Last week I covered four of the nine HR Trends from SHRM, and one thing is clear…change is happening. In the not so distant future, HR will not be just about HR anymore. It will be something more - complex, global and almost visionary-like.
Let’s see what the final five have in store for us!
Analytics – How analytics will revolutionize HR has yet to be seen, but there are some high expectations. We are already experiencing a flood of new software and data analytic applications, and using social media for recruiting efforts, and that is just the beginning of developing your HR analytics capability. Jeanne G. Harris, faculty of Columbia University and co-author of Analytics at Work, suggests a few ways to get real value from HR analytics:
- Develop the organization’s analytical literacy. HR Leaders and decision makers need training to become data-literate.
- Use diverse teams to solve major talent challenges. Challenge teams to break the mold and identify outcomes and innovative solutions.
- Focus on bug results, not analysis. Reports and new insights will not always solve a problem and neither will quick fixes. HR professionals need to go beyond ideas and solutions and be part of the innovative strategies that will turn into actions.
Recruiting – Be global, use social media to find local and worldwide talent. Danielle Monaghan is head of talent acquisition-consumer at Amazon. She sees the rise of social and mobile recruiting to build global talent pools for highly skilled labor. In fact, mobile recruiting is set to become a primary global recruiting strategy, and it is not just the millennial demographic using it. As the skill gap continues to widen, US companies in particular, will need to source and hire talent from other than their home soil; and candidates are more findable through social-centric search capabilities.
Ethics - Is your culture built to survive the pressures of organizational goals? Chris MacDonald, associate professor and director of the Jim Pattison Ethical Leadership Program at Ryerson University, talks about how HR’s greatest impact might be in determining the ethical character of the individuals who are hired and retained. Also, HR ethics are beyond recruitment and reach the communication of benefits programs and the fairness in the discipline of employees to not letting executives lose sight of the role of culture within the organization.
The Bottom Line – Balancing the language of finance and the art of HR. Peter Cappelli, Professor of Management at The Wharton School shares three tips for HR leaders to sharpen their strategic skills and avoid corporate leaders wanting to detonate HR:
- Recognize that good HR is about making choices.
- Learn enough finance to understand the factors that drive shareholder value.
- Choose your continuing education options wisely.
Communication – Benefits are crucial retention tool and keeping employees from your competition is getting even harder. Jennifer Benz, founder and CEO of Benz Communications, thinks it is time for a change and to develop creative strategies for informing your workforce about their benefits. She even goes on to share that creating engaging channels (thinking like a marketer) to communicate the information frequently and in a user-friendly experience go a long way in keeping employees informed, happy and productive.
It is no surprise that these nine HR trends are the future of HR. Being on the cusp of the HR evolution can be a little scary, but also exciting as one figures out what it all means from a personal and professional perspective.
To succeed in the new world of HR, one needs to identify and prepare to go beyond the traditional role of HR and challenge themselves to be the next generation of people leaders with new skills and responsibilities.
