Technology to propel growth of HR industry

The economy grew 7.1 percent in the third quarter of 2016, driven mostly by the rapid investment surge, which is seen to continue this year.

The investment influx translates to an increase in labor demand— and this means businesses need a sustainable talent acquisition approach, to attract and retain the best people.

“Flexible work arrangements, real- time feedback, and digital human resource (HR) will drive the Philippine HR sector this year. Companies should be able to ride on the new talent management trends, to build and nurture their talent pool as they scale up in the coming year,” said Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, Global head of Research at PageUp, a global talent management software provider offering an award- winning SaaS solution.

PageUp has predicted the following HR trends in 2017. An evolution in work redefinition. The rise of the millennial generation is spurring a shift towards flexible work arrangements, while retiring baby boomers and moms returning to work increasingly opt for freelancing and contingent (part-time) work opportunities. The gig economy, which promotes temporary positions and short-term engagements between companies and independent workers; crowdsourcing; and the rise of the on- demand economy characterized by apps such as Uber and Airbnb are also increasingly changing the business landscape.

The redefinition of ‘work’ has huge implications on organizations’ recruitment approach: As linear relationships with candidates won’t cut it anymore, companies need to go beyond traditional sourcing strategies to maintain their internal and external talent networks. The new work models promote workforce agility, allowing organizations to solve market problems quickly through the strategic collaboration of internal and/or external talent.

An acceleration in personalizing the employee experience. 2017 will also see the acceleration of personalized talent management practices driven by employee experiences and new technologies. Shifting away from standardized best practices, HR departments will increasingly adopt consumer marketing tactics such as segmentation to drive engagement and enrich the employee experience as employees become the ‘new customers’.

The success of personalized talent management practices relies heavily on the availability and access to supporting, scalable technologies. Some organizations are already using ‘smart’ learning opportunities like machine learning, and talent management algorithms to customize learning content for a better employee experience. An explosion of real-time, continuous feedback. Organizations will need to foster a culture of continuous feedback to keep up with millennials’ expectations for regular, ongoing feedback and the increasingly fast-paced business environment. Adopting tools that enable people to receive regular feedback from different sources, such as peers, customers or multiple managers for instance, will become more and more important for boosting engagement among the growing millennial workforce and improving overall

productivity.

Sophisticated people analytics and digital HR to take

data to new heights. Mature people analytics will empower HR to play a greater role in influencing executive- level decision- making, through richer insights on people productivity metrics than previously deemed possible. Sophisticated people analytics reports go beyond typical HR data such as recruitment and retention metrics, and provide a holistic view of people productivity through a combination of operational, financial, and talent data.

Like most HR innovations today, technology is driving this shift and leading the sector further down the path of datadriven decision-making, with the ability to correlate people data to business performance, and in some cases predict business performance, as well as plan future workforce needs. In the coming year, what will matter most is how quickly and easily HR can access a multitude of people data and use them alongside other data types to improve business outcomes. Well-being as a driver of performance & engagement. With factors such as new work models, a fast- paced society, and the need for continuous feedback changing how we get things done, organizations are working harder than ever before to keep people engaged, happy, and healthy.

Given the growing millennial workforce’s shifting expectations and appetite for flexibility, HR departments need to factor in wellness to drive performance and productivity in 2017.