10 Trends for the Future of Human Resources
// Version française ICI //
A few weeks ago, on behalf of one of our clients, we invited 25 actors who are inventing the human resources of tomorrow.
Hiring, internal mobility, talent development, management, training, employee engagement and employee well-being: no HR functions have escaped the digital transformation. And this is only the beginning!
So what will the HR of tomorrow look like?
After the era of the user experience, symbolized by GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), welcome to the era of the employee experience! The new mission of human resources will be to offer your team a smooth, personalized experience beginning before they are hired and continuing even after they leave the company!
#1 Everyone’s a recruiter?
Long considered the exclusive domain of human resources, recruitment began to open up to managers. However some see the potential to take this even further. The Danes at Praice came up with a platform on which your friends, family and of course your colleagues can assess your personality, that you can then share with your future employer. The French start-up MyJobCompany offers a referral platform for employees and/or people outside the company. Tomorrow will everyone be a recruiter?
#2 Candidates, your best ambassadors?
Out of every 100 or so CVs received, only a lucky few will be invited for an interview and an even smaller handful hired at the end of the process. Paying attention to your employer brand to make your applicants the best ambassadors for your company and your brand is an appealing idea. At Welcome to the Jungle, companies are replaced by “tribes”: using a variety of tools (an online platform, videos and even a print magazine). The start-up aims to help candidates to fray a path through the hiring jungle.
#3 On-demand workers
The “on-demand” phenomenon, which is fairly widespread in other sectors, is now moving in on human resources. Would you like to hire a freelancer for a one-off assignment? It’s child’s play, thanks to platforms like Hopwork that have nearly 25,000 individual profiles (developers, graphic designers, writers, consultants, agile coaches and more) and work with just as many companies. How about sharing your work force with companies close to you, avoiding technical unemployment and increasing your own employees’ skill sets? Then try Pilgreem, the collaborative staff sharing platform.
#4 Yes to Open Innovation, but not without your employees!
Thanks to start-ups like Agorize which organizes hackathons and online innovation challenges and Braineet which lets consumers reach out to brands to suggest new ideas to them, open innovation is becoming a reality at many companies. Yet since good ideas can also come from within the company, those two solutions also offer a version dedicated to in-house staff. Open innovation means opening up outwards, but also inwards.
#5 Well-being can (also) be measured
Zeïna Peerboccus, Head of Talent & Happiness at Doctolib, reminded us — with the numbers to back her up — that well-being can fuel employee productivity. A happy employee is 12% more productive than an unhappy one. But how can we measure this well-being, a relatively abstract concept? 1Change is wagering on smart objects like the Bodyguard, a sensor that measures stress, physical activity and recuperation to derive concrete recommendations (like putting away all your screens 30 minutes before going to bed).
#6 Real time, the new imperative for HR
Want to measure employee engagement in real time for each of a company’s departments by asking them relevant questions all year long? This is the promise made by Danish start-up Peakon, into which the French fund Idinvest injected funds in January last. Want to coach your employees through continuous feedback? Go see the Swiss at Quercus. Want to be more transparent about everyone’s targets? The Germans at Perdoo are there for you.
#7 The work non-environment of tomorrow
According to Greenworking, the new expectations of employees today include a flexible work environment, immediate access to information, freedom of opinion and meaningful work. The work environment also needs to adapt to the cultural features of each country, as Steelcase reminds us. Yanks and Brits tend to prefer open plan work spaces, for example, without necessarily having assigned seats, because the emphasis is on working groups, and hierarchical positions don’t need to be manifested by an assigned place in the office. The Spaniards at Cabaaana and the Luxembourgers of Wellevue offer gamified mobile apps to foster the corporate culture and employee engagement, allowing personnel to connect with other staff members they’d never met before.
#8 E-learning will reinvent itself or will cease to exist
The oft-disparaged e-learning needs to reinvent itself to inspire employee engagement. The American Coursera is banking on partnerships between universities and major corporations to offer quality content. Based in London, LEOLearning uses new formats (like virtual reality) and HT2 Curator relies on social aspects and data. The e-learning of tomorrow will undoubtedly be a combination of all three.
#9 Agility, a new prerequisite
Agility is the buzzword on everybody’s lips. But what does it really mean? Fabernovel Code has summed up the core values inherent in agile methods: interactions and individuals over processes and tools, functional products over detailed documentation, collaboration with clients over contract negotiations and adaptability to change over following a plan. Recruiting agile employees demands a focus on soft skills rather than CVs, which platforms like Softfactors are able to support.
#10 The HRD is dead, long live the HRD!
Like many others, the position of HR Director is changing. Solutions the likes of Benify are simplifying HRDs’ daily lives, freeing them from tedious administrative tasks. HRDs can now focus on their role as a coach, as Vincent Giolito explained to us, or as a facilitator of the company’s digital transformation, if we are to believe Gaell Mainguy.
So, which of these trends do you think will be the most important? Let’s talk about it!
François Truong, Project Analyst, Fabernovel Institute
francois.truong@fabernovel.com
