Taslim Ahammad :
The increase speed of the changes in this world is driving the organisations to be extra proactive for the sake of their survival amidst the cutthroat competitive environment. The organisations requisite to be relevant in their work operations, which means transfiguring the business model in a way that will meet the needs of the workforce in the future. HR professionals will have to adopt an expected role in the transformation process to well align with the future needs.
HR management must change as the business environment in which it operates changes. Following will be the latest trends, which are likely to shape the workplace and HR in the next decade. Hence, it is better to discuss and know the future trends that will play vital role in transforming workplace and HR during the change and afterwards: Educator – As educator HR has few jobs: (i) Introduce fresh thinking and new ideas to promote creativity, innovation and successful adaptation; (ii) Persist in developing mastery of adopted organizational practices and process improvement methodologies by employees and managers; and, (iii) Communicate extensively what’s happening within the organization and why. Right feedback at right time – The real key to driving great employee experience is collecting and delivering the right feedback at the right time.
Organizations need to build ongoing programs to collect and distribute feedback at critical touch points of the employee journey, business leaders will get the data they need to impact real change. Employer branding will be critical – Candidates have access to more data than ever with platforms like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Monster and others. This not only means that candidates are really the ones “interviewing” the organizations, but that organizations have to up their game when it comes to talent acquisition. Candidate reaction surveys and ongoing employee feedback can help HR understand how to build an exceptional employee brand and attract, hire and retain top performers.
Different leadership approach – There is going to be more focus on individual development, collaboration, innovation and the use of technology. Again it comes down to HR to train the new cadre of up-and-coming leaders. It can be easily foreseen that the workforce will comprise of millennials. This means that all the companies should quickly get ready for transition between the two dramatically different leadership styles (baby boomers vs. millennials). Top-down transparency will be important – A recognition of the importance of transparency combined with the speed of information sharing both good and bad via social media platform has led to HR’s ability to influence to take a highly visible role in setting culture, redirecting culture and championing the culture to drive organizational success.
Generational management will mix more than ever – Visionary recognise that their finance, legal and HR teams, as well as line leadership, will come from any generation with the expertise needed. As the number of millennials in the workforce continues to expand, and the aging workforce needs and/or wants to work longer, we will see a migration of boomers and traditionalists to project and consultative contractor roles. HR will be flexible – Providing flexible work arrangements will be a top priority for organizations and 9 to 5 work will be over, young professionals will look for places where they can have the chance to take time off to be creative, be able to take a break without being judged, go solve administrative issues without having to take a day off, or even work from home with pre-agreed objectives.
HR will be social – HR may use social tools to drive behaviours in office performance by giving extra benefits to high performers of the month or give incentives to employees who are great brand ambassadors. The work experience will be taken live and will bring a stronger social component to organizations.
HR will be mobile – For recruiter, will check mobile recruiting app while commuting to the office to see the new applicants have in the system. Office want to leave comments, assign tasks, and when arriving to the office have team already working on such tasks. Want to be able to check how performing in terms of workforce happiness, to check the latest stats on the mobile. HR will be about data – HR will have a great deal of responsibility in analysing the data, interpreting it and making the right decisions in order to ensure the right acquisitions, training, development and retention of talent. HR will be integrated – This might sound strange, but yes, HR will become a set very diverse skills. HR will be composed by tech savvy people, data scientists, recruiter experts, connectors and brand editors. People that are able to do copywriting, for job descriptions that correspond to the company culture. People that are able to read data and forecast trends. HR will be about diversity of skills.
Automation and artificial intelligence -Many of current jobs across the globe will be lost in the next few years as a result of the automation and artificial intelligence. Already have humans and robots working side by side in quite a few companies. Since the human skills are not keeping up with technological developments and robots are becoming cheaper, the replacement of humans in various job roles would ultimately become inevitable.
However, HR will be responsible for providing professional challenges to human labour in order to maximize their creative potential and to make them contribute more value than their robotic counterparts. Virtual reality- It can be easily predicted that the virtual and augmented reality will impact many corporate functions like the recruitment, training, collaboration and a lot more. It is a fact that the companies across globe spend significant amounts on recruitment each year. In the next decade, virtual reality and augmented reality are going to become fundamental tools for HR operations. The virtual reality will be used for evaluating candidates.
This will also empower the recruiters to assess skills of short listed candidates in real-time. Therefore, HR department will have to redesign itself and become more tech savvy. Designer – Designing and helping implement high performance people strategies in partnership with line staff. As in one, the focus is on developing employee and manager self-reliance through the skilful sharing of expertise by HR extensive training. Facilitator – Facilitating the employee/employer connection, principally through empowering technologies (digital and procedural) that emphasize employee self-service and managerial independence. Through employee and manager self-service features, such technologies also put greater access and control over information in the hands of employees and managers, thus increasing personal mastery and independence. HR’s task here may best be conceived as a help desk function: Set-up the systems, teach others to use them, and then get out of the way, answering questions from the field only as these arise.
In general, HRM will be in the future to redesign itself being strategic and innovation oriented. HR professionals are supposed to be the pioneering force throughout this transformation procedure that is going to define the future workplace. Hence, to cope up with the situation, HR professionals will need to maximize the use of HR technology, data management and cutting-edge innovation and other above mentioned matters.
(Taslim Ahammad, Assistant Professor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University).
