Disruptions are meant to disturb the status quo. They have no respect for how long or closely held certain systems or traditions have been. Caught unaware, one is most likely to be on the losing side. However, if you are able to see them from afar, anticipate the impact and its scale, you stand ready to embrace and adapt, and somehow cash in on them. Human resource has been evolving and that is fact. In their report titled, “The future of HR 2019: In the Know or in the No” KPMG asked 1200 plus HR executives and about 66.7% agree that HR has undergone or is undergoing a digital transformation. Below I share some predictions most likely to change how HR is perceived and done. These predictions do not carry the same weight in terms of their impact on HR. Though some have the power to change the entire DNA of HR some will probably just have a scratch. One thing is for sure, disruption is imminent.
More remote working jobs
Vox website reports US companies started allowing their workers to work from home when the Great Recession hit back in 2008 to save money by reducing their office spaces. What started out of necessity has since grown into a trend long after the economy recovered and this trend continues to grow. Deloitte predicts Generation Z will soon surpass Millennials as the most populous generation on earth. This will most likely translate into the workplace. In their report, “Welcome to Generation Z”, they think “Gen Z will have the ability to demand greater personalization in how they move along their career journey.” This personalisation includes where they will work. Remoteyear.com defines a remote employee as, “ someone who is employed by a company but works outside of a traditional office environment. This could mean working from a local coworking space, from home, at a coffee shop, or in a city across the world.” There is some belief that working remotely increases productivity. Some say this is because of the flexibility employees enjoy and the motivation to keep living such a lifestyle away from office. A UK study, on the other hand, reports remote workers tend to work longer hours. Whichever the case might be, it is most likely more people will be asking for more flexibility and more jobs will be done remotely. Companies will most likely adopt blended and swarm workforces.
Talent Mobility
According to hrexecutive.com recruiting teams spend around $2000 per hire. Senior roles could gobble ten times that amount. Considering the additional costs of training per hire and the time utilisation aspect companies are realising that they can save so much on recruiting costs by filling in new positions with current employees who are already part of organisational culture. Those skeptical about this move can find consolation in the fact that the new research suggests ambition and learning agility blows experience out of the water when it comes to job success. If you can find an ambitious, motivated employee among your talent pool, chances are they might excel more in that new role compared to a new hire who will come at a greater cost and higher risk. Deloitte’s Welcome to Generation Z report also predicts, “The future of work will call for a return of the Renaissance figure: a person with many talents, interests, and areas of knowledge. It will require a fusion of four key work skills.” These are digital tools and technology skills, comfort with analytics and data, business management skills, design, and creative skills. This means there is going to be a change in how HR handles talent acquisition. You are not only hiring for the current job at hand, you are also hiring for the future new job position that will arise as your business evolves. One person once said, “Sourcing great candidates has never been more difficult, and retention will become an all-out dogfight.”
People Analytics and Machine Learning
Joshbersin’s HR Technology Market 2019: Disruptions Ahead reports 1 out of 4 companies are hiring employees into the role of people analytics. It further claims this goes to show people
analytics continues to be a major aspect in the HR world and is now the fastest-growing sub-domain of the HR profession. Analytics and machine learning are changing how team-building interventions are carried out for example. Who knew that playing games do not build teams in any way. New research is emerging, a rude awakening for most HR professionals. It baffles the mind how long people get entrenched in something that contributes nothing to the desired goal. Analytics removes the veil, digs deep into data and brings to the surface invaluable insights to really show why things are the way they are and what they could be. Chances are this will be the cornerstone of all HR, offering evidence-based solutions to transform organisations, not just tiptoeing in the dark, offering assumptions that mostly add no value at all. More organisations will invest in having the infrastructures to have all their people data together. One example which shows great promise for growth is the organisational network analysis software market.
Jerry Ndemera is a consultant at Industrial Psychology Consultants. You can reach him on email at jerry@ipcconsultants.com or call 0242 481946-8.