empower, transform, lead - the future role of hr

HR HEROESEMPOWER, TRANSFORM, LEAD - THE FUTURE ROLE OF HR

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HR AT ACROSSROADS

It’s thirty years since the emergence of the human resource department in the UK as a more strategic corporate function. In that time, the demands placed on an HR professional have evolved a long way. The ‘personnel department’, as it was previously known is no longer seen as the place which merely looks after recruitment, training and employee relations.

Today HR is expected to attract and manage talent, shape culture, develop leaders and support managers while bringing a playbook of ideas which will create motivated, loyal, engaged employees to power our organisations.

Far from being a support function it is now the department which many leading organisations expect take a lead in answering the business-critical question of how they can best improve people performance while establishing the organisation as an employer of choice.

To provide the right response to those challenges, it is more important than ever for HR professionals to understand the changes shaping the workplace, the way we work and people’s expectation of us as employees.

It is also critical to understand how we use new ideas – in the form of policy or technology – to create organisations which are attractive to the people we want to attract and make them want to give their best to their employer.

A core skill for HR professionals in the future will be to look beyond the organisation to identify the trends that matter now and in the future to deliver HR interventions which have the real impact on both employees and business.

This short report is designed to provide HR professionals with insight on those trends as well as an overview of the top commentators who are shaping the way businesses and HR leaders respond to them.

Andy Philpott, Edenred UK

Today HR is expected to attract and manage talent, shape culture, develop leaders and support managers

32 www.edenred.co.uk/ehub | 0844 875 3388* | [email protected]

THE MULTIGENERATIONAL WORKFORCEIn the coming years one of the biggest challenges for HR teams will come from our aging workforce which will see four generations working together for the first time.

According to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills report The Future of Jobs and Skills, the number of people aged 65 and over will increase by a third in the next ten years, way ahead of any expected growth in the number of younger people entering the workforce.

The increasingly age-diverse workforce will require employers to identify and meet their emerging and often diverging needs, from training and development to benefits and reward.

It will also require a shift in the way our organisations perceive older employees away from being a group ready to retire and more as a hidden source of talent which are as critical as the incoming generations.

With the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development finding only 31% of organisations have a strategy for the so-called four generation (4G) workforce, there is substantial work to be done in this area.

CHANGING NATURE OF EMPLOYMENTWe are currently in the midst of an unprecedented change to the nature of employment in the UK.

Along with the growth in zero hour’s contracts, the number of contractors, freelancers and project workers is also on the rise in the UK. At the same time, the way we work is changing: outsourcing, offshoring and the international nature of business means it is common in many industries to work in virtual teams, across time zones or business units with people we may never actually meet.

Add to this remote, flexible and compressed working hours and it is increasingly the norm rather than the exception for teams to work one place in the same office nine-to-five.

HR FOR THE FUTURESEVEN TRENDS DRIVING CHANGE

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The increasingly fragmented workplace is fundamentally reshaping the relationship between employer and employee. It is one where loyalty is not a given and the barriers to engaging individuals with your organisations goals and vision are substantial. Equipping managers with new tools and strategies to develop and sustain relationships so they motivate their teams is a critical challenge for HR.

WELLBEING IN THE WORKPLACE The majority of employers now understand the link between business performance and employee wellbeing. While only one in four currently see it as a priority according to The Annual Edenred Wellbeing Barometer, this will change as organisations face up to the need to build resilience among employees to cope with new challenges ahead thrown up by the way we work. Chief among these, longer careers, the impact of technology and changing nature of the workplace mean we need to question existing working practices and identify new ways to preserve health in the workforce in the longer term.

As well as broadening employer support for wellbeing to encompass financial, physical and mental wellbeing, HR teams will need to think about proactive measures which will extend our working lives. It’s important to think about ‘fitness to perform’ as an investment for the future as well as a necessity for today.

DATA, INSIGHT AND EVIDENCE-BASED HRBig data may have arrived in the HR debate as a hype-laden phrase back in 2012 but there is a long way for HR to go in the extent and sophistication with which it interrogates and analyses workforce data.

The first challenge centres on the use of data to give organisations a better grasp of the factors behind the people issues which hold them back – such as poor productivity, high employee turnover or inconsistent manager performance.

The second is using that data as a starting point for better HR interventions: this can apply to the way your organisation approaches recruitment, refining the reward mix to appeal to specific demographics and so supporting retention or improving the consistency of skills development.

In both instances, data has major role to play in underpinning HR strategy with insight and evidence.

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THE RISE OF AGILE HROutside of the HR department – in IT and marketing teams in particular - the concept of agile working is gaining increased traction as an alternative to the yearly planning cycle which dominates most businesses.

The idea is that functions which are built around the ability to cope with continuous change are able to respond more quickly and effectively than those who are focused on processes and corporate-hoop jumping. By being faster they can outwit and get ahead of slower-footed competitors.

Agile thinking isn’t just for HR teams who need to support this business approach in their organisation. It has a role to play in the future for every HR practitioner in building a function which is more responsive to change, more determined to the simplicity of the work it does and consequently, better aligned to an organisation’s business objectives. The agile HR approach will also see HR teams question and leave behind overly bureaucratic processes which deliver little value for organisations.

THE ‘CONSUMERISATION’ OF THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCEOne of the outstanding issues for many employers to grasp is the ‘employee experience gap’ which exists between the world outside and within an organisation.

This is the gap which sees a slick recruitment process undermined by poor onboarding; a stunning benefits package torpedoed by poor management and the increasing inability for employers to deploy technology to give them the kind of experience they get as consumers when it comes to communicating and interacting with their employer.

For organisations to attract, retain and engage employees in the future, they need to grasp the concept of the employee as a consumer and identify the areas of employ experience which are letting them down.

At the same time HR teams need to look at the world outside and think about the consumer trends personalisation and choice which they can bring in to play drive improvement and innovation to that experience.

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By being faster they can outwit and get ahead of slower-footed competitors

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A NEW TYPE OF HR FUNCTIONThe final trend confronting HR is the changing nature of the function itself. Here, technology looks set to continue to remove and automate many of the routine tasks which were once carried by HR teams, from recruitment to training and benefits administration.

The resulting trend is for HR teams to shrink and rely on HR practitioners with more specialist or strategic skills as well as new ones such as the ability to manage suppliers, technology and data.

The impact on HR practitioners is the need to acquire the knowledge and develop skills which are fit for this new world.

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HR SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE

The skills for the HR practitioners of the future are likely to focus on five areas:

• Business acumen - the ability to link commercial strategy with people strategy and deliver a measurable impact on the bottom line

• Consulting skills - acting as a trusted adviser within a business, listening to business challenges, asking the right questions, bringing objectivity to problems and learning from the outside world

• Technological literacy - the ability to work in a data-led world, identifying how technology can improve people performance and the overall impact HR has on the business

• Partnership - the ability to initiate and deliver projects with internal colleagues; externally the ability to identify requirements for outsourced contracts and manage suppliers effectively as strategic partners

• Leadership - championing and communicating the work of HR through the business

• Change agents - lead culture amid company change or within individual divisions or teams

• Performance drivers - driving up the quality of leadership and management in business as well as individual and team performance

• Entreprenuers/Innovators - apply creative and innovative thinking to problem solving and evolution

• Communicators - ability to think about your messages, audience and communication channels for greater impact

These skills will sit alongside the traditional knowledge of HR practice and specialism in specific areas such as reward or organisational design.

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TEN MANAGEMENTTHINKERS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HR

In today’s world of blogging, social media and video content, the barriers to finding insight and thinking which will inform and develop your thinking on HR issues are lower than ever. Here are ten HR thinkers we think are worth following:

1. Cary Cooper – One of the best known thinkers, researchers and commentators on issues around health, wellbeing and the workplace. He is Professor of Organizational Psychology & Health at MBS Manchester University and his regular media appearances promote debate about how employers can make sure people work effectively. @ProfCaryCooper

2. Lynda Gratton – Professor of management practice at London Business School who leads the Future of Work Consortium which brings together knowledge and insight about how organisations can best formulate future people strategy and working practice. @lyndagratton

3. Dave Ulrich – Professor of Business University of Michigan, business consultant and widely accepted as one of the leading HR gurus, he has consistently driven reappraisal of how HR teams can deliver value to organisations. @dave_ulrich

4. Adrian Furham – Thoughtful columns on management and the workplace appear in the Sunday Times and consistently shine a light on what makes people, managers and leaders tick. He is professor of psychology at University College London. @ProfAdrianFurnh

5. Adam Grant – His talk ‘Drive - The surprising truth about what motivates us’ for the RSA has nearly 14 million YouTube views and the accompanying book has spurred many to reassess the way they manage their employees. He is a professor at Wharton and writes in the New York Times about work and psychology. @AdamMGrant


6. Josh Bersin – Researcher, consultant and leading commentator who blogs for Forbes and on the Bersin by Deloitte website alongside his team. Focuses on interrogating and explaining the implications of new trends in HR technology, leadership and talent management. @Josh_Bersin

7. Stephan Bevan – Director at the Work Foundation, an institution which influences public and organisational policy around emerging workplace and employment trends. @StephenBevan

8. Peter Cheese – The chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development, blogs and speaks about people challenges facing organisations and the future agenda for HR. @Cheese_Peter

9. John Ingham – Independent consultant, thinker and writer on the role of HR on his blog Strategic Human Capital Management. Regular speaker and tweeter. @joningham

10. David MacLeod – Visiting professor at Cass Business School and founder of Engage for Success - an independent body which champions the role of employee engagement as a driver of commercial performance and whose blog is rich with new ideas and best practice in this area. @davidtmacleod

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Edenred helps organisations engage and motivate people to achieve enhanced performance.This is achieved through provision of unique and unrivalled total reward, benefits, incentives and recognition solutions, individually designed to fit your audience, your goals and your budget.

We do this through vouchers, prepaid cards, cloud-based technology solutions and digital & SMS products to help engage and motivate your employees, customers and business partners.

We can work with you to help develop and implement your Employee Value Proposition to deliver greater business performance and return on investment.

Employee Benefits solutions that encompass the management of your flexible and voluntary benefits, employee discounts and salary sacrifice schemes, that can be deployed to drive engagement at a company-wide level or focused around specific segments of your workforce.

Incentives & Rewards solutions that can motivate and create behavioural change and improve performance, centred around the widest choice of reward platforms and mechanisms that offer the recipient the widest choice of redemption options.

Expense Management solutions that help streamline and simplify your routine payment processes, reducing administrative burden, saving money and helping make life easier for everyone.

Communications Services that ensure your investment in incentives, rewards and benefits are understood, valued and appreciated, delivering maximum return for your business.

To find out more, visit www.edenred.co.uk, call us on 0844 875 3388* or email [email protected]

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empower, transform, lead - the future role of hr

Recruiting & HR