From tech implementation to social media use, find out how to ensure you’re ready to handle all organizational needs.
The workforce is expected to expand in multiple regions within the next five to 10 years — which will undoubtedly prompt an increased need for HR services.
Brazil’s labour force, for example, is expected to grow 46 percent by 2020. India’s is forecast to expand by more than 53 percent, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit Global Firms in 2010 report sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management.
The U.S. labour force is only expected to grow by 16 percent during the same period. However, keeping in line with the Economist Intelligence Unit’s prediction that organizations will employ localized management techniques, coupled with central oversight, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has forecast number of human resource managers in the U.S. will grow 13 percent through 2022.
The escalating need for HR professionals is expected to result from new companies forming and pre-existing organizations expanding, requiring more HR professionals to supervise and administer employee attraction and retention and other programs.
As discussed in last week’s blog post, outsourcing HR services has, for years, been a growing trend. Due to cost-cutting efforts and an increased focus on in-house HR professionals’ work addressing business strategy needs, the service outsourcing market nearly doubled from 1999 to 2004, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
Thirty-three percent of HR professionals, as of 2008, said they expected their organization would increase the amount of HR services it outsourced in the future.
In the coming years, as growth occurs, some organizations will hire external vendors to help manage some of their HR needs. Others will add to their in-house team of HR professionals.
To succeed in the changing talent marketplace, it’s likely that both internal HR professionals and external HR service providers will need to possess several key skills — including:
Communication-related tech use: Technology, as SHRM points out, not only helps give HR professionals more time by automating processes; it can also cull and provide data to help them understand staff and job applicant behavior patterns and needs — removing the guesswork from creating employee attraction and retention programs.
As the Institute for the Future, located at the University of Phoenix research Institute, notes in its Future Work Skills 2020 report, as reliance on technology increases, particularly as a form of communication, organizations will need to become adept at finding methods and practices that encourage productivity — and prevent a sense of isolation. Much of that responsibility will likely fall on HR departments, which will be charged with engaging a more complex, spread out workforce located in regions around the globe.
Social media savvy: The popularity of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have revolutionized the talent recruitment and hiring process in the past decade. Expect their influence to increase in the future.
Using social media to research a candidate’s background isn’t a new practice. However, a growing number of HR professionals are using social media sites to promote open positions and emphasize the company’s employment brand to connect with and entice potential candidates. While the marketing department still, in most cases, owns social media rights, 5 percent of HR departments now control their organization’s social media presence, according to digital marketing and e-commerce publisher Econsultancy. Employers, according to HRZone, now utilize social media particularly to connect with online-centric Generation Y members in an increasingly competitive employee attraction and retention environment.
The ability to initiate truly inclusive diversity efforts: The concept of workplace diversity, in recent years, has expanded to include additional under-represented groups, prompting a growing need for HR departments to address gender and age-related diversity issues.
Stressing education as a requirement for an open position, for example, may dissuade qualified female workers who have gained job knowledge through experience and other less formal channels from applying in some countries. Education remains a gender-related challenge in some areas. Although more women than men entered the workforce in 49 countries in the past decade, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2014, nearly 30 percent of countries now have wider education gender gaps than they did nine years ago.
Talent pipeline strategies: Retaining top employees, developing the next generation of leaders and establishing an enticing corporate culture are the top three challenges human resource execs will face in the coming decade, according to SHRM’s research.
Compensation is still key; companies need to know what the market rate is and what new hires expect. Eighty-four percent of workers said a competitive compensation package would strongly or very strongly influence their decision to go to another company, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit survey.
However, human resource departments will need to focus on more than just pay to successfully execute employee attraction and retention programs. HR professionals will need to be able to develop and manage programs that provide greater employee autonomy and continued education. The survey’s highest-ranked non-compensation amenities included encouraging employee decision-making — which 84 percent of respondents ranked as a top factor in their decision to stay or join another company — and opportunities for learning (77 percent).
Find out more about uniting remote office locations, improving your employee value proposition, addressing age-related and other diversity issues and social media recruiting that can help you successfully tap the global labour force in our recent blog posts.