It’s been a busy and tumultuous year for the HR profession in the UK and Europe. The profession is grappling with the challenges of automation in the workplace, executive pay and the looming presence of Brexit on the horizon and its impact on talent management.
The topic of executive pay will remain high on organizations’ agendas as from January 2019, publicly listed firms in the UK are required to report on the pay gaps between their CEOs and the workforce, remarks Claire McCartney, diversity and inclusion advisor of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
McCartney believes that this disclosure will create a window for such stakeholders such as customers and investors to look into the organization and see how the efforts of all its employees are rewarded and recognized.
Coupled with gender pay gap reporting and the possible introduction of ethnicity pay gap reporting, there will be a need for a narrative to be created to explain and justify both internally and externally; how the organization’s reward practices support the financial well-being of the whole workforce rather than the few. People professionals should embrace this opportunity and show their worth to the organization in creating and communicating this narrative as well as reviewing whether existing practices are fit for purpose.”
HR will be confronted with monumental challenges as well as profound opportunities in 2019, predicts Dr Peter Bloom, senior lecturer in organizational studies of The Open University Business School.
Notably, it threatens to be remembered as heralding the beginning of the end of a conventional business focused and corporate friendly HR. While most HR professionals will still focus on traditional ideas and responsibilities, a growing number will embrace new ideas and practices that understands and innovatively responds to growing popular anger. Specifically, HR will progressively become a vehicle for using digital and AI technologies for better understanding and addressing the personal, professional, ethical, and even political desires of their present and prospective workforce."
Bloom argues that the past year has highlighted the ongoing problems of gender discrimination, sexual violence and systemic issues of inequality.
2019 will help catalyze a fresh era where big data is exploited to track executive pay against their overall value to the firm and its members, where "people analytics" are employed to customize benefits and allow people to build "boundaryless" and "balanced" careers and social media is used to call out abuse of those in power at all levels of the organization. HR will have to start effectively meet these rising demands to a more human-centered, equitable, and just hi-tech workplace or face their own eventual redundancy.”
Lots of companies are moving away from large-scale employee engagement surveys, comments Brian Kropp, group vice-president, HR practice for Gartner.
If you go back to 2015, 80-90% of companies used large-scale surveys. We’re now finding that companies are using non-traditional listening techniques such as ‘scrapping’ emails. We expect at least 50% of European headquartered companies to experiment with these sorts of techniques in 2019. Scrapping employees’ emails is when companies look across emails that employees have written and use machine-learning to find out how you’re feeling about work.”
Jonquil Hackenberg, head of C-suite advisory at Infosys, believes that predictive analytics will be the next big technology to hit HR, with some early adopters already well on the way.
It will become increasingly important to spot attrition, to help HR professionals put proactive measures in place for top talent before they’ve even resigned. For organizational analysis, it will help the HR function understand how traditional departments are interacting with one another based upon market needs.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bound to revolutionize HR management, from the way in which organizations recruit workers to how their performance is managed, comments Pedro Mendonca, a lecturer in organizational behavior at Nottingham Business School.
For instance, organizations will attempt to hire the best individual for a specific job and algorithms may assist overburdened HR teams in streamlining this process by scanning resumes for individual traits that exactly match the job descriptions. However, algorithms have been programed by humans who carry with themselves prejudices and bias. In addition, AI may help organizations to evaluate and monitor their employees’ performance. Algorithms can automate the process of monitoring whether individuals hit the set targets or not and automatically allocate the reward or punishment that the individual is due.”
But 2019 will also provide an opportunity for organizations and their leaders to balance AI with emotional intelligence (EI), argues Jo Maddocks chief psychologist for JCA Global.
With the rise of AI, being human is going to become more important in 2019. The increased use of chatbots and tools that use AI to handle more routine tasks mean that EI will be crucial in the jobs that humans continue to perform. As more roles are automated, employees who have high EI will be prized for their ability to make connections and support and challenge others.”
Brexit will also make its mark on the talent management landscape in the UK. The majority (71%) of managers think the UK’s decision to leave the EU will make skills harder to acquire for organizations operating in the UK, according to the Adecco Group UK and Ireland’s 'Brexit: retaining talent through change' report. Yet, one in five (20%) do not plan to employ any strategy to tackle Brexit-related skills shortages.
Dr Duncan Brown, head of HR consultancy of the Institute for Employment Studies, argues that the uncertainty over how we exit the EU is making things worse.
If as appears likely, only jobs over $63,361 are excluded from migration controls, then a whole range of skilled as well as unskilled jobs will be affected and with unemployment so low, the 75% of employers experiencing skill shortages will most likely go up to 100%. The only upside is it is forcing employers to rediscover workforce planning.”
Organizations are concerned that the end of free movement may impact the availability of labor and lead to skill shortages, warned Matt Lynch, immigration senior manager at PwC.
The UK government's recent Immigration White Paper outlined its proposals for a new immigration system and sought to address some of the concerns of business, containing a number of welcome points. The government is planning further engagement to ensure the proposals meet the needs of the industry. It’s important that businesses are able to adapt to the changes. Close consideration should be given to the pipeline and availability of skills and talent within the resident labor market. Extra costs associated with the increased administrative burden caused by work visas, application processing time and compliance requirements will also need to be factored in."
