Our round up of the most-read articles of 2019 puts a spotlight on some of the key challenges, movements and trends HR has encountered across the year.

Society has experienced unprecedented political upheaval, rising stress levels and worsening mental health, examples of bad leadership, the continued transition towards remote working, and greater public scrutiny on the culture, values and ethics of businesses.

These issues, which all have a huge impact on the world of work, perhaps unsurprisingly feature in HRZone’s top ten list of 2019 articles. Alongside these topical editorials, our list includes more evergreen HR issues on people strategy, measuring ROI (or indeed not) and people analytics.

Browse through the list below for a snapshot of the HR articles that grabbed the attention of your peers across the year…

1. Mental health at work: the rise of work separation anxiety

The fact that our most popular article for 2019 is on work separation anxiety is telling of just how stressed and overworked employees are feeling and the impact this is having on their mental health. In this article Jenni Wilson, Corporate Director of Nuffield Health, outlines how this harmful condition has damaging consequences for both the business and its people.  

2. Three ways to develop a sense of belonging in the workplace

In 2018 diversity and inclusion were key areas of interest among our HR readers, but in 2019 the profession realised D&I were only a part of the puzzle and started to recognise the importance of nurturing authenticity, individualism, purpose and belonging in the workplace. Our second ‘most read’ piece was written by Stuart Duff, Partner and Head of Development of Pearn Kandola, and provides three ways to help establish a sense of belonging at work.

3. Why senior leaders don’t listen to activist employees

During a long, hot summer of political protests, Megan Reitz from Ashridge Business School and John Higgins from The Right Conversation shared insights on how to bridge the communication gulf between activist employees and more traditional, senior leaders. Unsurprisingly, this topic caught the eye of your HR peers.

4. Supporting the business isn’t strategic HR – people centricity is

HR strategy is always front of mind of today’s people professionals. In this piece, HR expert Jon Ingham makes the case for putting people at the heart of business strategy as this is where HR can bring unique value.

5. Nine ways to reward your remote team members

Remote working is now the norm for many businesses, but setting up your out-of-office employees with all the right technology and tools and sending them on their way will not cut it. Fiona Adler, entrepreneur at Actioned.com, offers ideas and tips on how to make your remote employees feel valued, included and recognised.

6. Overlooked and undervalued – why ‘quiet leadership’ could be the answer to your culture problem

Although we now recognise that traditional leadership styles are not always the most effective, we still often fail to merit unconventional approaches. Blaire Palmer, CEO of That People Thing, argues that we must do more to champion difference and see the unique value that more ‘quiet’ leadership can bring to business.

7. People analytics: why some companies are making a fortune while others are losing out

The value of people analytics is widely recognised in 2019, yet many businesses are not reaping the rewards they would expect from their efforts in this domain. In this piece Dr Max Blumberg, Founder of Blumberg Partnerships, reveals why some analytics approaches are missing a money-making trick…

8. Four ways HR leaders can tackle a toxic work culture

The likes of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica, Volkswagon and Google have faced great public scrutiny in recent years for their scandalous ways. As a consequence, businesses are recognising that toxic working cultures and unethical practices cannot be swept under the carpet as employees and consumers expect transparency. Lauren Romansky, Managing Vice President of Gartner’s HR Practice, offers strategies for leading a full-scale cultural ‘detox’ for HR practitioners in need.

9. Do we really need to measure the ROI of our people?

Organisations have become near-obsessed with measuring the ROI of employee performance, but if the same effort was placed on designing human-centric workplaces, employers may reap far more benefits, argues Garry Turner, Founder of The Listening Organisation.

10. Gender equality: why we need to talk about unpaid care

With the second year of gender pay gap reporting showing slow progress, the issue of gender equality remains a key issue for HR. Leena Nair, CHRO of Unilever, argues that we need to take into account the fact that women still have more unpaid care responsibilities than men.

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