RESEARCH UPDATE KATHY CATTON
What skills and
knowledge do our HR professionals of the future need? HRNZ has recently carried out extensive research into future HR capability in New Zealand. By seeking to understand the factors that will drive change in HR, HRNZ can tailor its support of HR professionals today, to ensure HR meets the needs of the world of work in the future.
T
he research took a three-fold approach. Alongside desktop research, HRNZ surveyed all members and held a focus group comprising a diverse range of senior HR professionals from across New Zealand. The desktop research was viewed from three perspectives: how the professions, in general, are changing; how organisations are changing; and how employee expectations are changing.
Digitisation continues to run at a fast pace, and the use of AI will be a feature of operations and customer interface. It is fair to say that professions, in general, are changing. Information and knowledge are becoming more 42
HUMAN RESOURCES
SUMMER 2020
freely available, meaning there is less reliance on professionals for advice. The processes used by professionals are increasingly becoming automated, and more and more data is available to professionals to assimilate and analyse. The swell of social media has transformed people’s expectations around timeliness and formality. For example, people want instant answers and less formal communications than in the past. Legal advice doesn’t need to be written in a formal letter, for instance. Due to large-scale automation of straightforward transactions, entrylevel work could be affected. Organisations, in general, are focusing on sustainability and social responsibility. Distributed workforces are becoming the norm, and this introduces new models of leadership and team collaboration. Digitisation continues at a fast pace, and the use of AI will be a feature of operations and customer interface. The ability to respond quickly to an ever-changing landscape, at an ever-increasing speed, will be critical to maintaining competitive advantage. Looking at employees of the future, there will be increased diversity within the workforce, for example, the ageing population and increasing demographic of Māori. With rapidly evolving technology solutions, employees will be expecting
autonomy and up-to-date tools to work with. Employees will seek greater work–life balance and the flexibility to work from anywhere. This ties into the employee’s need to be treated personally and in line with their values. There will be a greater desire for continuous learning and development and an expectation that the employer supports this.
Information and knowledge are becoming more freely available, meaning there is less reliance on professionals for advice. From the focus group with senior HR professionals, it became clear that the world of work is changing rapidly and, for HR professionals to remain current in the future, they need to start developing now. Many of the areas identified are actually needed today and not exclusively in the future. There is also a potential risk that HR professionals will find it difficult to move to a future state if they are unable to relinquish current tasks. The automation of work needs to be driven by HR, to achieve good outcomes. Perhaps the most significant change that senior HR professionals forecast is the employee–employer relationship and how employees increasingly need to be treated as customers. The scope
