Innovative HR in 2012

 

   I presented a session on the future of strategic HRM yesterday.  Now I’m no futurist – I much prefer to focus on the opportunities that are available to us today, but I think I’ve got a good idea of some of the changes we’ll see happening over the next 5 –10 years (I’m not going to repeat them here – just have a scan through this blog).

But of course this is the time of year that everyone produces their predictions for the next one.  I’m not going to do much of this either – I never seem to get these right so there doesn’t seem much point.

But I do want to single out one thing which I’m sure is going to become more important next year.  And this is being more innovative in HR.

There are three reasons for this:

1. It’s going to be a tough, tough year – at least for those of us in the flatlining (developed) vs growth (emerging) economies.  We cut the fat before the last recession and after a tincy bit of jobless growth, there ain’t much of that left.  Trimming further is going to be harder, and require more radical approaches, than before.
2. There’s just a ton of stuff to do eg see Josh Bersin’s predictions which include globalised specialisation in recruitment, glocalisation of HR, integration of recruiting/HR etc, social medialisation of recruiting and in fact all HR activities, holistic engagement, transformed development, agile performance management, strategic mobility, enterprise career development, borderless leadership, flexible use of technology and big data segmentation - all of these are mini innovations in their own right (no wonder Bersin’s additional prediction was for reskilling of HR – the function is going to need it!).
3. Most importantly, no one organisation can (perhaps just the very largest), or should (including the largest), do all of the above.  What companies need to do therefore it to understand the future of strategic HRM for them, and then pick the developments from the above list, and other things, that best fit with their own strategic needs.  Few organisations are doing this well currently, hence some broader innovation in HR’s approach, rather than just what it does, is required.

 

It’s going to be a tough, but an interesting, year!

 

Picture from my recent visit to CERN on the day that we’ve possibly confirmed the Higgs boson – innovation at its most extreme (you may also recognise Katie McNab)

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