face when reskilling the workforce. 

Poor change management

Some businesses fail to effectively plan, implement, manage and communicate the changes they face as a result of the market and advancing technology. They don’t take proactive steps to prepare for the future world of work and don’t adequately support employees through these uncertain times and changes, which can have a catastrophic effect on a business. 

Misunderstood skills gaps and training needs

Addressing skills gaps requires a strategic approach to pinpoint the most essential skills that are lacking, then create a targeted training program to bridge these gaps. For example, many employees lack skills like digital literacy, AI, data analysis and soft skills that are becoming increasingly important.

Lack of learning culture

One of the biggest reasons companies struggle with reskilling is the absence of a strong learning and growth culture. When organizations don’t prioritize continuous employee development, workers may not see opportunities to expand their skills or advance in their careers. Personal and organizational growth are closely linked, and a workplace that fosters learning ensures both employees and the company evolve together.

To make reskilling successful, organizations should create a culture where continuous learning is the norm, with clear development plans that align individual growth with business goals.

Limited resources

Another core challenge businesses face is a lack of time for reskilling programs, as employees also have their daily responsibilities to manage. Additionally, rapid market changes can create a sense of urgency around reskilling and put pressure on employees and employers.

There are also costs to consider aside from training materials and new technology, including the time employees take away from their existing tasks. HR plays a key role in justifying these costs by demonstrating the return on investment to business leaders. 

Cultural resistance

Finally, employees (and employers) are often resistant to change, which can make reskilling difficult. Employees have an existing skill set that is in their comfort zone, and significant effort is required to gain new skills and pivot into a new role. The way to overcome this hurdle is by fostering a supportive environment where employees are encouraged to grow and the benefits of reskilling are clearly communicated. 

Reskilling examples

Example 1: AT&T

Amid rapid technological advancements, AT&T faced a critical challenge: a large portion of its workforce had skills tied to outdated technologies, putting both employees and the company’s future at risk. Instead of relying solely on external hiring, AT&T launched Workforce 2020, a $1 billion reskilling initiative aimed at transitioning employees into high-demand roles.

Through online courses, collaborations with universities, and internal training programs, employees were reskilled from legacy roles in hardware maintenance and landline operations into fields like cloud computing, data science, and cybersecurity. By 2018, more than 50% of AT&T’s workforce had moved into new tech-focused positions, proving that large-scale reskilling isn’t just possible — it’s a strategic necessity in a fast-changing job market.

The initiative has since been rebranded to “Future Ready”, and AT&T continues to invest in reskilling the workforce.

Example 2: Zurich UK

Using the AI analytics platform Faethm, Zurich UK, a branch of the global insurance company, identified specific skills that would be more in demand in the future due to technological advances, along with as many as 270 roles that would go unfilled in the next five years within data, robotics, and cyber sectors.

As a result, the company developed learning academies in key areas, including data, automation, leadership, and innovation, to reskill employees to take on these roles where talent (internal and external) is scarce. The company estimates that the long-term reskilling and upskilling of talent will save £1 million in recruitment and redundancy costs.

Example 3: Siemens

Having faced skills shortages in technical fields, Siemens launched their SiTecSkills Academy in 2022 to bridge the gap between their workforce’s skillsets and the needs of the industry. 

Employees in production, service, and sales are targeted to build future competencies within the sectors of IoT, AI, robotics, and sustainability. The academy offers a mix of reskilling and upskilling opportunities through a variety of formats including brief digital learning “nuggets” (that are also available for free to people outside of the company) through to certification programs. 

Since its launch, the Academy has reached more than 24,000 people with a primary focus on building digital and green skills essential for Siemens. Post-training reviews after six months show almost a 100% success rate in reskilling programs. Approximately 40% of participants are women, demonstrating Siemens’ commitment to gender inclusivity in traditionally male-dominated fields.

How can your organization build a successful reskilling program?

A strong reskilling program closes skills gaps to support your workforce and the organization, and it often integrates with an upskilling program. Usually, it is a company-wide effort in which HR plays a key role.

You can use the following steps to build and maximize the effectiveness of your reskilling program.

Let’s break it down.

1. Make reskilling a strategic necessity across the business

In many businesses, HR owns the reskilling agenda, with 65% of organizations viewing reskilling primarily as an HR function.

This suggests there is much room to make reskilling a more collaborative, company-wide approach where reskilling is embraced across the leadership team. The most successful reskilling programs require commitment from HR and the wider organization, which is why this is key.  

HR has a responsibility to demonstrate the need for reskilling and tie this to business objectives to gain buy-in from stakeholders.

2. Uncover skills gaps

Once you map out your organization’s long-term goals and what it takes to achieve them, you need to assess how well your current roles and workforce are equipped to support these objectives. This means identifying any gaps between the skills employees have and the skills their roles require.

An updated skills inventory of what your employees have to offer can reveal secondary and tertiary skills. You can use it in conjunction with a skills gap analysis to help you determine the specific skills and knowledge your workforce is missing. 

3. Look for skill adjacencies

Once you have identified the critical skills needed, look for adjacent abilities, or “skills closely matched to those in demand,” to make the task of reskilling a little easier. Employees with related competencies may already have the right attributes, or can quickly learn what they need to for a new role. 

For example, someone with customer/client service experience can make a smooth transition into sales because they have strong communication skills and first-hand knowledge of your product or service.

With the growing popularity of online banking, banks in Singapore are reskilling their frontline staff to be able to work in customer contact centers.

4. Organize specific skills training

Once you understand which skills in which departments you need to develop, you can determine the exact training required for your employees to develop these skills. 

Since there will be variance within your employees’ skill sets, trainings must be somewhat personalized to meet different learning needs. Offering an assortment of training methods is ideal. Your current learning platform may not be sufficient for certain types of reskilling, so it could be time to invest in other resources.

Internal company bootcamps are an example of how organizations frequently reskill employees from nontech roles to technical ones. These employees are then equipped to tackle company-specific challenges.

5. Combine a variety of reskilling methods

You should have several education delivery techniques in place to ensure flexibility and options that work best for different learning styles and the type of skill gap you aim to address. The more training occasions and methods you offer, the higher participation will be.

Examples of these methods include:

• On-the-job training: Employees can have real-world exposure to the tasks of a new role by taking on small projects for another team or through a mentoring relationship.
• Online learning: Online courses are beneficial because they are accessible anytime and anywhere to speed up the learning process. Bite-sized learning is advantageous as it concentrates on the specific information needed to achieve a learning objective. It’s also easy for all types of learners to grasp.
• Blended learning: Combining online learning with classroom training assures all material is covered. It also provides the opportunity for learners to ask questions and interact with an instructor.
• Peer learning: Employees can learn from each other when they collaborate and reflect on real-world scenarios or hands-on practice of new tasks.

If your organization has remote or hybrid employees, remember to apply remote training methods to reskill this sector of your workforce.

Invest time in understanding how your employees learn best, their preferences for reskilling, and potential benefits.

6. Make reskilling programs attractive

32% percent of businesses face challenges in convincing employees to apply for and complete reskilling programs, which is why it’s crucial that your reskilling programs are desirable.

It’s important that reskilling is presented as a choice and not a requirement, However, to increase participation, organizations must highlight to employees the benefits and shared value of reskilling. It’s also important to offer training during work hours — 64% of businesses who do so entirely within paid work hours almost eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to participation. It demonstrates that your organization values employees’ time and your commitment to continuous growth. 

You may also want to consider incentives to reward those willing to learn and grow, and make it clear that reskilling is linked to new prospects or advancement within the company. This way, your employees will be more motivated to participate. 

7. Promote job shadowing

Job shadowing is an excellent way for employees to familiarize themselves with a new role within or across departments. Following and observing an experienced employee throughout their day gives an accurate portrayal of the job requirements. 

In essence, job shadowing helps better prepare someone to take on a new position. Plus, it is a great reskilling method if you’re on a tighter budget.

8. Focus on digital skills

Companies that were forced to have employees work from home during the pandemic quickly learned how integral technology was to business and how vital adequate digital skills were. Digital advancement is an ongoing reality, so businesses must prepare their employees to adapt to new technologies.

Reskilling in the age of AI is vital as more repetitive, admin-based tasks become automated and certain roles become obsolete. More roles focusing on managing AI technologies and analyzing data will emerge, as well as roles that primarily utilize human-centered skills such as creativity, empathy, and leadership. 

Effectively training the workforce in digital literacy and preparing them to use new tools will help organizations close the digital skills gap. Your reskilling program should prepare your workforce for the age of AI so that no one gets left behind.

9. Measure and evaluate success 

Research shows that just 33% of companies measure their reskilling programs’ impact on business or HR-related outcomes, and although 42% report a positive ROI, 56% did not calculate or could not identify the ROI of their reskilling initiatives.

Are your employees applying the new skills they’ve learned? Are they able to smoothly transition into new roles and perform at high levels? What is the return on investment of your reskilling programs, and do they make business sense? 

Measuring training effectiveness is essential and begins with determining relevant KPIs, collecting data from various sources (including surveys, discussions, and post-training assessments), and regularly assessing the data using an evaluation model. 

The well-known Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Training Evaluation Model uses learners’ reactions and responses, knowledge and skills obtained, behavioral changes made, and the impact on business goals to measure the extent of a training program’s influence. 

By measuring and evaluating your reskilling program, you can improve what’s not working, and determine if you have achieved your strategic objectives.

10. Encourage lifelong learning

Reskilling is an ongoing process, so your organization needs to foster a continuous learning culture. You can instill a knowledge-seeking mindset in your employees by encouraging them to embrace reskilling opportunities and showing them why this matters and how it benefits them and their careers. 

Managers must buy into the value of reskilling, and they should actively participate in their own trainings. Make sure leadership understands the importance of developing their staff, so they will wholeheartedly promote your reskilling endeavors.

11. Don’t neglect your own skills

HR is changing rapidly too, so new skills are required to stay current. As an HR professional, you need to prioritize your own development, and embarking on a reskilling (and upskilling) program in your department is a great place to start. 

Upgrading your abilities with advanced HR technologies, people analytics, data literacy, and business acumen will future-proof your skills, give you a competitive edge, and set you and your organization up for long-term success.

A final word

Reskilling is an essential strategy to bridge skills gaps and ensure your employees are well-equipped to contribute to your organization’s goals and mission today and in the future.

Understanding where your company is headed, the skills required as technology transforms the world of work, and acquiring new skills that make your employees more valuable prospects are all key to building an effective reskilling program that equips and empowers your workforce and organization to thrive in uncertain times. 

FAQ

The post Reskilling Your Workforce for the Future: An HR’s Guide appeared first on AIHR.

This article explains the purpose and importance of a SOAR analysis and how to conduct it, as well as how you can turn data into actionable insights. It also provides a free customizable template to support and streamline your HR SOAR analysis.

Contents
What is a SOAR analysis?
Understanding the SOAR matrix
SOAR vs. SWOT: What are the differences?
When to use a SOAR analysis in HR
5 steps to use a SOAR analysis template
Free SOAR analysis template
SOAR example: employee wellbeing program
Best practices for using SOAR in HR strategic planning

What is a SOAR analysis?

A SOAR analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps organizations focus on strengths and growth opportunities. SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.

This analysis method matches business strategy with core competencies and market potential, and provides a structured approach to aligning organizational vision and strategy with its core competencies and external opportunities.

The SOAR matrix explained

The SOAR matrix (also referred to as a SOAR framework) is a strengths-based strategic planning model that helps HR professionals align workforce initiatives with business objectives. Here’s how each component plays a role in shaping a high-performing organization:

• Strengths: What the organization does well, such as core skills, leadership, company culture, and workforce capabilities. HR can determine strengths to help boost engagement and development.
• Opportunities: External factors that benefit the organization, such as market trends, new technologies, or workforce shifts. You can leverage these to improve areas like recruitment, planning, and talent strategies.
• Aspirations: The organization’s vision and long-term goals. These can include becoming an employer of choice, enhancing workplace culture, or launching new engagement initiatives.
• Results: Measurable outcomes that track success, such as retention rates, engagement levels, and diversity benchmarks. Clear KPIs ensure accountability and progress tracking.

Applying the SOAR analytics model to the SOAR framework

The SOAR analytics model helps you expand on the SOAR framework with a structured method that you can use to assess your organization’s current state, and define its strategic direction. This helps you to then align workforce planning with business objectives, and ensure people strategies contribute to company growth.

The model involves leveraging internal strengths, exploring external opportunities, defining aspirations, and measuring results. As such, it helps you recognize and build on areas where the company excels, and identify new markets and innovations to improve business outcomes.

The SOAR model also allows you to establish a vision to foster career growth and long-term organizational success. You can also use it to help you implement data-driven decision-making, track the progress of your HR initiatives, and measure their impact on business performance.

SOAR vs. SWOT: What are the differences?  

Like the SOAR analysis, the SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool. However, they serve different purposes in HR and business strategy. Here’s a comparison of their key differences:

When to use a SOAR analysis in HR

You can use a SOAR analysis in strategic areas to drive positive change and align HR goals with business priorities. Here are key scenarios for effective SOAR application:

• Employee engagement strategies: Focus on strengths (e.g., a supportive workplace culture) and opportunities (e.g., using new tools for employee feedback). Track success through retention rates and surveys.
• Change management: During transformations like mergers or tech rollouts, use SOAR to align changes with employee needs. For instance, if your company integrates new HR software, SOAR can guide seamless adoption.
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) initiatives: SOAR can help identify current DEIB strengths and explore diverse hiring pipelines. Additionally, set leadership equity goals and track inclusion metrics.
• Leadership development and succession planning: Use SOAR to recognize leadership strengths, define mentorship opportunities, set growth goals, and measure the effectiveness of your company’s current succession plan.
• Employee learning and development (L&D): Use SOAR to identify training strengths, explore new skill-building opportunities, promote a learning culture, and track course completion rates and skill assessments.
• HR tech adoption and digital transformation: When implementing new tools, analyze digital adoption, assess automation benefits, define AI-driven goals, and measure HR efficiency improvements.
• Talent acquisition and employer branding: When trying to attract top talent, use SOAR to showcase company culture, improve employer branding, set industry recognition goals, and track hiring metrics.

A SOAR analysis can provide important insights before embarking on strategic projects. These insights help you understand how to use certain strengths, where potential stumbling blocks could be, and how to address them. At times, the real value lies in helping stakeholders understand what’s to come and involving their voices early in the process.

Dr. Dieter Veldsman, Chief Scientist (HR & OD), AIHR

5 steps to use a SOAR analysis template

Below are five steps to follow to use a SOAR analysis template effectively, based on which questions you should ask and what you should do to answer those questions.

Step 1: Brainstorm strengths

Engage key stakeholders (i.e., senior leaders, managers, and employees) to identify HR’s internal strengths. This will highlight your organization’s employer brand and the areas where HR excels. You need to understand these strengths to build an effective HR strategy aligned with organizational goals.

Ask

1. What makes the organization a great employer?
2. Which of our HR initiatives work best?

Do

• Use surveys, focus groups, and exit interviews to uncover strengths
• Share insights with stakeholders.

Step 2: Identify opportunities

Explore external trends and changes that could benefit HR initiatives and workforce strategy. These can include industry shifts, technological advancements, or changes in workforce demographics.

Ask

1. What industry trends or partnerships can help improve HR?
2. Can any external collaborations strengthen our HR strategies?

Do

• Stay updated on trends and industry developments through HR events
• Use data analytics to predict workforce needs and share the insights with stakeholders.

Step 3: Define aspirations

Set a bold vision for HR’s future, ensuring alignment with organizational goals. Aspirations should be inspirational yet achievable, providing clear direction for HR initiatives.

Ask

1. Where do we want HR to be in five years?
2. How can we become leaders in employee experience and workplace culture?

Do

• Engage employees in vision-setting through feedback and discussions
• Encourage employee feedback through workshops or pulse surveys.

Step 4: Establish measurable results

Define specific, quantifiable outcomes to assess HR strategies’ effectiveness. Tie results to key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress over time.

Ask

1. What methods should we use to track success
2. Which KPIs matter most in helping us achieve our goals?

Do

• Use HR dashboards and analytics software to track progress
• Schedule check-ins with leadership to discuss findings and adjust strategies.

Step 5: Create and implement the SOAR matrix

Organize the findings from each section into a SOAR matrix to create a structured action plan. The matrix will provide a roadmap for HR strategies and ensure alignment with broader business objectives.

Ask

1. How can we use strengths to maximize opportunities?
2. How do our aspirations align with external trends and internal capabilities?

Do

• Include actionable HR initiatives in your SOAR matrix and assign responsibilities
• Establish a timeline for execution and regularly review the matrix to refine strategies.

Free SOAR analysis template

To help you get started, AIHR has created a free, customizable template (PowerPoint and Word format) to guide you through each component of the SOAR framework and support your own SOAR analysis process.

HR SOAR example: employee wellbeing program

The following scenario offers an example of SOAR in action. In this instance, the HR department is set to launch a new employee wellness program to improve staff health, satisfaction, and productivity.

Best practices for using SOAR in HR strategic planning

The following best practices can help you apply the SOAR framework to support effective HR strategic planning:

Align HR goals with business strategy

Make sure your HR goals support the organization’s objectives—you can do so by collaborating with leadership. At the same time, integrate SOAR findings into workforce planning, talent development, and employee engagement strategies.

Engage stakeholders at all levels

It’s important to involve employees, managers, and executives to ensure sufficiently diverse perspectives that can inform your strategy. You can achieve this through workshops or surveys that help you gather insights on strengths, opportunities, and aspirations.

Use HR analytics to track progress

Use HR data tools and analytics to measure employee wellbeing, retention, satisfaction, and engagement KPIs. Be sure to review these results and metrics regularly to help you refine your strategies and ensure they align with broader organizational goals.

Prioritize high-impact aspirations for long-term success

Focus on goals that drive employee wellbeing and organizational success, as they can help ensure positive outcomes for the business and its workforce in the long term. Set clear, long-term visions for HR initiatives and create step-by-step action plans to carry out.

Support continuous improvement

Treat SOAR as a living document. This means you should update it regularly to reflect changes in workforce needs and business priorities. At the same time, encourage feedback loops to assess the effectiveness of your company’s HR initiatives.

Communicate the SOAR strategy effectively

Share findings and strategic plans with all employees to encourage transparency and engagement. You can also use storytelling to highlight success stories, as these will encourage greater participation in HR programs.

Leverage strengths to maximize opportunities

Identify HR’s strengths and build on them to create new programs as part of your organization’s HR strategic plan. At the same time, align existing initiatives with emerging trends in employee wellbeing, diversity, and leadership development.

Develop a results-oriented mindset

Set HR SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) for each HR initiative you plan. After this, regularly assess the progress of your strategies and adjust them based on the relevant data and feedback you gather.

Encourage leadership buy-in

Position HR as a strategic business partner by demonstrating how SOAR-driven HR initiatives contribute to business growth. Additionally, be sure to secure executive sponsorship for wellbeing and talent initiatives to obtain sustained support.

Build employee engagement and ownership

Empower employees to take an active role in HR initiatives by involving them in decision-making, and collecting their feedback (e.g., through surveys and focus groups). Create employee ambassador programs to champion wellbeing and DEIB efforts.

To sum up

A SOAR analysis helps HR teams align workforce initiatives with business goals using a strengths-based approach. Unlike SWOT, which examines weaknesses, SOAR focuses on identifying and using strengths and opportunities to drive success.

By applying SOAR, you can boost engagement, support change, and create inclusive workplaces while tracking measurable results. Whether for talent acquisition, leadership development, or well-being initiatives, SOAR can help build a future-focused strategy that drives business growth and employee satisfaction.

FAQ

The post [Free] SOAR Analysis Template and SOAR Matrix Guide appeared first on AIHR.