International HR day is celebrated every year on 20 May. HR day was launched by EAPM in 2019, and since then it has been recognized every year as the day, we celebrate HRs across the world.
HR day was launched so HRs could be appreciated for the wonderful work they do. They keep an organization running smoothly while working across various departments. HRs manage the largest asset of a company: the employees. So, it is about time they felt appreciated.
If you are celebrating HR day then congratulations, and if not, we recommend you start celebrating it in your organization.
“Celebrating the Humans of Human Resources” – Akrivia HCM
What is International HR day?
International HR day is celebrated on 20 May. Try to imagine a company without HRs, there would be no job postings, no new recruits, no employees to manage! HR teams are the unseen backbone of every company. But very often, they are underappreciated and overworked.
According to LinkedIn, Human resources have the highest turnover rate of 14.6%. This shows that while HRs are investing their time making companies better and improving employee satisfaction, their needs are unrecognized.
HRs manage the largest asset of a company: the employees. So, it is about time they felt appreciated. HRs are also employees after all.
History of International HR Day
There had been talks about celebrating HR day since 2001. In 2013, the then Governor General of Jamaica Sir Patrick Allen wanted to declare HR day.
But it wasn’t until 2018, that Jamaica actually had HR day. In 2018, Deputy Governor-General Hon Steadman Alvin Ridout Fuller declared HR day will be celebrated in Jamaica on 26 September, every year.
Following the lines of Jamaica was EAPM (European association of People Management). In 2019, EAPM declared 20 May as International HR day to celebrate HRs not just in Iceland but across the world.
Theme of International HR day 2024
EAPM has set the theme for this year’s HR day. The theme of HR day 2024 is “Shaping the new future”. The theme will cover relevant subjects like
- Promoting ethics in tech and AI integration
- Reimaging future workspaces
- Prioritizing employee training and development
- Celebrating People leadership
This year’s theme is all about how future workplaces will possibly look like and how HRs will help build a sustainable and inclusive workplace. It is going to be an exciting new age of change for HRs with AI right around the corner with different industries using AI and automation in HR to track employee lifecycle.
Insights from HR Professionals
This International HR day let us look into the challenges HRs face daily and how they brilliantly deal with them. Let us recognize their efforts and appreciate them a bit more!
1. Difficulty in Training for Diverse Roles & Information Overload
Dealing with training of employees can be tough, while equipping employees with necessary skills seems like a great idea to boost company growth, it also comes with its own set of challenges.
Here is what Vandana Nambiar, Lead -Strategic Corporate Training Manager had to say about the challenges faced during employee training-
“Employee training is a foundation for organizational growth. Understanding the challenges and hurdles is vital for organizations determined to maximize the potential of their workforce.
I feel the primary challenge is ensuring relevance and applicability across diverse roles and departments. Business units and teams have different backgrounds, experiences, and job responsibilities, so creating training programs that meet everyone’s needs is difficult.
To address this, companies need to take a more practical approach, tailoring training materials to meet certain job categories while also including more general skills that benefit the entire workforce.
Another challenge is the overload of information by the amount of material covered in training sessions, which could affect their understanding and memory.
To address this problem, content transmission must be strategically planned, with an emphasis on collaboration and clarity. It is very important to understand and accommodate their learning styles.
Many businesses/Organizations continue to struggle with determining the training efforts’ return on investment (ROI). Although the benefits of training are indisputable, it can be difficult to measure how they affect organizational results. Sometimes simple solutions are the best.
Effective methods that aided me in managing these hurdles were – Frequent evaluation and feedback systems, Surveys, Performance evaluations, pre-and post-training assessments.
All these methods offer insightful information about the observable returns on training efforts. Best practice will include getting over these obstacles and creating models that work well across a wide range of tasks force and domains.”
2. Managing Candidate Experience During the Interview Process
HR professionals don multiple hats, but their most talked about function is recruiting candidates. While it may seem like a smooth process, recruiting candidates has many challenges, from selecting the right candidates for the interview to understanding what the role requires.
This is what Rajesh Pandey, Global Talent Acquisition Operations Lead, had to say about his experience with recruiting candidates:
“Though there are many challenges which we face in the recruitment process.
One of the most challenging things is to manage the candidate’s experience. This part of the recruitment process is often overlooked.
But it is crucial to prioritize candidate experience because it increases your chances of hiring and retaining top talent.
There are many troubles that HRs face in a day-to-day basis. But let me share one of my challenges as HR that helped me rethink my hiring process. This happened when a candidate abruptly withdrew their application through the recruitment process.
I was baffled about it because the candidate was the right fit for the role and I assumed we were on the same page about it. But the sudden withdrawal came as a shock to me and forced me to readdress my methods. That was a wakeup call, which forced me to identify what I was doing wrong.
I reevaluated my methods and realized the candidate had dropped out because of inconsistent communication and lack of transparency. I learnt my lesson and started prioritizing clear, timely communication with candidates at every stage of the recruitment process.
Since then, improving candidate experience has become an important part of recruiting for me. To provide a better candidate experience I started doing surveys during the process and taking their feedback. These surveys provided me with invaluable insights to improve candidate experience.”
3. The Mass Layoffs & Cost Optimization Trend
With Google, Salesforce, Amazon and other companies laying off thousands of employees, it has become challenging for HRs to deal with the offboarding. Layoffs are ugly and HRs need to deal with it in an empathetic way. However, most of the time the process can be painful for both parties.
Here is what Devshri Sakhare, Human Resource Executive at I-ENGAGE has to say about the mass layoffs and how they affect company growth:
“Recent layoffs have been like a double-edged sword for companies. While lay-offs offer a short-term financial relief to companies, they also effect the revenue generation.
A fewer number of employees cannot generate the revenue required to pull a company from financial problems.
Moreover layoffs, lead to demoralization, decreased productivity, and heightened work pressure.
Moreover, reputation damage makes it harder to attract top talent and retain clients, ultimately hindering innovation and expansion efforts.
In essence, while layoffs may seem like a quick fix, they can significantly stunt a company’s long-term growth potential, because you need resources to make the revenue”
4. Dealing With Ex-employees With Empathy
While on paper, the employee lifecycle ends when the employee leaves a company, in real life that is not the case. Sometimes, HRs must deal with ex-employees after their exit from the company, which can be an uncomfortable experience.
Here is what Abhisek Nag, Senior Director Human Resources, New Globe has to say about terminations and relationships with ex-employees.
“As HR one acts as both the entry and exit for a company. HR, as a Talent acquisition leads to hiring of employees. If you’re in touch with your recruiters, it’s generally a collection of happy memories.
On the other hand, separation (especially terminations) are generally sad and painful actions. The relationship turns bitter at times. While there may not be animosity or hatred, one doesn’t expect to have a very happy and friendly relationship with the HR who managed your separation. I had an interesting experience regarding this –
I was taken aback one day when an ex-employee wished me on Teacher’s Day. This is an individual from my team who I had to terminate due to performance issues. It was pleasantly surprising. I decided to call and speak to him to enquire. It seems like there was a turn of events in his life, he felt liberated by that termination and could make time to get rid of his personal behavioral challenges and get back in shape. And now he is successful!
He recollected our conversation of separation and said the feedback had helped him grow into a better individual who he’s proud of today and he thanked me for that. I was completely oblivious of the impact of my words/actions on him.
While I am definitely proud of myself, it made me realize how our actions can impact other’s lives which we may be completely unaware of. Over the years, this has made me more thoughtful and purposeful in my actions/words while terminating candidates.”
All these HR professionals have shared their wonderful experiences and insights with us. Helping us learn that employee training must be more practical, candidate experience matters, layoffs reduce the revenue and empathy is important during offboarding. If you also have some insights you want to share or you have any thoughts on International HR Day, leave it in the comments below.
Conclusion
It is safe to say that HRs are responsible for the future of the workplace. In the coming years, the working landscape is going to change. HRs are doing their best to optimize the current workplaces and make it future proof. But it is time, the contributions of HRs were recognized and acknowledged. Their unending patience, attention to detail, adaptability and empathy needs to be appreciated by everyone. This International HR day, let us celebrate the humans of human resources and give them the much-deserved respect!
