People and Management March 2019 | Page 11

www.peopleandmanagement.com Artifi cial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation: Today, HR greatly revolves around data, such as workforce assessments, optimization of work fl ow, screening and talent tracking. With AI, robotics and automation, these can now be managed through predictive analysis and automation. HR professionals can henceforth let the machines complete the administrative tasks and can themselves focus more on putting the human back in human resources. Virtual and Augmented Reality: In today’s world both the recruiter and the prospective candidate know each other very well even before meeting! The websites, applications, social platforms, chatbots etc have hastened the process of recruitment and now the interviewer can really focus on assessing the candidate precisely on the required specifi cations & competencies. VR and AR will make a real difference by streamlining systems, building engagement matrix and recruiting smarter, simpler, and faster. Personalization of Services: Organizations have already started investing in learning platforms to help employees quickly locate content, register for a class or locate another subject matter expert. It helps in detecting behavior patterns, discover correlations in behavior among employees and improve the employee experience. As the similarities start to be recognized, employees can then be segmented. This segmentation enables HR leaders to effectively deliver relevant content to employees, which, in turn, leads to greater engagement. The New Leadership Style: The profi le and competencies of business leaders is undergoing a disruptive change, to which, HR will have to rise to the occasion to work on newer competencies & attributes and provide business with leadership to excel in today’s VUCA world. HR has a huge responsibility in training a new team of upcoming leaders and needs to ensure an effective workplace with proper succession planning, so that, there is a smooth transition from the baby-boomer leadership to the millennial generation. Organizations have already started investing in learning platforms to help employees quickly locate content, register for a class or locate another subject matter expert. Most importantly, in the new world of work, HR will need to fi nd a way that allows to predict the kind of capabilities we need in order to get our business plans successfully implemented; to do this HR will have to work very closely with business and functions like R&D, production, fi nance, supply chain and sales & marketing. Once we know the kind of capabilities we need and technology adoption rates, it will be upon HR to do research and identify where these skills can be sourced and made ready to business whenever required. To summarize, we need to stop refi ning concepts for HR that were designed for the world of today and yesterday. The world of tomorrow is going to be so much different that these current concepts will be misaligned as per futuristic demands and if we keep refi ning them, our profession will become increasingly irrelevant. This is a forgone conclusion that all business organizations and their HR functions are undergoing unprecedented change, the rate of which is only going to increase with time. The choice is ours whether we want to follow the curve, be ahead of the curve with a strong change appetite or just become a spectator to this change. The last option, to my mind, is going to be a sure shot recipe for disaster. P & M Vol. 10 Issue 3 • MARCH 2019, Delhi NCR | 11