HR trends in higher education in 2024

Human resources department plays a pivotal role in every organization, as this division is responsible for attracting prospective candidates, recruiting top talents, and doing everything possible to make sure that the company is able to retain its employees. After all, it’s the employees’ happiness rate that impacts customer satisfaction. 

However, when it comes to educational institutions, HR departments have been limited to an administrative role for a long time. 

Instead of being involved in strategic aspects that can contribute to a college’s or university’s success, HR departments’ main focus was maintaining the current processes in the institutions. 

But new trends show that a significant shift awaits the HR division in higher education. 

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Going beyond grant funding-based staffing requirement fulfillment

It is possible to argue that HR departments may not have the same functions as their counterparts in the private sector organizations. That’s an understatement, however. 

Yes, for quite a while, the hiring duties of HR departments in higher education were limited to meeting the particular needs of this or that department. Mainly fulfilling the staffing requirements based on grant funding. 

More frustrating, though, is the fact that determining the requirements and hiring process often had nothing to do with the HR department. 

But, in the private sector, the proper work of a human resources department impacts the happiness rate of employees, which positively impacts the customers’ satisfaction. Hence, the proper work of the HR department in higher education can positively impact students’ satisfaction. 

Happy college staff can be more caring toward students and even understand why time constraints can force them to buy college essays to use them as drafts. New HR trends are here to improve staff happiness rates. In other words, HR departments should be allowed to go beyond grant funding-based staffing requirement fulfillment.

Proper hierarchical communication and reporting

The bane of any organization is losing talents to burnouts. Burnout can be the biggest motivation for a worker to switch careers. And education, although exact placement may vary from research to research, always ranks among the top ten industries with the highest burnout rate. 

• Healthcare
• Education
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Retail
• Legal 
• Entertainment
• Transportation and Warehousing
• Marketing
• Hospitality

Those industries are in random order. This list may change, positions may shift, and some industries may fall off the list, but education will remain on it. 

While burnout is the primary reason for talent loss, failing to address it plays a significant role there. In the private sector, burnouts are monitored and reported to the CEO by the HR department. But in the education sector, the HR department is not obliged to report that to the college or university president. And the new trend is to fix that. 

The answer to the question is hiring a Chief Human Resources Officer, CHRO, who will report directly to the president of the university, or, in a more divisions-based system, to the chief education officer or dean. 

Besides, a CHRO will be responsible for implementing various initiatives to recognize and prevent burnouts, thus improving talent retention. 

Division-focused HR departments 

Regardless of whether a college or a university already has a CHRO or not, there’s yet another trend that educational institutions are still considering or already implementing: division-focused HR departments. 

Each division of the institution has different needs. Needless to say, objectives can vary from faculty of medicine to faculty of arts. And while one HR department that works for the institution as a whole can take care of that, specialized departments will fare much better. 

The HR department is involved in providing support to staff and students, but staff and students of different faculties may require different approaches. 

As we’ve mentioned in the previous point, HR departments should recognize and prevent burnout. But when there’s one HR department for the entire institution, your organization may end up dealing with burnout of the department’s specialists. 

Hence, decentralization of the HR department and individual approach to each division is the key. 

Staff professional development evaluation

To provide students with the best education, educators themselves need to be constant learners. That’s the crucial part to keep in touch with the students. However, that requires the institution to invest in the development of the staff. 

Gladly, the higher education landscape is changing, and the need for staff development is recognized. More and more institutions are investing in development programs for their staff. 

But the effectiveness of those programs needs to be monitored. That’s when evaluations come in handy.

To make sure that the programs are effective and that the staff is getting everything they require in terms of their development goals, institutions are implementing monthly or quarterly evaluations. 

That is one of the crucial improvements, as conducting monthly evaluations is a common practice for private sector industries — in most cases, they are an inseparable part of corporate culture. On the other hand, higher education was lagging behind for quite a long time. 

Implementing HR software systems

Over the past decade, human resources software systems have become an inseparable part of most industries. Digitalization optimizes all HR processes. Aside from making the work environment of the existing staff better, it also eases the process of screening and hiring the top talents that will contribute to the success of the educational institution. 

Unfortunately, just as with monthly evaluations, higher education was lagging behind. But, finally, the higher education sector is recognizing the benefits of HR software systems. 

The implementation of an HR software system allows monitoring the data of employees and candidates, working conditions, happiness rates, and so on. That, in turn, gives an opportunity to determine what is working and what should be improved. 

Also, implementing the said system allows organizations in general and HR departments in particular to minimize the paperwork that plagues the hiring process. 

Thanks to applicant tracking systems, the whole hiring process becomes more automated and releases the HR department from repetitive work. 

Closing remarks

Improvements don’t end there. Higher education institutions are adopting equality and diversity programs and using social media to build employer branding. 

With trends that offer better communication between institutions and their HR departments, decentralization that allows the creation of specialized HR departments, and implementation of HR software systems, complaints that the higher education sector is lagging behind can decrease.