Conduent Human Resource Services

Planning the HR of the FutureAre you ready?

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It seems every week brings some new, sometimes alarming, change to the way we live. Would you have thought even four years ago that the United Kingdom would leave the EU? Or that you couldprint a self-driving bus? That private space flight would be a reality? Or that some pharmaceutical makers would choose to boost critical drug prices through the stratosphere?

The workforce is changing just as swiftly and dramatically. An aging workforce is working side-by-side with far younger employees with different expectations from work. The labor pool is evaporating in developed countries. People now wear technology on their wrists and in the very weave of their clothing. Government regulation in all countries seems on the rise, and the cost of hiring, training, and keeping an employee keeps getting higher.

Conduent Human Resource Services

Planning the HR of the FutureIt seems every week brings some new, sometimes alarming, change to the way we live. Would you have thought even four years ago that the United Kingdom would leave the EU? Or that you could print a self-driving bus? That private space flight would be a reality? Or that some pharmaceutical makers would choose to boost critical drug prices through the stratosphere?

All of these changes affect the human resources function in every organization, just at a time when HR leaders are trying to move into more strategic planning roles and away from fighting fires and pushing paper.

This report takes a look into three key drivers of change in HR, as organizations try to anticipate what will really affect them and what they consequently need to prepare for. We’ve grouped these drivers into three categories: the changing demographics of the workforce; the challenges and costs of keeping employees healthy and productive; and the transformation of business through technology.

Included in this report are the results of a survey we ran earlier this year, Planning the Future of HR. The final question in the survey asked people to tell us what they think the future holds for HR. We’ve quoted them in the sidebars, “What You Told Us”.

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1. Demographics

The new face of the workforce will challenge old models of management. The next few years will see a gap in the labor pool and in skills.

The War for TalentAccording to a McKinsey report, the aging of the workforce will likely remove 360 million people over age 50 from the labor pool, including 38 million college-educated workers whose skills will already be in short supply. This is particularly acute for businesses expanding into international markets to sustain or improve growth and revenue. The competitive edge goes to those companies with the foresight to really understand, and meet, their business and workforce needs in the market. Offsetting the talent shortage in developed countries is the availability of low-cost labor from emerging countries. But are they the right fit?

A survey carried out by ManpowerGroup saw the number of global employers reporting talent shortages in 2015 was the highest in seven years, at 38%. Worldwide, it seems that skilled trades vacancies are hardest to fill. Employers cite a lack of available candidates with the required technical competencies, lack of necessary experience and workplace smarts, and salary expectations they can’t meet. McKinsey found that only 13 to 19 per cent of 33 million university graduates in developing countries are suitable to work in a multinational company, due to their lack of language skills, low quality of educational systems, and lack of cultural fit. Also, only a fraction of these people are willing or able to relocate to foreign countries for employment.

Of course, there’s been criticism of employers themselves, that they expect too much, aren’t prepared to develop the talent they seek, and are unwilling to pay what the market seems to demand. Is that true? Not according to James Bessen, an economist at Boston University School of Law. In a Harvard Business Review article he asks, “Why are skills sometimes hard to measure and to manage? Because new technologies frequently require specific new skills that schools don’t teach and that labor markets don’t supply. Since information technologies have radically changed much work over the last couple of decades, employers have had persistent difficulty finding workers who can make the most of these new technologies.”

“Employers using new technologies need to base hiring decisions not just on education, but also on the non-cognitive skills that allow some people to excel at learning on the job,” he goes on to say.

Drivers of Change

“They need to design pay structures to retain workers who do learn, yet not to encumber employee mobility and knowledge sharing, which are often key to informal learning; and they need to design business models that enable workers to learn effectively on the job. Policy makers also need to think differently about skills, encouraging, for example, industry certification programs for new skills and partnerships between community colleges and local employers.”

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ [The] candidate experience starts before they join - all ‘paperwork’ online, personalised reward statement to help with recruitment, basics all automated and stored in the cloud with employees taking responsibility for updating their personal and work data, HR freed up to work more strategically with the business rather than having to deal with admin stuff!”

“ …one with data and analytics to capture and measure success, reward effort (failure), one where the administrative process is automatic so we can spend more time talking to people and not managing them from behind a desk.”

“ HR will be split from operational functions and will be solely focused on the people side of talent. Legal will handle the regulatory aspect, finance will manage benefits and risk, and HR will focus on securing employees and partnering with marketing.”

“ Fully engaged strategic partner providing guidance to attract and retain diverse and complicated employee relationships. Never forgetting HR’s role as an employee advocate.”

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A shrinking labor pool will affect employers’ ability to meet client needs, reducing competitiveness and productivity, and leading to higher compensation costs. And while automation is filling the gap in places, the automated tools still need to be created, developed, programmed, and put in place by highly skilled workers (see the later section of this report on Robotics and Automation). However, not all regions are experiencing the change in the same way. India, Brazil, Africa, Mexico, and Indonesia all have a young labor force. In the U.S., however, Baby Boomers are redefining their retirement, opting to continue working – from necessity or preference – and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the 55-and-older group will make up 25% of the workforce by 2024.

Companies are taking action, though. The ManpowerGroup survey showed that more than one in five (22%) employers seeks to explore new talent sources in order to tackle the difficulties they face filling jobs (outside areas, young people, those not fully skilled), while 18% are implementing alternative work models (redesigning existing work procedures, for example by sharing work assignments between different employees). New approaches to training and development, enhanced benefits, and performance measurement are also coming into play.

Changing ValuesKnowing the expectations of new university and college graduates – and how those expectations can be aligned with the realities of the working world – can help employers develop solid strategies to recruit and retain the workforce they need. The traditional approach to careers has changed considerably since the 1990s, with new workforce entrants giving more weight to finding personal fulfillment in the job, rather than simply working to pay the bills, preferring more creative work over manufacturing jobs, and considering the job as a stepping stone along the way to finding their “passion.”

The 2014 Accenture College Graduate Employment Survey gives us more detail into the expectations of entry-level talent – and how employers are not effectively developing that talent. The report calls out four major expectations of graduates:

• Training: 69% of grads believe they’ll need more training or post-graduate education to land their desired job; 80% expect the employer to provide training needed to advance in their careers

— But less than half actually received formal training on their first job

• Full-time: 84% of grads believe they’ll find employment in theirchosen field, and 61% expect to be employed full-time

— Only 46% of 2013 grads found full-time work, and 13% have beenunemployed since graduation

• Retention: 66% of 2014 grads expect to stay with their first employermore than three years

— More than half of 2013 grads have already left their first job or expect to be gone within the next year or two

• Pay: 43% of 2014 grads expect to earn more than $40,000 at theirfirst job

— Only 21% of 2013 grads are actually earning at that level, and 26%are making less than $19,000

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ Training and development are not just words an organization tells its people and does nothing about. Opportunities to cross-pollinate with other business units and…supporting [the] training [of] new and less experienced people within the organization to learn and grow will create a more robust and engaged workforce. Too many barriers have been created to allow more employees to succeed.”

“ The silos of HR [will be] broken down and the local [business] has more autonomy to deliver total rewards, training and development that makes sense locally, pulling from a menu that is offered by corporate… micro people strategies that are supported by HR professionals who are part of the local business.”

“ Find a way for the HR department to function easily with the appropriate systems to assist employees every minute of the day. Social media is our friend.”

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Pratt & Johnson, ‘The Apprenticeship Perspective: Modelling Ways of Being’

“It is useful to remember that apprenticeship is not an invisible phenomenon. It has key elements: a particular way of viewing learning, specific roles and strategies for teachers and learners, and clear stages of development, whether for traditional or cognitive apprenticeship. But mostly it’s important to remember that in this perspective, one cannot learn from afar. Instead, one learns amid the engagement of participating in the authentic, dynamic and unique swirl of genuine practice.”

New Career ModelsThe old career path model – hiring on at entry level and growing within the company along a stepped career “ladder” – is giving way to new approaches, including what career coach Dorothy Dalton labels as Portfolio Careers (related professional activities connected by the same transferable skills), Cluster Careers (a series of unrelated professional activities, very often combining vocational skills with knowledge based skills), and Gig or Independent Contractor careers.

“The changes in the market since 2008,” she writes, “means that most hiring managers are missing out on identifying and sourcing candidates with different and non-linear career paths. These are skills which are not always directly evident. Candidates should assume some responsibility for identifying those skills themselves. But more importantly, hiring managers should be capable of going beyond the obvious, to identify and source the best talent. This talent may not wear the familiar and comforting key worded labels.”

Hiring is also undergoing a structural change – not using a standard resume, sending videos, endorsing people, etc. The use of LinkedIn would have never been imagined even five years ago. And the use of analytics helps make smart hiring choices, finding the right people even if they don’t find you first.

There have even been mumblings about the comeback of the apprentice system – the idea that to attain vocational or other skills in demand but not readily available, employees go through a period of “residency” or internship.

DiversityIn 2015, McKinsey’s report on workforce diversity in North America, the United Kingdom, and Latin America showed that:

• Women make up 50.8% of the population, but only 14% ofmanagement teams

• Non-whites represent about 30% of the population, but only 12%of management

Of course, “diversity” is more diverse than just women and non-whites. Dimensions of diversity include:

• Race

• Gender

• Ethnicity

• Age

• Religion

• Language

• Disability

• Sexual Orientation

The World Economic Council predicts that by 2038, the world’s dominant religion will be Islam. Surprisingly, French will be the most-spoken language on earth. Investment bank Natixis found that French, currently the sixth-ranked global language, is gaining speakers quickly, largely because of increasingly high fertility rates in places like Mali in the north, and Guinea, Chad and Democratic Republic of Congo in the sub-Saharan region. This new complexion of the workforce brings surprising opportunities to the organization, but also raises new challenges for HR.

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It’s been shown that the benefits of a diverse workforce include:

• Increased adaptability to fluctuating markets andcustomer demands

• Increased market share and satisfied customer base

• Broader global service range through a diverse collection oflanguages and cultures

• Variety of viewpoints and increased creativity in meetingstrategic business needs and the needs of customers

• More effective execution through inspired engagement

• Addressing the skills shortage by recruiting the overlookedqualifications of visible minorities, youth, mature workers, disabled, and aboriginal people

• Increased community engagement and positive reputation

Companies with a widely diverse workforce are more likely to have higher financial returns in their industry, according to McKinsey. And if you want more reasons that diversity matters, view this infographic from Catalyst Inc.

We asked Leah Reynolds, a Principal in our Engagement consulting practice, about the difficulties in launching a diversity program. “I have studied the benefits of diversity in the workplace as it relates to generational, gender, and cultural differences,” Leah said. “The biggest challenge is addressing bias as a business issue, not just an HR issue, and building the business case for inclusion, which leads to policies that encourage and reward inclusive behaviors and practices. Leaders need to believe that a diverse workforce is a stronger and more successful workforce. In addition to the McKinsey study, Catalyst has done a lot of compelling work on the bottom-line value of inclusion.”

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ A team of practitioners pulled together as a formal yet informal network focused on providing tangible and flexible solutions for the business, who have key skills around consulting, business partnership, relationships and execution. They will be innovative and creative with a long term focus. They will focus their efforts on creating amazing experiences for the people who work in their organization – no matter where they come from!”

From Our Survey

Where are you refocusing your efforts in planning and managing your workforce?

Recruiting the right skills with the right experience in a shrinking labor force.

Finding ways to help work teams of diverse cultures and ages work together productively.

Developing compensation and rewards policies that are fair to all workers.

Reshaping career paths as baby boomers postpone retirement.

86% 6%

6%

11%

23%

31%

23% 43%

11%66%

66%

37%

Yes No Considering

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• Increased incidence of chronic disease: The World Health Organization notes that the “burden of chronic diseases is rapidlyincreasing worldwide...almost half of the total chronic disease deaths are attributable to cardiovascular diseases; obesity and diabetes are also showing worrying trends, not only because they already affect a large proportion of the population, but also because they have started to appear earlier in life.”

• New, very high-cost drugs: The non-profit Swiss news service Intellectual Property Watch identified four major factorscontributing to the high cost of new drugs: “... larger and more complex clinical trials, a greater focus on chronic and degenerativediseases, more “comparator drugs” in clinical testing, as well as the costs of the large number of drugs that fail to reach the market, particularly in late clinical development.”

• Revised treatment guidelines: The Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services note that “anticipated clinical guidelinesdesigned to encourage drug therapies at earlier stages of treatment” are a serious contributor to the rise in the cost ofpharmaceuticals.

• Lack of employee awareness: While employees are usually willingto help control the cost of health care, they aren’t always aware that, for instance, they can shop around for the best price for a treatment.

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2. Health and Wellbeing

Health spending around the world is expected to grow to $9.3 trillion by 2018, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s research. The pricing of pharmaceuticals, the challenges of a graying workforce, and new treatment methods and technologies are all contributing to the cost of workplace health insurance. In addition, as our own Global Wellness survey has shown, the impact of stress – financial anxieties in particular – on the health of workers is clear and growing.

PharmaAccording to the U.S. National Conference of State Legislatures, prescription drugs account for almost 10 percent of overall health spending in the United States, totaling $263 billion annually. The growth in per capita drug spending in Canada is second only to the U.S., with Australia, France, and Germany following closely behind. But even permitting generic drugs to replace specialty pharmaceuticals, brand-name drugs still accounted for 45% of all prescriptions.

So what’s driving the rise in the cost of drugs – and thus the rise in health care costs? According to a study by Empire Life, they include:

• Lack of effective workplace wellness programs: The alternative to treatment is prevention; many behaviors – smoking, lack of exercise,obesity, and high alcohol use – that lead to health risks can be managed and changed through these programs.

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ … with the of increase of minimum wages, combined with surge in support of gender pay alignment/equality (i.e. gender pay gap issue), I believe that focus will then turn to the significant pay gap differences between Executive’s compensation (i.e. Director and above) vs. everyone else in the company, thus resulting in less outrageous salary/bonus/stock options paid to Executives…Also, even more self-service among employees. And more analytics will be used with regard to annual reviews, salary increases, and other more administrative aspects that occur within HR.”

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HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ …more automated…more considerate for employees with the offer of alternative benefits… more creative in the way we communicate with our employees.”

“ Better work-life balance options regarding work schedules and telecommuting. More social media tools for recruitment and apps for employees to use at home to help manage their benefits.”

“ Benefits, compensation, compliance, analytics, reports, training – all online, all automated”

The Aging WorkforceWe’ve already seen that the workforce is aging (see section 1, Demographics). The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2015 Global Workforce Trends notes that life expectancy in the workforce has increased by 15 years in the period from 1965 to 2012; most people now outlive their parents. By 2050, the U.S. Census predicts that “19.6 million American workers will be 65 years or older, roughly 19 percent of the total U.S. workforce. In fact, the number of individuals in the labor force who are 65 years or older is expected to grow by 75 percent while the number of individuals in the workforce who are 25 to 54 is only expected to grow by 2 percent. By 2016, one-third of the total U.S. workforce will be 50 years or older – a group that may number 115 million by 2020.”

Premiums for insurance that employers provide to employees and their dependents increase as they grow older, as do the costs of claims. Yet, according to a report from Global Business News, few employers have changed their benefit plans to meet the needs of an aging workforce. As the report notes, “... employers need to understand what drives the costs of health care plans for their employees, as well as their retirees. The absence of a strategic plan or a detailed analysis of health care programs and claims information can have a considerable impact on long-term costs, even causing an organization to miss opportunities for realizing economies of scale.”

In our own survey, Global Health Promotion, A Study of Leading Organizations, participants looking to the future were eager to find program improvements and explore new areas. New and emerging areas of focus cited include:

• Looking more broadly at psychosocial wellbeing and related indicators, and how they affect health, vitality, and business success

• Bringing appropriate focus to areas like sleep and fatigue as wellas resiliency

• Helping improve work-life balance

• Focusing on helping employees optimize personal vitality and promote recovery, positivity, and energy-creating thinking patterns.

Working Well: A Global Survey of Health Promotion, Workplace Wellness and Productivity Strategies (2014, Conduent HR Services)

“ Wellness is a family affair. Increasingly, companies see the value in making spouses, domestic partners and children eligible for health promotion and wellness programs and associated incentives. Broadly, 62% of programs include spouses, 52% include domestic partners, and 43% include children.”

“ Responsibility for wellness and health promotion lies with HR (Human Resources) by a wide margin in most regions. Other owners include HSE (Health, Safety and Environment), occupational health, and dedicated wellness professionals.”

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Customized Health CareThe advances stemming from personalized medicine – medicine targeting people based on their DNA sequence – is “transforming cancer research and treatment, risk assessment, drug development, and clinical practices”, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. By 2021, total spending on genetic testing could rise to $25 billion. Still, a UnitedHealthcare survey revealed that more than half of the doctors they polled thought that new genetic tests would lower health care costs.

There are other issues besides cost around personalized medicine. There are ethical, legal, and policy implications to the use of genetic information: health insurance discrimination, access to and security of the information, who can act on that information, and informed consent.

“There’s still a long way and a lot of work to do in bringing technologies to a lower cost, so they are accessible to everyone,” said Gerardo Jimenez-Sanchez, founding director of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine in Mexico and director of the Genomic Medicine for Health Care Innovation program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Executive and Continuing Professional Education, adding, “when I say everyone I mean people from around the world, not only from the developed world.”

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ HR positively, well integrated with the business function, part of defining the strategy. Being able to put forward an original use of the developing talent on this planet to help the organization to thrive, innovate, meet market expectations and beat competition.”

“ My line of work has two major challenges: Working with a unionized workforce and addressing the problems created by under-trained middle management. Thus, my HR wish list would include less intervention and politically aligned policy from the NLRB & Dept. of Labor, especially in the areas of organizing and social media. Also, I would be elated to see companies invest in managers early and train them adequately before putting them into positions of power. While “sink or swim” training has merit for operations, from an HR standpoint, some of the teachable moments created by errors are also costly to resolve.”

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RegulationsElizabeth Brashears, the director of Human Capital Consulting at TriNet HR, and Scot Marcotte and Steve Coco of Conduent HR Consulting, believe benefits administration will be particularly impacted as a result of increasing regulations and a globalized workforce. Brashears says, “As regulations surrounding employment, and particularly benefits, become more and more complex, I believe that companies will turn to field experts to help navigate through the landscape.”

A growing concern in health care in the U.S. is navigating the system. The U.S. is the only developed nation that doesn’t have national health care. Even if it moves to that model, employers still have a role filling the gaps the government leaves behind as we see in Canada, the U.K., and other countries. You might have great insurance, but if you don’t know how to navigate getting the right care, it doesn’t matter. Health care concierge advisories are becoming more popular. These are organizations with doctors, nurses and other medical professionals that help individuals understand things like the treatment options for particular diseases, research courses of treatment, find second opinions, find providers all over the world, among other services.

Financial HealthToday’s workforce is under financial stress – at a price tag of $300 billion annually in lost productivity, according to the American Psychological Institute. It’s particularly hard-hitting for Millennials. Three key factors are in play among this group to raise their level of stress to unhealthy levels:

• The burden of student loans that has a significant impact on meetingtheir financial goals

• Credit card debt, car loans, and raising a new family are higherpriorities than saving money

• Risky financial decisions that give precedence to withdrawing from a savings plan to pay current expenses.

As a Huffington Post article concluded: “Helping employees to bettermanage their personal finances is a win-win value proposition for both organizations and their employees. With the many financial challengesinherent in the shifting of more retirement funding to employees in the face of stagnant wages and increased out-of-pocket health-care costs, financial wellbeing programs offer employers an opportunity to assist their employees with learning effective money management skills that they can use to increase their financial security.”

From Our Survey

As employee benefits programs become increasingly more costly, where do you see the biggest need for change in your benefits offerings?

58%

56%

31%

We need to push responsibility for wellbeing to employees and provide effective tools and information to help them make the best choices for their individual situation.

We need programs that cover our employees’ total physical, mental, and financial wellbeing.

We need to reconsider the business role of benefits programs.

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3. Technology

“IBM’s Watson Powering Olli, a 3D-Printed Self-Driving Bus”– Information Week, June 17, 2016.

Nothing like that headline could have even been understood 5 years ago. Now, writes Derek Thomson in The Atlantic, “...some economists and technologists...see automation high and low – robots in the operating room and behind the fast-food counter. They imagine self-driving cars snaking through the streets and Amazon drones dotting the sky, replacing millions of drivers, warehouse stockers, and retail workers. They observe that the capabilities of machines – already formidable – continue to expand exponentially, while our own remain the same. And they wonder: Is any job truly safe?”

We’ve identified four key catalysts for change in the workplace that will alter how the HR function works – and that raises the question, will HR be needed at all?

Personal Technology – Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)Market researcher Gartner Inc. predicts that 85 percent of businesses will have some kind of BYOD program in place by 2020. The opportunity for business comes from a combination of improved employee performance, cost savings from not providing devices at company expense, and improved productivity – Citrix research shows that almost one in five small and medium sized businesses are achieving productivity gains of more than 30 percent by adopting mobile work styles.

A survey entitled The Financial Impact of BYOD by Cisco found that: “The average BYOD user across countries saves 37 minutes per week thanks to using his or her own device, with a high of 81 minutes per week in the United States and a low of 4 minutes per week in Germany.” This is all well and good for employers, but it does bring in HR challenges. Especially in the United States, employees may need to be compensated for their extra time (in the U.S., 37% of employees spend more than 10 non-office hours completing work-related tasks on mobile; that share stands at 19% in the U.K. and 38% in Spain); expenses related to office use and maintenance of their personal devices; and possible discrimination (personal content on these devices may disclose religion, disability, or national origin, that for some can create a hostile workplace).

And then there is the security issue. There is an enhanced risk of divulging confidential information when employees use their own devices to store and transmit that information. However, privacy concerns run both ways, as there is software available to employers that gives them access to personal information on the device.

It’s clear that HR will need to be diligent in developing BYOD policies that reduce risk, protect privacy, and enhance fairness in compensating employees who use them. Still, according to new data provided to U.K. publication Business Insider by telecom-web convergence company tyntec, “few businesses have satisfactory, if any, official BYOD policies.”

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Robotics and Automation“Over the last 15 years, at least 800,000 jobs in the U.K. alone have been lost to automation,” writes Duncan Miller in the online magazine ITProPortal, “mostly within manufacturing but also many jobs including routine tasks within the front and back office (think automated call handling, the post room and cashiers to name a few).” The World Economic Forum raises this to 5,000,000 worldwide by 2020.

An Oxford University research study observed that robotic hardware has taken on most routine manufacturing tasks, and technological advances are making robotics more and more affordable. Robots are already performing many simple service tasks such as vacuuming, mopping, lawn mowing, gutter cleaning, food preparation, health care, commercial cleaning, and elder care.

Now, however, more advanced robots are gaining enhanced sensors and manipulators, allowing them to perform non-routine manual tasks. With the fast-rising level of sophistication in machine learning and artificial intelligence, technological innovation like 3D printing, and software sensors and monitors gathering huge amounts of data, the labor market is seeing a kind of technological disruption unprecedented in history. Computerization is no longer confined to routine manufacturing tasks.

What will this mean for employment? The 2015 World Summit On Technological Unemployment noted that: “Though “creative destruction,” in which lost jobs are replaced with new ones, will be a factor, our newest technologies have the clear potential to eliminate many more jobs than we create. With technology advancing at a geometric pace, robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and other innovations with enormous disruptive potential will soon hit the mainstream. Billions of people worldwide are currently employed in industries that will likely be affected – and billions of new entrants to the workforce will need jobs.”

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ An enabling function providing data-driven decisions and support for decision-making, leading to enlightened talent and succession decisions for a highly engaged and mobile workforce. Automation-led processes fulfilled through location independent applications with auto suggested best practice solutions as appropriate. Tactical/operations support provided through intuitive knowledge systems providing focused learning interventions tailored to the individual’s requirements and wants shortcutting person to person contact and through line manager provided information on their reports, this enables more effective ‘speedback’ (short burst feedback).”

“ The HR organization of the future [will have] conquered the systems and data challenges that today stymie our ability to quickly provide information regarding operations/costs and to answer compliance related questions. This means we will be in a better position to partner with and create value for the business, proactively thinking about how we identify and develop teams with skillsets in the most efficient way that will provide us with significant advantages relative to our competitors. Taking this a step further, having systems that provide real time information regarding operations on a global basis [will allow] us to target resources to geographies/operations that will provide the organization with the most operational/financial leverage at any point in time.”

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Data Analytics and the Quantified Employee Companies have used data analytics for years, but today that data goes beyond any recognizable scale, is accessed faster, and covers much, much more. For HR, “data analytics” really means “people analytics.” Workforce metrics can help businesses understand and manage their talent pool, improving the planning, recruiting, and retention of the right workforce, helping them learn and develop, and keeping them engaged. Talent management and development is no longer a matter of guesswork and hunches; hiring, retention, performance, and rewards decisions are now backed up by evidence, patterns in data that companies now use to stay productive.

Research conducted by the Aberdeen Group showed that 41% of organizations look to talent analytics to engage and retain critical human resources. As reported in recruitingtrends.com, Monique Herena, chief human resources officer at BNY Mellon, said that “... we’re using talent analytics to inform management decisions, focus on the long-term quality and effectiveness of our hiring and prioritize investment strategies for our talent...based on data from our platforms and feedback from candidates.”

Chris Till, the Chief Executive of the Human Resources Institute (HRI), warns that “The biggest challenge is that [technology] can work to dehumanize the workplace. HR has huge opportunities to use technology to make the world of work better, but we have to eternally be wary of the fact it’s a two-edged sword.”

One surprising example of another two-edged sword is what Josh Bersin calls “the quantified employee.” As technology provides more and more tools to help employers monitor and track workers’ activity, employers benefit through improved communication and engagement, real-time feedback on the work environment, and a

broader understanding of the characteristics of employees who outperform their coworkers. But employees aren’t so keen to play along. The problems of who owns the data and how workplace privacy can be protected mean that employees are rightfully leery of being monitored through things like wearable technologies.

HR of the Future: What You Told Us

“ HR would be led by a CHRO, part of the senior management team. The HR-related functions would be woven through the organization. Strategic planning and optimizing the workforce from hiring to termination would be the focus. Many effective options for remote connectivity would be available so people would feel connected no matter where they were located – with personal touch and automation.”

From our 2016 survey: Emerging Technology to Promote Employee Wellbeing – Conduent HR Services and the National Business Group on Health®

“ Mobile technology has seen the highest growth in usage for promoting employee well-being since our 2013 survey and is the highest priority for almost a third of senior management.”

“ Wearable sensors showed the highest usage in each region studied except North America.”

“ Social media used by two-thirds of employers to promote wellbeing to employees.”

“Gamification tops the list of technologies used.”

From Our Survey

As technology rapidly evolves, which of the following technology changes are already impacting the way you manage people?

Automation of Processes

Increased Analytics

Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Outsourcing

Gamification for Training Purposes

86%

83%

72%

50%

19%

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From Our Survey

Where do you see the biggest disruption in your HR operations in the coming years? (rank)

34% 26% 23% 6%14%

11%11%

12%35%

50%17%

6%26%26% 1

3%

12% 34% 18%

17% 6% 11%

1 2 3 4 5

Increasing our investment in skills development.

5% 29%

23% 34% 2

Managing an increasingly distributed workforce.

Realigning our recruitment model to build capacity with on-demand talent.

Complying with increasing regulation in several jurisdictions.

Other

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Where to from here?

The popular HR Bartender blog reported on “Project CHREATE” – a global consortium of HR professionals whose aim is to reimagine the human resources function in light of pressures for HR to adapt to all these disruptions.

One of the first tasks the group undertook was developing job descriptions for the new HR roles of the future. Blogger Sharlyn Lauby noted that the HR practitioner of the future will be a “connector” – connecting people with the organization, the organization with the community, and so on. HR will be responsible for corporate social responsibility, will need to be skilled at analytics and technology in general, will be the prime influencer, and will lead in being responsible for the wellbeing of the “whole employee”.

In a Harvard Business Review article on managing organizations, authors John Boudreau and Steven Rice argue that HR leaders have to be able to identify the forces acting on the organization and the business imperatives that guide their choices of solutions and programs – and then integrate them into the organization. That requires a deep understanding of the whole business, not just the HR side. From that understanding, HR leaders can pinpoint the management ideas that best fit their situation and “connect them to what is pivotal to the organization.” HR innovations need to connect with other initiatives already under way, and have to fit the business objectives and culture of the organization. Finally, HR’s efforts need to be measured with a focus on what has the greatest impact on the business.

HR as Advocate

In the end, we see HR as advocates for both employees and the organization. And when the needs of employees and those of the business are aligned, employees will be more productive and able to achieve better outcomes for themselves and the business.

This isn’t a prescriptive report; we aren’t offering up solutions to address any of the various challenges we’ve found in the research.

Clearly we can help you tackle any of the issues that arise in your organization, but in this report we’re simply pointing to the trends that are going to play out in the human resources arena and that businesses need to watch and plan for.

The future will unfold in ways we can’t always be ready for; with the information in this report, we think HR leaders will be better able to plan for that future.

Conduent Human Resource Services

About ConduentConduent is the world’s largest provider of diversified business process services with leading capabilities in transaction processing, automation, analytics and constituent experience. We work with both government and commercial customers in assisting them to deliver quality services to the people they serve.

We manage interactions with patients and the insured for a significant portion of the U.S. healthcare industry. We’re the customer interface for large segments of the technology industry. And, we’re the operational and processing partner of choice for public transportation systems around the world.

Whether it’s digital payments, claims processing, benefit administration, automated tolling, customer care or distributed learning – Conduent manages and modernizes these interactions to create value for both our clients and their constituents. Learn more at www.conduent.com.

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