火热的全球经济下人力资源应该如何适应?The Red Hot Global Economy: How Should HR Adapt?
我们生活在有趣的时代。几十年来,全球经济第一次增长。失业率达到30年来的最低点,薪水开始上涨,雇主正在大力争夺一套新的技能。(根据LinkedIn的说法,“机器学习技能”现在是最热门的,在过去的五年中,这项工作的需求增加了近10倍。)
我们看到很多证据表明就业市场非常火爆。根据ADP最近的一项研究显示,美国近5%的员工每个月都会换工作,其中60%是自愿的。人们为什么换工作?对超过1400万名员工进行研究的ADP研究表示,头号问题是薪水。人们找到更高薪的职位,所以他们移动。
虽然这对经济有利,但对雇主而言将会越来越难。正如我记得2000年的“网络公关”时间(以及后来的崩溃),在这些高就业时期,就业市场变得竞争激烈,工资上涨,雇主必须更加努力地吸引技术熟练的人。如下图所示,这就是现在正在发生的事情。我们接近韩战以来没有看到的失业率。
首席执行官感到压力
这个问题现在已经到了董事会的空间。最新的会议董事会首席执行官研究表明,“寻找和留住人才”现在是首席执行官头脑中的首要问题。高管们担心组织能力,领导力,留存率和参与度以及他们的就业品牌。有需求技能的人(例如工程师,专家,销售人员等)开始表现得像电影明星一样:游说高薪,比较雇主彼此,并希望公司不断改善工作经验。
我刚刚参加了一家大型全球性公司的200强领导力活动,人们关心的第一个话题是如何吸引更多高潜力进入公司,发展领导力渠道,并计划随着自动化变革的发展而发生的技能和工作变化。首席执行官亲自要求每位经理“负责建立你的领导力管道”。
人力资源部门面临压力
我们人力资源部门正在处理这个问题。每个人力资源部门都在讨论就业品牌,员工敬业度和员工经验等主题。我们的全球客户之一已经开始为所有10万以上的人员开发“员工角色”,所有这些都旨在学习如何理解和改善公司各个层面的工作体验。
这些事情很重要。如果你的公司在社交媒体网站上没有得到很好的尊重或低评价,你现在发现招聘越来越困难。虽然业务可能很好,但在别的地方可能会更好。销售人员,工程师,科学家,产品专家甚至入门级员工倾向于转向发展速度更快的公司,往往让陷入困境的公司陷入波澜。
这种经济环境迫使我们改变人力资源的优先事项。在当今的经济环境中,我鼓励人力资源团队专注于生产力,参与度和留任率,现在是时候仔细审视您的奖励和附带福利。大多数公司正在制定福祉计划,他们正在实现工作环境的现代化,许多公司已实施免费午餐,免费晚餐,免费洗衣以及免费的健身和锻炼计划等项目。在硅谷,多年来对于员工福利的战争不断升级。如果你不提供美味的早餐,午餐(通常是晚餐),你根本无法吸引工程师。人们认为这些福利是他们报酬的一部分,他们比较他们工作中的食品成本。
在我的职业生涯中,我经历了几个这样的经济周期,而且我的经验表明,虽然许多员工留在原地,但是高潜力人员,创收人员以及经验丰富的领导者都有很多机会,所以我们必须仔细观察它们。
快速移动人员。扩大您对潜力的定义。
在这样的经济体中有很多事情需要考虑。一种是重新思考你的传统继任管理计划,并找到一种更持续提供增长和发展的方法。就像我们一直在实施持续绩效管理一样,组织现在需要提供更多的定期促销活动(我遇到的一家公司每年提供两次“半升级促销”),更多的发展任务以及比以往更多的学习机会。
过去我们每年坐下一次,试图弄清楚我们的几个“高潜力”(HIPO)是谁。今天我建议你重新设计整个过程,这样每个人都可以定期从增长中受益。
这是一个建议如何。在过去,我们一直将HIPO定义为“能够在公司内上升两级”的人。今天我建议至少有三种我们想要承认的领导类型:
商业领导力:可以“经营业务”或推动盈亏的人
技术领导:技术专家或可以领导技术团队的人员
团队或项目领导:可以领导项目,计划和计划的人员。
这极大地拓宽了您的领导力,几乎每个人都有机会发展壮大,并渴望获得更负责任,更有价值的职位。
图2:三种类型的领导者需要扩展的继任格子
我最近访问的一家客户是一家全球性医疗保健公司,他们的主要领导差距之一是发展“科学和临床领导者”。这些人不一定会成为首席执行官,但他们对业务至关重要 - 所以他们需要定期晋升,薪金审查和流动性。数字专家,分析专家,网络安全专家和其他需求技术人员属于同一类别。
在工作流程中提供学习
如果你不能经常宣传,请记住,保留的巨大动力是员工的“学习能力”。即使很难找到促销活动,当人们认为“这项工作真的把我带到某个地方”时,他们也会参与进来。这是创造学习环境,培养领导者成长思维的一个问题,并且给予人们不论其角色的学习文化。
虽然L&D在过去几年一直是一个麻烦的行业(我们在2017年发现了一个负面的网络推动者评级),但我很高兴地说,现在解决这个问题相对容易,今年是投资于微型网络的一年,学习,学习体验平台,自我创作内容,视频学习以及我们几十年来一直在讨论的所有文化方面的知识,而且您实际上可以“在工作流程中”提供学习,使其更具相关性和可使用性比以往任何时候都要多。
人力资源准备好了吗?我相信是这样。
在过去的一年中,我一直在与世界上一些最具代表性的公司会面,他们的人力资源团队正在适应。今天,他们专注于职业管理,员工体验,更多创新奖励计划以及各种有趣的学习,数字生产力和福利策略。
让我们都在这里享受美好时光。是的,这个就业市场造成了很大的压力,但如果你专注于赋权,发展和引人入胜的核心 - 你的组织就能蓬勃发展。现在云层已经在地平线上了,所以我们享受阳光。
针对热门经济的五项人力资源战略。
1.关注就业品牌。
了解并研究候选人如何看待你的公司,并将这些信息反馈给首席执行官和高级商业领袖,以便推动管理层改进文化,参与度和工作环境。今天,您可以使用Glassdoor,LinkedIn,您自己的参与调查,脉搏调查,停留访谈,匿名调查以及大量其他聆听设备来了解您在市场中的感受。您应该尽可能申请“最佳工作场所”奖项,这也会提升您的游戏体验,并促使您改善工作体验。
2.保持当前的工资和福利。
现在我认为公司必须每六个月刷新一次奖励计划。每年的速度不够快。我曾经和那些给员工半年一次审查和加薪的公司谈过,即使这在某些情况下可能还不够。我们刚刚完成的研究表明,每年不止一次重新访问薪水和奖金的公司表现优于仅每年审核报酬的公司。并确保您的透明度:现在公布大量薪酬信息 - 所以您应该公布您的薪金基准,让员工充分披露您是否支付高于或低于平均水平(当然有充分的理由)。
3.建立一支专注于了解员工旅程的团队,并专注于端到端的员工体验。
这意味着从候选人到新员工到第一天,第一个月,第一季度,第一年,第一次促销等等。设计思维的概念现在已经被很好地理解,因此您需要使用它们来构建一种数字化的体验,以帮助人们在职业生涯中茁壮成长。最好的起点是有一个高转换率的员工团队(即通常是第一年的零售员工),这样你就可以获得一个良好的设计思维项目。然后,一旦你熟练掌握了它,你就可以为各种工作转变创造员工旅程,并寻找使他们变得更好的方法。在德勤,我们称之为“重要时刻”。
4.重新设计您的L&D战略。
今年是2018年,采用微型学习策略的一年,更新您的LMS和工具,并深入了解“工作流程中的学习”的概念。我很快就会写更多内容 - 但让我提醒你,当人们觉得自己“没有学习”时,他们会离开公司。你可以解决这个问题。我们最近调查的公司中超过50%告诉我们,他们正在增加L&D平台的预算。是时候了。顺便说一下,开始制定一个更好的职业管理工具的战略 - 这是人力资源技术中最热门的新部分,它将成为您工作未来自动化,人工智能和工作变革的保险。
5.保持首席执行官和高级领导的知情权。
确定你的分析计划,确保你知道技能,领导力,参与度和保留差距在哪里。
让首席执行官知道人才稀少 - 他或她会真正关心。如果您需要聘用更多招聘人员,投资新的开发计划,或从根本上改变工作模式以适应,您需要他们的帮助才能迅速动员。在竞争激烈的时期,首席执行官希望尽其所能帮助,所以要抓住机遇。(2018年会议委员会首席执行官研究称“缺乏关键技能”成为今天的首要业务挑战。)
最后:现在是时候调整您的人力资源战略,以应对以竞争为中心,以技能为中心的市场。调整你的招聘,专注于推动包容性和多元化的多元文化,并确保你的职业生涯管理和学习在前台。没有人知道这种经济繁荣将持续多久,但现在有一场人才争夺战,我们必须武装自己来应付它。
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关于作者:Josh Bersin是Deloitte,Deloitte Consulting LLP 的创始人和负责人 ,Deloitte Consulting LLP是一家领先的研究和咨询公司,专注于企业领导力,人才,学习以及工作与生活的交叉。
以上由AI翻译完成,供您参考。HRTechChina倾情奉献,转载请注明。
以下为英文:
We are living in interesting times. For the first time in decades the entire global economy is growing. Unemployment rates are reaching a 30 year low, salaries are beginning to rise, and employers are competing heavily for a new set of skills. (“Machine learning skills” are now the hottest according to LinkedIn, a job that has increased in demand by almost 10 times in the last five years.)
We see lots of evidence that the job market is red hot. According to a recent study by ADP, almost 5% of the US workforce now changes jobs every month, and 60% of this is voluntary. Why are people changing jobs? The ADP research, which studied more than 14 million employees, says the #1 issue is salary. People are finding higher paid positions so they move.
While this is all good for the economy, it will be increasingly hard on employers. As I remember during the year 2000 "dot-com" time (and later crash), during these periods of high employment the job market becomes hyper-competitive, salaries go up, and employers have to work harder to attract skilled people. As the chart below shows, this is what is happening now. We are nearing an unemployment rate not seen since the Korean War.
Fig 1: Unemployment Rate Near Record Low
CEOs Feel the Pinch
This issue has now reached the board room. The latest Conference Board CEO research shows that “finding and retaining talent” is now the #1 issue on the mind of CEOs. Executives are worried about organizational skills, their leadership pipeline, retention and engagement, and their employment brand. And people with in-demand skills (e.g. engineers, specialists, sales people, etc.) are starting to behave like movie stars: lobbying for high salaries, comparing employers against each other, and expecting companies to continuously improve the work experience.
I just attended a top 200 leadership event for a large global company and the #1 topic on peoples minds were how to attract more high-potentials into the company, grow the leadership pipeline, and plan for skill and job changes as automation changes work. The CEO personally asked each and every manager to "take responsibility for building your leadership pipeline."
The Pressure Is On for HR
We in HR are on the hook to deal with this issue. The topics of employment brand, employee engagement, and the employee experience are being discussed in every HR department. One of our global clients has embarked on a project to develop "employee personas" for all their 100,000+ people, all with the intention to learn how to understand and improve their work experience at every level in the company.
And these things matter. If your company is not well respected or has low ratings on social media websites, you are now finding it harder and harder to recruit. And while business may be good, it may be better somewhere else. Sales people, engineers, scientists, products specialists, and even entry level employees tend to move to faster growing companies, often leaving troubled companies in waves.
This economic environment is forcing us to change the priorities in HR. In today's economy I encourage HR teams to focus on productivity, engagement, and retention and it's now time to look carefully at your rewards and fringe benefits. Most companies are now building programs for well-being, they are modernizing the work environment, and many have implemented programs like free lunch, free dinner, free laundry, and free gym and exercise programs. Here in Silicon Valley, there has been an escalating war for employee benefits for years. If you don’t offer people a gourmet breakfast, lunch, (and often dinner) you simply cannot attract engineers. People consider these benefits a part of their compensation, and they compare the cost of food in their job offers.
I’ve been through several of these economic cycles in my career, and my experience shows that while many employees stay where they are, high-potentials, people in revenue-generating roles, and experienced leaders have lots of opportunities, so we have to watch them closely.
Move People Faster. Broaden Your Definition of Potential.
There are many things to think about in an economy like this. One is to rethink your traditional succession management program and find a way to offer growth and progression on a more continuous basis. Just like we have been implementing continuous performance management, organizations now need to offer more regular promotions (one company I met with offers "half-level promotions" twice per year), more developmental assignments, and more opportunities to learn than ever before.
In the past we sat down once a year and tried to figure out who our few "high-potentials" (HIPO) were. Today I'd suggest you re-engineer that entire process, so everyone can benefit from growth on a regular basis.
Here is a suggestion how. In the past we always defined a HIPO as someone who could "move up two levels in the company." Today I'd suggest there are at least three types of leadership we want to recognize:
Business leadership: people who can "run a business" or drive a P&L
Technical leadership: people who are technical experts or can lead technical teams
Team or Project leadership: people who can lead projects, initiatives, and programs.
This greatly broadens your leadership pipeline, and gives nearly everyone an opportunity to grow and aspire to a more responsible, rewarding position.
Fig 2: Three Types of Leaders Demand Expanded Succession Grids
A client I recently visited is a global healthcare company, and one of their key leadership gaps is developing "scientific and clinical leaders." These are not necessarily people who would become the CEO, but they are critical to the business - so they warrant regular promotion, salary review, and mobility. Digital experts, analytics experts, cyber security experts, and other in-demand technical people are in the same category.
Deliver Learning In The Flow Of Work
If you can't promote people regularly, remember that an enormous driver of retention is an employee's "ability to learn." Even when promotions are hard to find, people are engaged when they feel that "this job is really taking me someplace." This is a problem of creating a learning environment, building a growth mindset in leaders, and giving people a culture of learning regardless of their role.
While L&D has been a troubled profession for the last few years (we found a negative net-promoter rating in 2017), I"m happy to say that now it is relatively easy to address this. This is the year to invest in micro-learning, learning experience platforms, self-authored content, video-learning, and all the cultural aspects of learning we have been talking about for decades. And you can actually deliver learning "in the flow of work," making it more relevant and consumable than ever. (You can view my presentation on this below.)
Is HR ready for this? I believe so.
Over the last year I have been meeting with some of the most iconic companies in the world, and their HR teams are adapting. Today they are focused on career management, the employee experience, more innovative rewards programs, and all sorts of interesting learning, digital productivity and well-being strategies.
Let’s all enjoy the good times while they’re here. Yes this job market creates a lot of stress, but if you focus on the core of empowering, developing, and engaging people – your organization can thrive. The clouds are out on the horizon for now, so let’s enjoy the sun.
Five HR strategies for a hot economy.
1. Focus on employment brand.
Understand and study how candidates view your company ,and bring this information back to your CEO and top business leaders so you can push your management to improve culture, engagement, and the work environment. Today you can use Glassdoor, LinkedIn, your own engagement surveys, pulse surveys, stay interviews, anonymous surveys, and lots of other listening devices to know how you are perceived in the market. You should apply for "best places to work" awards wherever possible, which will also up your game and push you to make the work experience better.
2. Keep salaries and benefits current.
Right now I believe companies have to refresh their rewards programs every six months. Annually is just not fast enough. I’ve talked with companies that give employees reviews and raises semi-annually and even this may not be enough in some cases. We just completed research that shows that companies that revisit salaries and bonus more than once per year outperform those that only review compensation annually. And make sure you are transparent: a tremendous amount of compensation information is now public – so you should publish your salary benchmarks against peers, giving employees full disclosure about whether you are paying above or below average (with good justification of course).
3. Get a team focused on understanding the employee journey, and focus on the end to end employee experience.
This means everything from candidate to new hire to first day, first month, first quarter, first year, first promotion, and on. The concepts of design thinking are well understood now, so you need to use them to build a digital-enabled experience that helps people thrive throughout their career. The best place to start is with a high turnover employee group (ie. often first year retail employees) so you can get a good design thinking project under your belt. Then once you get good at it you can create employee journeys for various job transitions and look at ways to make them better. At Deloitte we call this "moments that matter."
4. Re-engineer your L&D strategy.
This year, 2018, is the year to adopt a micro-learning strategy, refresh your LMS and tools, and get behind the concepts of “learning in the flow of work.” I’ll be writing a lot more on this soon – but let me remind you, people leave companies when they feel they are “not learning.” You can fix this. More than 50% of the companies we recently surveyed told us they are increasing budget for L&D platforms. It's time. And by the way, start building a strategy for better career management tools too - this is the hottest new segment in HR technology and it will become your insurance for automation, AI, and job changes from the future of work.
5. Keep the CEO and senior leadership informed.
Get your analytics program in shape and make sure you know where skills, leadership, engagement, and retention gaps are high. Let the CEO know where talent is thin - he or she will really care. You will need their help to mobilize quickly if you need to hire more recruiters, invest in a new development program, or radically change job models to adapt. In times of competitive growth CEOs want to do everything they can to help, so take advantage of the opportunity. (Conference Board 2018 CEO study cited "lack of critical skills" as the #1 business challenge today.)
Bottom Line: It's time to adjust your HR strategies to deal with the competitive, skills-centric market ahead. Tune up your recruitment, focus on driving an inclusive and generationally diverse culture, and make sure you have your career management and learning on the front burner. Nobody knows how long this economic boom will last, but for now there's a war for talent, and we have to arm ourselves to deal with it.
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About the Author: Josh Bersin is the founder and Principal of Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP, a leading research and advisory firm focused on corporate leadership, talent, learning, and the intersection between work and life.
Josh is a published author on Forbes, a LinkedIn Influencer, and has appeared on Bloomberg, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal, and speaks at industry conferences and to corporate HR departments around the world.
Josh Bersin
2018年03月08日
Josh Bersin
Josh Bersin:人力资源在未来工作中的重要作用,比你想的更重要!“我们现在在人力资源部门所做的比我在分析师20年中所看到的更重要。人力资源在新的工作世界中扮演着重要的角色,“Bersin说。
一个新的技术世界
Bersin在这些新的工作环境中讨论了技术的巨大影响,并解释说他在职业生涯的大部分时间都在技术行业工作。他给了观众一个简短的介绍时间表,说明大多数技术在职业生涯初期失败的原因,然后与Elon Musk最近将特斯拉汽车投入太空的例子并成功地做到了这一点。
然后他引用去年最受欢迎的圣诞礼物是Alexa机器人 - 突显了我们生活中不断变化的技术进步。
在与人力资源部门进行技术整合时,人们普遍感受到空气中的恐惧,但贝尔辛还有其他想法。他说:“我们听说过人工智能将如何接管我们的工作,并消除我们所做的大量工作。我们拥有的计算机和技术越多,创造的就业机会就越多。在美国,我们几乎低于4%的失业率; 很多工作已经创建 - 他们只是不同类型的工作。“
Bersin解释说,最近进行的研究研究了自2008年经济衰退以来创造的所有工作,发现其中98%是全新的工作。这些主要是替代性工作协议,可以在角色中提供更多的灵活性。
“员工不知所措。我认为生产力放缓的原因之一是因为我们被电子邮件,文本,社交媒体分心 - 这是一种认知过载。“
保留和生产力
关于创造就业的话题,Bersin表示,失业率目前处于历史最低水平,就业机会无处不在,首席执行官们也知道这一点。他说:“现在,企业的头号问题正在吸引和留住人才。”
他继续说道:“如果我们发现很难吸引和留住人才 - 为什么人力资源专业人员会让我们的生产力受到影响?”Bersin呼吁与会者更有效地使用技术,以便衡量参与度,这是任何人力资源部门最感兴趣的领域。有趣的是,Bersin分享了Glassdoor的一个事实,显示2008年(在经济衰退期间)平均参与分数是3.11,现在10年后,他们已经上升到3.2 - 这并没有太大差别,清楚地表明需要改变。
“员工不知所措。我认为生产力放缓的原因之一是因为我们被电子邮件,文本和社交媒体分心 - 这是一种认知负荷,“Bersin解释说。
然后,他开始讨论千禧一代面临的问题,以及最近的一项研究表明,三分之二的千禧一代认为自己的经济福利不会比他们的父母幸运。Bersin呼吁组织在更广泛的社会中发挥更加全面的公民角色。
Bersin表示需要开发三个人力资源领域:
技术和人工智能
人才的吸引力和保留
生产力和福利
工作的新未来
为了进入这个新的和非常多变的工作世界,Bersin建议领导们深入研究他们可以改善员工整体工作体验的五种方式:
一个新的组织结构
对于公司来说,一个巨大的问题是无法数字化运作,因为组织的结构扼杀了它。公司通常围绕不再适用的工业模式进行组织。数字公司需要拥抱并融入灵活的团队网络,这些团队是独立的,但是相互关联的团队,每个团队最多有五个团队。当人们在物理上位于同一地点时,人们倾向于团队,并且手续被拿走。身体接近创造了亲密关系和亲密关系,这将有助于提高参与度和生产力,并创造共享文化,共享领导力和潜在的新人才实践。
重塑管理
成为教练而不是老板,我们需要管理者赋予人们权力,建立团队,指导人员并收集反馈意见。因此,我们现在需要一个不同类型的领导者。如果我们认为历史上的反馈意见将在调查和评估中每年进行一次,那么我们现在(在德勤)就有一个持续的反馈过程。持续的绩效管理当然已经到来,这有助于指导,发展和识别糟糕的业绩。只有4%的高层管理人员意识到组织内部存在问题,但通过这种新技术浪潮,这些工具可以使员工提供实时反馈。
员工体验
当试图定义影响工作人员的问题时,员工的体验数据至关重要。文化是其中的重要组成部分 - 定义使命和价值观的企业随着时间的推移胜过同行8倍; 当人们融入组织的文化时,他们会对公司的评价更高。为人们提供更健康的工作体验并考虑他们的整体福利也很重要,这需要进入人力资源领域的绩效领域。例如,希望重新设计工作场所可以通过帮助包容性,公平性和业务的整体透明度产生积极影响。
职业革新
在不断变化的职业世界中,我们需要建立更好的职业模式,并考虑老龄化的劳动力队伍。我们如何找到更多高级人员的角色?技术和软技能之间的工作正在形成鲜明的对比。只需要1年的教育,人们就可以接受未来工作的再培训。这个选项可以让人们适应并获得更多技能,领导者应该抓住这个机会。
拥抱新技术
在二十一世纪初,我们经历了一次综合人才管理浪潮,之后我们出现了基于云计算且易于使用的产品(例如参与系统),但工作经验没有得到改善。我们可以聪明地工作,并使用新技术将团队带到一起; 例如,我们可以使用工具自动调查您定期发送电子邮件的人员的技能反馈,然后指导您使用这些技能 - 这些技能将由AI驱动。我们需要一个新的系统来帮助我们管理团队。作为一个人力资源团队,你应该与IT人员讨论这种基于团队的新工具,因为他们将成为未来的人力资源平台。“更多的CEO认为未来的工作是以人为中心的,吨。差不多三分之二的首席执行官认为成为数字业务的关键是拥有新技术,但事实并非如此 - 人是关键。作为首席生产力官,人力资源部门应该扮演一个新的角色,“Bersin总结道。
以上由AI翻译,HRTechChina倾情奉献。转载请注明。
英文原文:
Josh Bersin: HR's Essential Role In The New World Of Work
“What we’re doing in HR now is more important than what I’ve seen in my 20 years as an analyst. HR has an essential role in the new world of work,” Bersin said.
A new world of technology
Bersin discussed the enormous impact of technology within these new working climates, explaining that he’d been in the technology industry for most of his career. He gave the audience a brief
timeline, indicating how most technology failed to work at the beginning of his career, then juxtaposed that with the example of Elon Musk recently shooting a Tesla car into space – and doing so successfully. He then cited that the most popular Christmas present last year was the Alexa robot – highlighting the ever-changing technological advancements we are living among.
There is a feeling of widespread apprehension in the air when technology integration is addressed with HR, but Bersin has other ideas. He said: “We’ve heard about how artificial intelligence is going to take over our jobs and eliminate a lot of the work we do. The more computers and technology we have, the more jobs are created. In the US we’re almost below a 4% unemployment rate; lots of jobs have been created – they’re just different types of jobs.”
Bersin explained that there’s been recent research done that studied all jobs created since the 2008 recession, and found that 98% of them are entirely new jobs. These mainly being alternative work agreements, allowing for more flexibility within roles.
“Employees are overwhelmed. I think one of the reasons productivity is slowing down is because we are distracted by emails, texts, social media – it’s a cognitive overload.”
Retention and productivity
On the topic of job creation, Bersin stated that the unemployment rate now is at an all-time low, jobs are everywhere, and CEOs know this. He said: “Right now the number one issue in business is attracting and retaining talent.”
He continued: “If we are finding it difficult to attract and retain talent – why, as HR professionals, are we allowing productivity to suffer?” Bersin urged attendees to use technology much more effectively, allowing it to measure engagement, which is one of the biggest areas of interest to any HR function. Interestingly Bersin shared a Glassdoor fact, showing that in 2008 (during the recession) average engagement scores were 3.11 and now 10 years later, they’ve risen to 3.2 – which isn’t much of a difference, clearly showing the need for change.
“Employees are overwhelmed. I think one of the reasons productivity is slowing down is because we are distracted by emails, texts, social media – it’s a cognitive overload,” Bersin explained. He then went onto discuss the issues millennials face, and how a recent study showed that two-thirds of millennials believe their own economic wellbeing will be less fortunate than their parents. Bersin urged organisations to take a more rounded and citizenship role within wider society.
Bersin indicated that three areas of HR need to be developed:
Technology and AI
Talent attraction and retention
Productivity and wellbeing
A new future of work
To enter into this new and very changeable world of work, Bersin advised leaders to take a deeper look at five ways in which they can improve the overall working experience for employees:
A new organisational structure
A huge issue for companies is the inability to operate digitally because the organisation’s structure stifles it. Companies are often organised around an industrial model that no longer works. Digital companies need to embrace and incorporate agile networks of teams, which are independent, yet interlinked groups with an optimum number of five within each group. People gravitate towards teams when they’re physically co-located, and formalities are taken away. Physical proximity creates intimacy and relationships, which will help improve engagement and productivity and create a shared culture along with shared leadership and potentially new talent practices.
Reinventing management
Be a coach not a boss, we need managers that empower people, build teams, coach people, and collect feedback. Therefore, we now need a different type of leader. If we consider that historically feedback would be carried out once per year in surveys and appraisals, we now (at Deloitte) have a continuous feedback process. Continuous performance management has certainly arrived, which helps coach, develop and identify poor performance. Only 4% of top management is aware of issues within organisations, but with this new wave of technology these tools can enable employees to provide real-time feedback.
Employee experience
When trying to define the issues that affect people at work employee experience data is crucial. Culture is a significant part of this – companies that define a mission and values outperform peers eight-fold over time; when people fit into the organisation’s culture they will rate your company higher. It’s also important to give people a healthier working experience and consider their overall wellbeing, which needs to move into the area of performance within HR. For example, looking to redesign the workplace could have a positive impact by helping with inclusion, fairness and the overall transparency of the business.
Career overhaul
In a world of ever-changing jobs, we need to build better career models and consider the aging workforce. How can we find roles for more senior people? Jobs are becoming stark contrasts between tech and soft skills. People can be retrained for the jobs of future with only 1 years’ worth of education. This option allows people to adapt and gain more skills, and leaders should be seizing this opportunity.
Embrace new technology
In the early 2000s, we went through an integrated talent management wave, after which we had the emergence of products that were cloud-based and easy-to-use (e.g. systems of engagement), but the work experience hasn’t improved. We can be smart with our working and use new technology to bring teams together; for instance, we can use tools to automatically survey people you email on regular basis to feedback on skills and then coach you on those skills – which will be driven by AI. We need a new breed of system to help us manage teams. As an HR team, you should talk to IT about this new breed of team-based tools, as they will become the HR platforms of the future.“More CEOs understand the job of the future is people-centric, but a lot don’t. Almost two-thirds of CEOs think that the key to becoming a digital business is to have new technology, but this isn’t so – people are the key. HR should have a new role, as Chief Productivity Officer,” Bersin concluded.