The future of HR is H
With all the technological advancements happening today in the world and the pace of the changes, the future is closer than ever and predicting it seems to be crucial in preparing for the times to come. HR is one of the areas that has been resisting changes that affected other areas… Nothing essentially disruptive happened in the field and although digitalisation is taking its place it is rather incremental and process-based transformation, but HR core remains the same. Is it because of the H in HR?
In the era when the technology and machines are assisting us in everything we do, there is this constant need to “humanize” work. To humanize is to make something friendlier to humans. Don´t forget the famous Hawthorn study back in the 1930s documenting growth in productivity just because workers were treated with dignity and care. It is not different today, almost a century later.
On the other side, there is the exponential technology change that is reshaping working ecosystems, challenging organizations and workers balance and there is the need to adapt to it.
So is it future of HR to be more digitalised or more human-friendly?
Based on the two dimensions — a level of automation and the strength of the company-employee relationship, Deloitte finds four possible scenarios for the future of HR:
- HR 4.0 — processes are highly automated and a company is a personal partner to each employees career. This sounds like HR going fully digital and automating boring processes to really focus on nurturing employees and helping them grow.
- Welcome to 1984 — the company is more interested in investing in machines (automation) than in its employees (week relationships). The gig economy, high competitiveness among companies (especially in tech) and their inability to retain employees is something we can already see happening in some of the sectors.
- Old school in a new sharing world — low automation and weak employee-employer relationships. Companies focus on supply and demand, rather than creating personal relationships with its employees and employees think of company only as a provider of job that can easily be changed.
- Only humanity matters — no process automation and companies are people-driven. In this scenario, companies rely on the large HR workforce that can understand the needs of its employees and create working models that will make people happy, engaged and productive.
Back in 1903s assembly lines workers were provided with better work conditions by being treated with care, and those included things as simple as more natural light, today when those same lines are fully automated and we can rely on machines people need a different type of care to match the ever-changing reality.
So what is the future of HR (or even work in general)? Probably, it is this constant balancing in our relationships with people and machines. What is the right balance is not universal and instead of following the “new cool thing” we should listen to the employees, understand them and see if that new thing will work out for us.
Whatever we call it — Talent, People, Happiness or Vibe — let's not forget the H in it.
