HUMAN RESOURCE
5 Critical Top 5 HR Trends in 2013
As businesses move forward in 2013 looking for newer
growth avenues in a sluggish economy, leaders are
increasingly banking on talent to achieve this growth. While
business demands, margin pressures, declining budgets, HR
technology, social media, data and analytics are all
reshaping the contours of HR, what is noteworthy is an
increase in HR’s focus on these aspects. Traditional ways of
doing things are being re-examined as HR leaders look at
more effective ways of managing and aligning talent with
the new business objectives. With more eyes on HR than
ever before, we asked experts what trends the HR
fraternity could expect to see this year. Here are the top
five HR trends we found are going to shape the HR
landscape this year and going forward.
1. Rise of HR Business Partner
Growth is top priority for most companies and CEOs expect
HR leaders to partner with them to execute the growth
strategy. As the pressure to add more strategic value
intensifies, it is critical that HR abandons inefficient silos
and finds better ways to contribute to the organization
success, says Sridhar Ganesan, director and rewards
practice leader, Hay Group India. A Hay Group research in
2012, based on responses from 1,400 HR professionals and
senior management from around the world, revealed that
in many organizations, the HR function is still holding on to
traditional siloed processes and inefficient approaches,
resulting in slow strid es in becoming strategic business
partners within their organizations. More than a third
confessed that their HR processes are organized into
expertise-based silos.
Effective HR management will be about the optimum
deployment of people to do the work that needs to be
done in order for the organization to thrive, according to
Ganesan. “It will be about making sure that the
organization is fit to execute its business strategy, that the
jobs that are needed to make the organization function are
in place, that the right people are in these jobs, and that
they are motivated to deliver the required performance,”
he adds.
Ganesan cites an example to make his point. “A classic
illustration of the disconnected nature of HR is when a line
manager is approached one week by a reward advisor who
needs to understand a job for pay purposes; followed by
the learning and development advisor two weeks later who
needs to identify the training needs associated with the job;
and then later by the recruitment specialist, who needs to
understand the job in order to go out and find candidates.”
HR needs to streamline and coordinate efforts, as well as
benefit from greater insights across the HR functions.
Developing the requisite competencies is one way HR
professionals can acquire a voice in the board rooms. Going
forward in 2013, organizations will need an agile,
responsive, cohesive HR function that is properly
integrated, not only as a discipline itself but within the
skeleton of the organization as a whole.
2. One World, One HR
Growing competition, margin pressures and
economies of scale are driving companies
around the world to increasingly shift
towards global operating models. In today’s
business world, increasing globalization is a
given, with international competition likely
to grow fiercer and markets even more
diversified, says Mohinish Sinha, Leadership
and Talent practice leader, Hay Group India.
“We see ‘globalization 2.0’ take centre
stage, largely due to a shift in the global
balance of power to Asia and to the rise of a
global middle class. India and China are
rapidly becoming world powers, Asian
management practices and models are
becoming more influential, and emerging
nations are increasingly trading between
themselves. And the global business world is getting riskier
too: greater interconnectedness creates greater volatility,
making financial crises, pandemics, international organized
crime and cyber-terrorism increasingly likely.”
Experts say that international companies will need to adapt
their global strategies for local markets. Successfully
managing the competing demands of global and local will
depend on the extent to which they foster local
participation in decision-making, create culturally-diverse
(and often virtual) leadership teams and encourage crosscountry and cross-functional collaboration. The best global
companies will be those that operate like a flattened
matrix, where information and authority flow in all
directions rather than cascading down from the top.
According to Sinha, the leaders of 2013 will need to be
multilingual, flexible, internationally mobile and adaptable,
and culturally sensitive. “And if that was not enough, they
will also need to be highly collaborative and strong
conceptual and contextual thinkers. They will require the
ability to lead diverse teams (cross-functional, crosscultural, cross-country) over which they may have no direct
authority, and to find new ways of engendering personal
loyalty in an environment where the old loyalties between
employer and employee are declining due to the distance
between them,” he says, adding, “what globalization 2.0
makes abundantly clear is that the days when one or two
‘heroes’ sat at the top of organizations dictating strategy
are well and truly over.
3. Enhanced Employee Engagement
Employee engagement continues to be the one of the top
HR challenges as most companies are still struggling to get
the employee engagement part right. The Aon 2012 Trends
in Global Employee Engagement report, covering more
than 3100 organisations, found a small improvement in
engagement levels overall, including in HR areas, but
concludes that companies are not focusing on the issues
that matter to employees. The 2012 Global Workforce
study from Towers Watson echoes the same dilemma. Its
survey of 32,000 full-time workers showed just 35% of
workers as highly engaged.
According to the report, organisations will need to focus on
enabling workers with the right set of tools, resources and
support, and creating workplaces that are energising to
work in as they promote physical, emotional and social
well-being. Organisations will need to put renewed focus
on getting its employee engagement practices right in
2013.
4. HR and Technology
The HR manager’s greatest ally amidst all these
developments has perhaps been technology. Ranging from
general media like emails to specific solutions like
employee databases with bolt-on hire-to-retire
functionalities, e-Learning, telepresence, attendance tool
etc., have made HR improve the quality and speed of its
responsiveness to different organizational demands.
“Knowledge is fast becoming the powerhouse of the global
economy, its instantaneous exchange facilitated by the
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internet. Digital tools offer cheap, easy and fast
communication, cooperation, organization and production,
and workplaces are no longer tied to brick and mortar
locations. In this climate, lifelong learning and networking
are essential and will become engrained, as organizations
will no longer be able to rely on traditional hierarchies and
career paths,” says Gaurav Lahiri, managing director, Hay
Group India.
Social media and mobile devices are raising the bar on HR
service delivery. HR has an opportunity to use social media
and mobile tools to create communities for sharing
knowledge – and to support employees through direct yet
informal communication. Today, social media ROI success
stories and case studies ar e plentiful and provide
compelling evidence for organizations to embrace
openness, fuelled by collapsing boundaries, increased
competitiveness and demanding customers.
“As employees interact with each other on enterprise social
systems, the structure of the organization itself changes.
Silos give way to shared networks, knowledge sharing and
collaboration across locations and business units,” says
Gautam Ghosh, a Social Business and HR Consultant in his
blog post - How Engaging in Social Media Can Make You a
Better Professional? In addition, cloud computing is
changing the way people and businesses work, turning
conventional ideas about time-to-value, service levels,
infrastructure needs etc., on their head.
Experts say there are significant benefits to be had when
HR managers can support their organization’s participation
in virtual spaces:
• Clearer and more consistent corporate visions and
strategies
• Access to unexpected knowledge capital outside of the
formal organizational structure
• Increased stakeholder ownership and accountability
• Improved corporate social responsibility.
Lahiri recommends using such tools but with a caveat. He
says, “The tools should not be used as the primary filter for
recruitment and selection because the concept is relatively
untested and would require a controlled environment,
which can be expensive. It may also be biased in favour of
the younger members of Generation X and Y, who are more
familiar with the technology; but it could be a challenge for
the more senior baby boomers.”
5. HR Data and Analytics
There is a growing need for HR professionals to understand
how people management initiatives lend value to business
to be able to augment ones that generate utmost value.
Just like decisions in the Finance function are based on
revenue, expenses, profit and shareholder value, and
Marketing decisions are based on customer and cash flow
impact, similarly people decisions should be driven by
rigorous, data-driven analysis. This necessitates HR
Analytics or the use of data (not just HR-specific but
organization-wide data), metrics, statistics and scientific
methods, with the help of technology, to gauge the impact
of human capital management practices on business goals.
Experts say while many organizations have HR information
systems in place, few capitalize on the data and the
technology in ways that can drive business performance.
Most still do not make people decisions with the same rigor
as they do decisions about customers, products, supply
chains and business strategies. When it comes to workforce
decisions, they too often rely on intuition and conventional
wisdom. But with businesses’ increasing demands from HR,
the use of HR Analytics tools in decision making is only on
the rise.
We will continue to move ahead into 2013 with these
trends and even see more from each of these trends and
many others in near future. The next wave of HR trends is
here. The question is: are you ready?
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