HR At The Heart Of The Evolving Workplace 2015

HR departments have had to change considerably over the past few years, creating a completely new environment for employers and employees. Developing and retaining talent continues to be core for organisations going forwards and more are using Talent Analytics to help them deal with this and their increasingly diverse workforce.

Focus areas for HR in 2015 include:

1. The race for leadership and talent

As the British economy strengthens and organisations gear up for growth, companies will see an increasing need for leaders on all levels to organise and spearhead projects, teams and other business-critical areas.

With the workforce becoming more demanding, especially the new, younger generation, businesses need to develop a strategy to attract and inspire talent, not just recruit and retain. As such, filling the talent pipeline will become harder and harder. The answer will be, in part, to invest in making sure that the talent within the business is recognised and nurtured effectively.
 
2. HR and talent analytics

In light of the race for leadership and talent as well as developing and retaining existing staff, up-to-date and integrated data will become an essential tool in the decision making process.

As technology plays a significant role there is an increased opportunity to collect data and learn more about core behaviours. HR departments are having to become more business focused and need to align their goals to the overall objectives of the company which, in turn, means breaking them down to manageable KPIs. Data analytics can help to not only understand those KPIs better but also measure and develop them over time and integrate them in the day-to-day business of the workforce.

3. HR departments need to rethink the employee experience

As HR departments become more business focused, streamlining their processes has become a key part of operations resulting in more HR self-management systems being deployed. These systems allow employees to book holidays or submit expenses themselves, thus minimising efforts for HR.

The set-up of HR systems has a big part to play in this, as complexity has to be kept at a minimum with the user interface needing to be simple, easy to understand and handle.
 
4. An increase in payroll and HR outsourcing

The drive for greater HR efficiency can also lead to outsourcing some services to free up time for strategic planning.

Administrative tasks in HR and payroll management can be particularly complex and elaborate processes, where outsourcing can help to increase productivity. However, many HR departments are faced with dependencies related to payroll and benefits. Organisations realise that they still need services on top of cloud systems to maintain and update functionality. Integrated solutions can help to mitigate these dependencies.
 
5. Managing diversity in the workforce

We’re at a point in time where some companies will have four generations within their workforce. People are working until later in life – which will become more significant in the next 20 years. The generation of millennials coming into the business presents not only an age difference, but also a cultural one.

With more legislative changes to come, the traditional setting of a 9-5 job in a central office is likely to disappear. The workforce will become more flexible and more mobile, which means HR teams need to gear up for a much higher administrative burden. However, this burden needs to be managed without expanding resource, adding pressure to the need for efficiency in HR and payroll tools.

A new picture of perfection:

The big trends and focus areas over the next year do overlap in some ways. Efficiency and flexibility are both ideas that can underpin many of the core concepts at work. Successful companies will be defined by their achievements in these areas as well as in sales or revenues.

Economic, legislative and social changes are evolving the demands on every business at a rate so fast that any company not flexible could be hit hard. Organisational agility and preparation are characteristics that every business needs.