The dynamics of how businesses operate today is changing continuously. We exist in an environment which presents every professional the opportunity to do better in their workplace, to do things differently and more importantly to ideate and grow.
Today, the organisations in India are traversing through a new world of working, one that is unafraid to innovate, change strategies for its leadership, talent and human resources. Companies are now moving beyond talk to action, revisiting the required capabilities of the HR function, building HR universities and modernizing relationships with internal business partners. Deloitte's 2015 Human Capital Trends report states that while CEOs and top business leaders rate talent as a key priority, only 5 percent of survey respondents rate their organization's HR performance as excellent. This year too, HR's self-assessment showed virtually no improvement over last year's. As ,many organizations in India, including multinationals, focus on efficiency, their business counterparts' strategic talent management issues go unresolved-with significant opportunity cost to market growth and other corporate initiatives. A recent research shows that aggressive global expansion and changing workforce characteristics have elevated the importance of recruiting, talent management and performance management. With companies embracing globalization and newer technology, the skill shortage is pushing human resources into the frontlines of acquiring, developing and retaining talent.
Economic slowdown in western countries has encouraged companies to tap and explore opportunities in emerging markets like India. Employees are now collaborating across customer segments, regions and processes, that require changes to organization design, performance management and culture. Not surprisingly, the same Deloitte report mentions these as one of the top five key trends of human capital management for 2014. Hence, it is decisive to say we will see 2015 for creativity, bold leadership, and a fundamental reimagining of the practices HR leaders have used for years. But the gap between what business leaders want and the capabilities of its HR to deliver is wide and is the biggest barrier towards the success of an organization. Human resources is now shifting from a group of generalists to a team of highly skilled business consultants and this is mainly due to advent of technology and employee self-service capability. The globalization of talent is shifting power to employees, while big data analytics demands different skills.
Human resources need to focus away from activities that focus on old-style people matters and shift to accountabilities and training so that HR can be true advisors who can focus the ROI that is critical to an organization's success. Every organization is structured to attain results it gets year on year. Weak results are directly proportional to a poorly structured organization. Positive results emerge when strategies, business models, structure, processes, technologies, tools, and reward systems fire on all cylinders in perfect sync. In an increasingly competitive business environment, organizations are required to react quickly to market changes to keep up with the accelerated pace of business. Today's CHRO needs to be innovative and business savvy. He needs to bring the HR team together and help it evolve into a more distributed, business-integrated function that also embraces technology and analytics which have now become integral to the success of HR.
CHRO along with human resources executive are viewed as leaders and advisors, especially to the business stakeholders. Their role is still the most crucial when it comes to managing skills and talent shortages. Organizations need to go through a HR transformation and truly redefine how its human resource team collaborates with business to execute strategy. Business impact and innovation has to be at the centre of their thought processes and strategies and this can be achieved by creating simplified work environments and practices in response to information overload and increasing organization and system complexities. Human resources is a department that closely interacts with the employees on a regular basis and they are the best to prepare them for a smoother transition.
This transition cannot happen without a business challenge and it needs to be about the people. It is essential that an Organization's strategy places its employees at the centre and base of organizational culture which can prove as a wholesome strategy to drive employee growth and development. The culture of transparency will turn into your organization's strongest foundation, it is the underlying strategy for employee growth. Such transparency can be achieved through three key aspects- access to senior management, high level overviews and tactical information dissemination. Talent development and talent analytics are vital tools to identify budding talent and encourage employee growth and engagement within the company. Analytics plays a larger role in talent acquisition, retention, placement, promotion, compensation, or workforce and succession planning. Most importantly, advanced software algorithms can identify talent and match it to an organization's needs, pinpointing team players based on core traits and personality matching, making it an effective method for taking care of costly and time-consuming preliminary screening.
Envision an organization where anyone on the team could casually reach out to the leaders with ideas, or with potential issues that should be addressed. Collaborate with your human resources department on new ways to check the pulse of your organization. Use of technology, all-hands meet, lunch or a casual meet will send a message to your employees that the company cares for them and their ideas. The philosophy is simple - care for your talent and they will care for your organization. It sends the message that you care about what your employees think.
Imagine, every single team member within a high-performing workforce contributes significantly to organizational success through their unique perspectives and expertise. Envision a company where business heads and leaders look to human resources for intelligence as they develop business strategies to drive growth, where a human resource team is believed to be the creator of talent and leadership. Leaders must encourage the ability of their human resources to make this possible and build business knowledge within their teams. A transformed human resources department can drive organizational development through talent development and employee engagement strategies resulting in creating greater business impact and driving innovation to achieve the desired results.
Guest Author
The author is Founder and Vice President of Chiratae Ventures
