We’ve been hearing a lot about the concept of future-proofing your business like it’s something entirely new. In reality, wise companies have been future-proofing all along. Regardless of its roots, future-proofing—which we’ll simply define as the ability to remain relevant among your competitors—is critical to the long-term success of any organization. While there is a lot of reading out there surrounding corporate-wide future-proofing strategies, our focus is as always on the HR side of things. What does it take to future-proof your organization’s HR strategy? Here are our top tactics.

Have a Strategy

You won’t be successful in your HR future-proofing efforts if you don’t start with a future-proofing strategy. Identify what is important and what is known to your organization today, tomorrow, and into the future. Consider expansion plans, new product launches, equipment modernization, management transitions, and myriad other factors that could affect your organization’s workforce. Review the risks, identify the opportunities and develop a strategy that may include some of the items below.

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Create employee development plans

A formal employee development plan serves to unify your organization’s goals for its workforce and provides employees with evidence of your willingness to invest in their careers. Consider both your short- and long-term goals for the workforce, then identify the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies that support those goals. Employee training is at the core of any employee development plan, and we’ve got pointers for ways to elevate the importance of training in your organization.

Train for the skills they’ll need

What skills will employees need to thrive in the future? The answer may be pretty straightforward: Whatever computers don’t do well. Increasingly “intelligent” computers struggle with creativity, social intelligence, complex perception, and manipulation, each of which is among the skills that researchers have identified as the most in-demand skills for the future. We’ve examined some trends in training that could be of help in your planning.

Always be recruiting

The greatest challenge HR faces are recruiting and retaining talent. It is essential for an organization to always be recruiting to keep the talent pipeline full for the future. Recruiting can be a tremendously time-consuming task. On average, talent acquisition professionals spend nearly one-third of their workweek (about 13 hours) sourcing candidates for a single role. Automating the recruiting strategies allows you to focus more on people and less on the process.

Invest in Technology Tools

There are powerful technology tools that can help HR professionals automate routine tasks, streamline workflows and ensure best practices. By investing in technology tools such as recruiting, onboarding, training management, and HRMS, HR teams can focus more on the organization’s future goals by building a foundation to help create better talent outcomes.

Fashion a passion for learning climate

Jennifer Wu, VP of talent and operations at LEWIS Global Communications, said: “It is our role as HR to facilitate a learning mindset within the organization and cultivate a passion for knowledge that will lead to employee development ensuring that adequate resources and channels are in place, and more importantly, on an individual level, they are inspired to take proactive measures towards constant improvement and development.”

There are some gems in that quote: ‘facilitate a learning mindset’, ‘cultivate a passion for knowledge’, ‘inspired to take proactive measures’. Worthy goals for every future-looking organization. Running into challenges in your training and development program? We’ve got some ideas for overcoming those challenges.

Strengthen your EVP

Your EVP is your Employee Value Proposition, and it matters to your future as it speaks directly to your ability to attract, engage and retain top talent. Organizations that effectively deliver on their EVP can decrease annual employee turnover by just under 70% and increase new hire commitment nearly 30%. Strengthening your ERP fundamentally means valuing employees as customers and treating them as critical partners in your organization’s success.

The future belongs to organizations that remain relevant, and your relevancy is highly dependent on the talents and skills of your workforce.

If you have been struggling to define your future-proofing strategies and feel like you are coming up short on achieving better recruiting, onboarding, and training outcomes we have the perfect webinar for you!