Transactional Elements

Territory once left to managers

HR will morph again

A new kind of employee

The HR of the future

The spirit of innovation

Measurable Increase in effectiveness

The New HR (executive summary)

The role of the traditional human resources organization is to fulfill the need for talent and functional excellence, administer pay and benefits and to negotiate the boundaries of the employee relationship. The rest is up to the manager.

Things have changed:

• HR lost the transactional elements of benefits, pay and pensions. They are now an IT function.
• HR has moved into territory once left to the manager. Internal consultants of various types now cross departmental boundaries to provide organizational development services.

The HR of the future will morph again to address megatrends that threaten to pull traditional organizations apart. Senior executives feel the centrifugal forces of change.

• Dealing with Complexity: People’s lives are so much more complex. Their attention is pulled towards dealing with underlying changes in the structure of families, health, education, travel, politics, law, children, parents.
• Retooling: Employees are now expected to constantly retrain themselves… reinvent their world view while retooling their skills.
• Innovating: In the midst of all that employees must innovate. They must have the will, the spirit, and a kind of internal roadmap that makes all that possible.

A new kind of employee is emerging… someone you can’t hire or control in the same old way. They will operate more as contractor than employee. They will gravitate to you because you offer them a place to operate and a set of resources that allow them to function in the midst of complexity. They will want to implement their vision... a mutual vision.

The HR of the future will support both old and new employees. In this HR is no longer enough for human resources to pigeon-hole, control, negotiate, and train. A part of its function will be to enable, engender, empower, join, support, anticipate and… yes… innovate.

The spirit of innovation will be encouraged with programs that teach Resilience, Positive Workforce, Personal Change Management, Engagement, Stress Management, Trauma Management, and a hundred other insights that we haven’t heard of yet. The complexities of eldercare, parenting, childcare, financial planning, and fitness will be supported with true expertise.

The result will be a measurable increase in overall organizational effectiveness. Key individuals may become 20% - 50% more effective in terms of their contribution to organizational innovation.