Most Common HR Challenges At The 21st Century Workplace: How to address the issue of employee morale? How to control the attrition rate? How to establish an  environment of teamwork? How to resolve conflicts and discrimination? How to Address Training and Development Related Issues? How to design the best salary and benefits programs?

1. STRATEGIC
HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
Most Common HR Challenges At The
21st Century Workplace
Rida Zaman

2. MOST COMMON HR CHALLENGES
AT THE 21ST CENTURY
WORKPLACE
• How to address the issue of employee morale?
• How to control the attrition rate?
• How to establish an environment of
teamwork?
• How to resolve conflicts and discrimination?
• How to Address Training and Development
Related Issues?
• How to design the best salary and benefits
programs?

3. HOW TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF
EMPLOYEE MORALE?
Low employee morale can happen due to several reasons and this is a common yet important problem that affects
productivity of individual employees. Even the biggest companies feel challenged by it and apart from financial
incentives, try other benefits too which can boost their employees’ morale and help retain them for longer. Employee
morale is an important issue because low staff morale means low conversion ratio. The employees’ affected by low
morale will work more but still produce less.

4. HOW TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF
EMPLOYEE MORALE?
Those whose morale is high will make better decisions and will be able to produce more while doing less. Moreover,
investing in employee morale has proved to bring superior results. Investing in employee morale is just as productive as
investing in other resources because your human capital is worth more than any other resource you employ.

5. HOW TO CONTROL THE ATTRITION RATE?
High churn rate or attrition rate is also a common HR problem that poses as a tough challenge for companies and HR
managers. It does not just drive the recruitment costs higher but a lot of time is also wasted dealing with hiring.
Companies must not focus only on hiring the best talent but also on their retention. Otherwise, one would continue
dealing with inappropriate costs and remain busy throughout the year with hiring. There can be several reasons behind a
high churn rate. Poor training and retention strategies and a poor environment can make staff lose interest easily and that
can translate into a very high churn rate. Inside the technology companies, the churn rate can be especially high.

6. HOW TO CONTROL THE ATTRITION RATE?
Low employee morale can also result in higher rates of attrition. If the staff cannot love the environment inside your
organisation, it would be difficult to retain them for long. This is a difficulty that boggles every HR manager’s head that
how to retain his staff for long. Apart from great salaries, retention and training programs, a great culture and
environment are equally important to control the attrition rate inside your organisation. While work pressure and job
complexity can also be a reason behind the high churn rate as is the case with most technological firms, you can still
control the churn rate using appropriate HR policies. You can still focus on employee satisfaction and retain its level high
by keeping employees engaged and interested.

7. HOW TO ESTABLISH AN ENVIRONMENT OF
TEAMWORK?
This is also an important question that leaders and HR managers face. Without teamwork, productivity will remain low
and if you desire to create a high energy, highly productive environment then this is an important thing to focus upon.
However, differences still arise and when they arise they hinder teamwork and progress. The various functions inside your
organisation cannot work in different directions. It will make the execution of strategy difficult and achievement of
objectives impossible. So, if you had to channel the entire energy inside your organization in the same direction then you
must keep your entire team working together in sync.

8. HOW TO ESTABLISH AN ENVIRONMENT OF
TEAMWORK?
It is not easy to establish an environment of teamwork and bring unity. The differences among the various line managers
and functions become too obvious in organizations without a strong culture. However, if you are trying to bring an
organisation wide change or initiate major programs, then you need people to work as a team. This is a problem that can
be addressed only with support from the leadership.

9. HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS AND
DISCRIMINATION?
The focus must be on creating the right environment and culture so that people can collaborate. An environment of
collaboration fosters innovation and lets people have opportunities of learning and growing their skills. To address
discrimination, managers must focus on both policy making and encouraging diversity. You can also focus on training your
employees to be more flexible. Increasingly businesses are adopting diversity practices to make the composition of their
workforce richer.

10. HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS AND
DISCRIMINATION?
The focus must be on creating the right environment and culture so that people can collaborate. An environment of
collaboration fosters innovation and lets people have opportunities of learning and growing their skills. To address
discrimination, managers must focus on both policy making and encouraging diversity. You can also focus on training your
employees to be more flexible. Increasingly businesses are adopting diversity practices to make the composition of their
workforce richer.

11. HOW TO ADDRESS TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
RELATED ISSUES?
Training and development are also important concerns for HR managers because every company wants its employees to
perform at their best. However, it often becomes difficult because while managers keep trying to extract performance
from their employees, they never see the issue of performance gap from the HR angle. HR also keeps its mind occupied
with the other top priorities rather than focusing on designing effective training and development programs. Grooming
employees is important because it helps them learn faster and keeps their morale high.

12. HOW TO ADDRESS TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
RELATED ISSUES?
You cannot create a high performance environment and culture without having effective training and development
programs in place. Nevertheless, when it comes to designing such programs, HR managers either lack the support to
make a start in the right direction or there is always a communication gap between HR and line managers. HR managers
need to consult the line managers to understand the needs of the jobs and the employees. They also need to keep the
industry norms in mind and research what their competitors are using to know what will suit their employees the most.

13. HOW TO ADDRESS TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
RELATED ISSUES?
Moreover, HR needs to be more persuasive in its techniques. It will need to persuade both the leadership and the line
managers so as to gain their support. Unless it can persuade them to understand the criticality of such programs, neither
leadership nor the line managers would consider it compulsory. HR can create the right environment for such programs
by creating the excitement required to persuade the leadership.

14. HOW TO DESIGN THE BEST SALARY AND BENEFITS
PROGRAMS?
Often designing the right salary and benefits programs becomes difficult for the HR managers. Without the right salary
and benefits retaining the best talent is difficult. It is an area that requires special attention because salary and benefits
are critical to employee motivation. To keep your employees motivated, just a fat salary would not be enough, you also
need to design good benefits programs that satisfy them. Since employee satisfaction is critical, HR managers can try
different combinations to see which one suits their needs best. However, the hurdles can be limited to financial resources
or lack of support from the leadership or other crucial functions.

15. HOW TO DESIGN THE BEST SALARY AND BENEFITS
PROGRAMS?
HR managers must recommend the top executives what suits their company’s needs best. The best point to start can be
checking what the competitors are doing. While plainly imitating others’ practices is never good, still researching others
gives an opportunity to understand the industry best practices. HR managers can use their own creativity and imagination
to design the programs that cater to the needs of the company and employees better.

16. HOW TO DESIGN THE BEST SALARY AND BENEFITS
PROGRAMS?
HR managers must recommend the top executives what suits their company’s needs best. The best point to start can be
checking what the competitors are doing. While plainly imitating others’ practices is never good, still researching others
gives an opportunity to understand the industry best practices. HR managers can use their own creativity and imagination
to design the programs that cater to the needs of the company and employees better.

17. Conclusion
These are some of the main challenges faced by HR in the 21st
century. However, several other challenges also exist.
Technology is giving rise to new needs and HR function itself
needs to remain up to date in this area. Not just this, the HR
function also needs to regularly review its practices and policies
to update them and keep them on par with their
competitors. HR’s role in this regard is crucial and while HR
managers would themselves have to take initiative in some
areas, in others the leadership must be ready to offer all the
support needed. Moreover, collaboration between the HR
managers and line managers is also crucial for the HR function
to win and overcome the biggest challenges.

18. Thank You
Rida Zaman