2015 TMA1: Q1(B) Future HR challenges

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2015 TMA1: Q1(B) Future HR challenges
Critique the current trends that shape the future HR

Model Answer from Tutor A. Globalisation and CompetitionTrends –Globalization of the world economy and other trends has triggeredchanges in how companies organise, manage, and use their HR departments. Therate of globalization continues to be high, and has several strategicimplications for firms. More globalization means more competition, and morecompetition means more pressure to lower costs, make employees more productive,and do things better and less expensively. B. Indebtedness and Deregulation –In many countries, government stipends stripped away rules and regulations. C. Technological Trends – Virtualonline communities, virtual design environments and Internet-based distributionsystems have enabled firms to become more competitive. HR faces the challengeof quickly applying technology to the task of improving its own operations. D Trends in the Nature of Work –Jobs are changing due to new technological demands. Dramatic increases inproductivity have allowed manufacturers to produce more with fewer employees. . E. Workforce Demographic Trends –Women worker and foreign worker F. Economic Challenges and Trends

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Example Answer 1

Globalization, advancement in technologies, changes in employee expectation, and also the increasingly volatile and competitive business environment calls for a need to have an adaptive and agile organization (Coombes 2014).

Human Resource (HR) department plays an important role to ensure an organization have the means to evolve and adapt to business and market trends, and there are numerous factors that shapes the future of HR in organizations.
The economy and the need to retain pivotal talent, is one of the trend that shapes the future of HR in organizations. Many industries are struggling to survive amidst the turbulent economic conditions in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific region. The loss of pivotal talent will be a serious competitive threat, hence the need for HR to focus on talent retention within the organization (Cascio and Boudreau 2012).  
Organizations often opt for downsizing as a way for cost reduction during economic downturn, but this will lead to the drop in employee morale, and subsequently the feeling of betrayal and the increased in voluntary turnovers of remaining workforce. To reduce or prevent the need for downsizing, HR department in the future will need to be very savvy in planning and managing their hiring, by forecasting their company’s economic and business environment to prevent over hiring. HR will also need to be able to come up with attractive talent-retention programs, such as practicing open door policy, providing training opportunities, and work life balance. As an example, Netflix talent retention policy toes the line of “hire the best and forget the rest”.
Netflix are willing to pay premium salary above market value for talents that suits their needs, preferring to hire quality over quantity to keep their workforce small but effective.

The rise of extended workforce is another driving trend that shapes the future of HR.  Many companies from different sectors are moving towards outsourcing partners, vendors, consultants and freelancers – which are the nontraditional talents. These are workers who are not employees, but instead are supplements to the existing core set of employees, acting as a mobile and dynamic workforce (Gartside et al. 2014). Extended workforce were initially used to fill up the lacking manpower in a short time frame, but is now becoming a vital component of corporate strategy, as companies can scale up or scale down their staffs or switch the mixes of available skillset based on market demands. The use of extended workforces has allowed companies to gain competitive capabilities in the form of agility in a turbulent business environment and the access to specialized and high performing talents. HR will need to create new roles and organizational structures to maximize the extended workforce’s strategic value. HR will play an important role to decide the proper talent pool to match allocated task, and become an expert advisor and analyst on talent landscape – which is an increasingly essential HR capability. It is also important for HR to have good relationship and network with outsource companies and partners, to gain the benefits of a wider network of talent pool to choose from. Example of how HR can adapt to this extended workforce trend is to become a talent broker, facilitating job matches between specialized workers and matching task.

The existence of diverse workforce contributes to the shaping of HR as well. Diversity in an organization could mean the equity criteria of gender, minority, disability and foreigners (MacKay 2005). The present day workforce consist of employees globally from different nationalities and races, forming a complex collection of employees with different expectations and experiences. This is in fact a business strategy as broad variety of people diverse perspective makes it easier to do business with wider range of people and solve different type of problems. But diversity is not just about different races and color, it also includes the different generation of the work force, such as he Generation X and Generation Y. Generation Y are born in an era with computers and internet, and their culture and behavior is very much different from Generation X. HR role when it comes to diversity, is about managing the demographic and psychographic characteristics of an evolving workforce. HR plays a crucial role in the contribution to manage a diverse workforce, to prevent conflicts and racism, as well as to prevent bullying or biasness within the organization. In the midst of diversity, example of HR strategy to retain younger employees includes work life balance, opportunities for significant contribution at early stage, and a non-hierarchical and inclusive environment. Example to manage older employees includes providing challenging work, opportunity to mentor and continuous learning opportunities.

Managing people as a workforce of one is another trend that determines the future HR. Many organization still practice the one-size-fits all HR practices when it comes to talent management. The standardization has benefited companies by providing consistency, efficiency and fairness among employees (Cantrell and Smith 2014). However, employees are now expecting and starting to demand customization at the workplace. While globalization creates a workforce with diverse age, gender and ethnicity, the rise of more complex job knowledge also makes it increasingly difficult to standardize jobs and recruit enough qualified workers. These means that the one-size-fits all HR practice will soon be out of favor. People are more attracted to companies with customized HR practices, with research showing it improves performance and the likely hood of an employee to stay with the organization. One of the more scalable methods HR can practice to adopt the workforce of one approach, is to segment the workforce by region or country to tailor people practices for different culture and nationality. Another method includes providing modular options to employees, such as predefined list of benefit packages or compensation to choose from. Hence in the future, it is important for HR to understand and serve employees with more relevant offerings that improves retention, motivation and performance.

The need of the ability for tapping skills anywhere, anytime is a trend that will shape the future of HR in organizations. As of present, employers are having difficulty hiring people with the skillset required to perform jobs, and it is alarming that this problem will intensify over the next decade. Talents supplies are expected to shrink as baby boomers retire and population growth declines in developed countries, but demand for skilled labor will continue to increase (Leon et al. 2014). To address this predicament, organizations will need a diverse range of skills to succeed in a fast paced business environment. HR organizations will need to shift their practice from reactive talent supply fulfillment, to a more proactive, demand-side fulfillment of skills. In other words, HR organizations will need to develop a “just-in-time” workforce, to allow them to swiftly identify and deploy skills where and when needed. Example of HR practices to create “just-in-time” workforce includes the making of skill development part of daily routine, where HR needs to assist employees learn new skills constantly. This means HR will need to encourage internal talent mobility as well, such as supporting employee transfer within departments, to build a more diverse and extensive skillset per employee. HR can also make use of outsource companies and extended workforce to tap into available skilled workers or teams for quick deployment in the workforce.