Talent, talent, talent. Finding it. Developing it. Keeping it. This is going to be the prime focus of Human Resources (HR) professionals in the coming years. The trends of outsourcing non-core and transactional activities and the shift to self-service is well-established, and will continue to free HR professionals to focus on more strategic, valueadded activities. The Adecco Institute has surveyed more than 5000 HR executives over the past two years on topics including skills shortages, career management, knowledge management, and lifelong learning, among others. Informed by these interviews, as well as industry reports and workforce surveys, we conclude that Talent Management - the effective assessment of and planning for a company’s human resource needs – will be the single most important focus of HR in the future.
This paper outlines our vision of HR in the Future – in particular, how HR will change as three significant trends converge:
1. Globalization
2. Demographic Change
3. Skills Shortages
Each of these trends will impact HR Professionals in different ways. Globalization will become a necessity for growing firms in the more developed nations who will face a shortage of workers in the local market. Population trends are clear – while the world population will exceed 9 billion by 2050 (an increase of 55% from 2000), the populations of developed countries will remain virtually unchanged (experiencing only 3% growth in the same period). Companies will increasingly go abroad to meet their workforce demands. Globalization in the coming years will open up whole new vistas of Talent Management not yet envisioned. HR will hone their global skills as local problems – such as skills development and talent retention – go global, and firms becomes increasingly dependent on a geographically dispersed pool of skilled workers.
Demographic changes in the workforce will necessitate more effective Talent Management to mitigate against an outflow of key skills and resources as workers start to retire en masse. Older workers comprise the fastest growing segment of the workforce, a trend that will continue unabated as workers age and fewer young people (due to declining birth rates) line up to replace them. HR practitioners will embrace knowledge management as a means of tracking “who knows what”, and limiting the impact of employee departures on the business. Skills Shortages resulting from both demographic changes in the workforce and inadequate pipelines of appropriately skilled workers will further magnify the need for Talent Management. All will have a profound impact on HR professionals. In a world where skilled “human resources” are increasingly in short supply, the role of HR professionals will shift profoundly – from that of ‘behind the scenes’ coordinator of personnel management to strategic manager of critical business resources. We envision a world where analysts ask for as much information about personnel assets as financial assets – and the growth prospects of the firm are based as much on market growth as on a firm’s ability to marshal the human resources necessary to meet growth demands.
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