This article is part of our new State of Employee Feedback Series which will interview a diverse mix of HR experts and thought leaders with a goal of better understanding their perspectives on the current state of and future of HR.

The following is an interview we recently had with Luke Marson, SVP, Human Experience Management (HXM) Practice, The Silicon Partners.

What is the state of the human resources industry today? 

The pandemic has played a real part in elevating the relevance of HR and, in some ways, organizations have become heavily reliant on HR to provide solutions to the challenges the pandemic has created, such as workforce reductions, remote working, hiring, vaccination tracking, return-to-work, and much more. HR has also had to turn strategic advisors for operations, as well as help guide companies as they navigate the myriad of Federal and State laws and regulations governing such things as employment, pay, and health data. All of this has put HR front-and-center at the C-level and given HR “the seat at the table” it has been looking for.

What are the most common challenges you face when managing employee feedback and reporting? 

Getting employees to complete surveys is always a challenge. Not all employees want to spend the time filling in a survey, even if they have issues they want resolved. Making a response mandatory for employees to complete can sometimes lead to employees making false responses or just selecting what is easy. And once you collect all the response data from employees, it can be a challenge making sense of the data and what it is telling you. 

Another common challenge can be getting engagement with surveys if it is not clear to employees that you take follow-up action based on the sentiments given by employees.

What are 3-5 pieces of advice for organizations in your industry looking to improve their employee feedback culture? 

Focus on asking the right questions, don’t bombard employees with too many surveys, and make sure to take action on the outcomes of the feedback gathering.

What’s the future of HR?  

HR – after navigating the pandemic and building trust for its valuable contributions to the organization – is ready to build on its success and help deliver on productivity, innovation, and profitability. 

HR needs to be a supporter of hybrid work – helping identify who needs to work from the office, who needs to work from home, and when – and provide the platform to enable the workforce to innovate. A positive workforce experience is needed to give employees and contingent workers an environment where they are engaged in actively working towards the goals of the organization and looking for opportunities to innovate and build value.

How do you see your role evolving over the next 3-5 years? 

As customers evolve their HR strategy and their HR technology roadmap and landscape, the support HR needs is going to evolve. Working with customers to develop new strategies and identify areas of development will become more and more important.