2016: Best Year Ever for HR

The media (and the social media echo-chamber) have been quick to label 2016 the worst year ever. From the "I can't believe ____ died in 2016" posts to the expletive-laden "F- you 2016" videos, to the ranked lists of the worst parts of 2016, the negative energy has been pouring in all month. I'm tired of it. I sat down this morning to take a look back at 2016 and came away with an entirely different conclusion. 2016 might have been the best year ever, especially for HR.

In my role with McLean & Company, I've had the incredible fortune of working with a wide variety of HR Professionals: from generalists looking to improve their organization's L&D, acquisition, or engagement practices, up to CHROs establishing game-changing people strategies. Since January 1, I've met with over 1000 HR Professionals, attended 8 HR conferences, and have had the incredible luxury of being seated next to the most curious and intelligent HR researchers in the world. (If you keep a notebook and a twitter account, like I do, I encourage you to take a look back too, it's really not all bad!) As a fly on the wall for 2016 in HR, here's 4 reasons why I think 2016 might have been the best year ever (in no particular order):

1. The End of the Traditional "PA" is Near: Although buzz has been about for many years now that the traditional performance appraisal needs to change, this year we saw a big spike in organizations actually putting plans to pavement and doing something about it. Rather than let it fester as a problem for "next year", I heard over and over in almost every conversation and at almost every conference, how organizations were making a change to this crucial process. If HR are the epicenter of this positive change, just think of how many employees had lower stress levels this year! On a macro-scale, it's impressive to think of the tangible difference this change has had for employee productivity and performance, just by increasing the frequency and quality of performance discussions with leaders.
2. Employee Engagement as a Leadership Priority: A little bit of hubris, a little bit of competitive pressure, and technological advancements that brought measuring engagement into real-time, helped HR support leaders as the champions for employee engagement this year. I witnessed incredible traction within organizations that: Helped leaders recognize the real business outcomes of higher engagement, trained leaders on their role in changing engagement, and provided the tools and support to help leaders make those changes in a lasting way. By putting leaders and their behavior at the center of the discussion around employee engagement, and involving them in the conversation from the start, Employee Engagement has risen out of the HR dust-pile of ineffective project-bloat and has worked its way into regular C-suite discussions. Again, the front-line employee impact of this shift to leader-driven engagement must have lead to a happier and more productive year.
3. HR Embracing Data: From measuring to predicting, HR really increased their capacity in 2016. With so many available tools at their disposal (vendors and vendors and vendors, oh my!), I spoke to many HR leaders who were just looking to simplify their approach to data and demonstrate value to their business. This was, I think the biggest achievement of 2016: HR has started asking "Which metrics matter for my business", not just "Which metrics are all HR departments measuring". Although most employees might not have "seen" this change directly in 2016, they certainly would have noticed its impact on the success of the programs and services HR delivers.
4. HR Learning from Diverse Sources: This last observation is the one that I think was most exciting. From the conferences I attended, to the books I heard our members were reading, this year pulled some phenomenal outside knowledge into the course of regular conversation in HR. Who would have thought that HR would be leveraging insights from Neuroscientists to improve their programs & processes? What about behavioral economists? These two fields have been publishing a great amount of research this year that directly contradict what's been heralded for decades as "HR Fact", and the best part is that the implementation of these insights is incredibly more measurable. This year we just scratched the surface of these changes and their implications for our businesses, and I can't wait to see what next year brings.

So you see? This year hasn't been all bad. HR professionals are finally rounding the corner on some of the most aggravating parts of being in the workforce, and they're working from insights the likes of which have never been seen before. Reflecting back, perhaps I've got to update my tagline to "Best Year Ever for HR... so far", because many of the major changes I've noticed are only just getting started.

What were your favorite insights for HR from 2016? Leave me a comment because I'd love to see what I missed on my list.

Also, if my qualitative trek down memory lane has left you hungry for some proven hard stats on what happened in 2016 and what trends are coming in 2017, our research team just completed a comprehensive study, and are hosting a free webinar on their results on January 18th! Join us if you can by registering here.