What Will the Future of HR Look Like?
Human Resources has come a long way from the time it started as a personnel management department in 1901. With every new regulation and new generation it’s gone through significant changes in the workplace.Technology has also certainly changed the way hiring is done. But what will the future of HR look like? How will hiring be done in the future? What will change?
Here, some human resource professionals weigh in:
Machine Based Learning to Match Talent to Opportunities
I’m the founder and CEO of Cambio, which uses machine based learning to
surface and match talent vs opportunities.
I’d like to leave you with a few thoughts:
*1. Given the impending recession and rising unemployment,* the number of
resume submissions per active open job is slated to rise 10x per latest
data from the US Department of Labor.
2. *When the market stabilizes and hiring freezes lift*, front line
recruiters + talent acquisition will be overwhelmed by the quantity of
resumes in the pipeline and will find it difficult to unearth talent off a
piece of paper.
3. *Add in the complexity of sourcing diverse talent *(gender, race,
veterans, disabilities, neurodiversity, 2nd chance hiring etc) will prove
to be difficult with the current HR/ATS system in place.
4. *Lastly, resumes alone are not going to cut it anymore. There’s far too
many. The word talent does not necessarily translate to your resume
history. That is why we encourage all job seekers that join Cambio to
create their 360 profile (1 part resume, 1 part pitch video, 1 part
references and I part skills). Then we use those attributes to match them
to highest scored jobs so that they are informed that they may stand a
great chance of being noticed.
*The future of HR is going to be reigniting human intimacy back in the
recruiting process.*
Neil Patwardhan
http://www.cambiome.com/
Remote Recruiting
In response to COVID-19, we’ve demonstrated that a lot of what we’ve always
traditionally done in person can be done effectively remotely and with the
proper technological tools.
When it comes to hiring, we may see a larger reliance on Zoom and interviewing software (like Sparkhire – our preferred partner) to complete initial triage of candidates of choice. HR
professionals used to panic about their ability to get all key stakeholders
on site for in-person interviews. That may not be a priority in the
future. There are tons of technological tools that companies have now
invested in when moving the entire workforce to remote.
Although I would recommend against moving away from any type of in-person
interview. The in-person interview is a valuable tool in seeing how a
candidate interacts among the current employees of your organization. But,
someone’s inability to be present in the office shouldn’t be a reason as to
why they can’t chat with a candidate with our new reliance on web call
tools.
What will change?
Well, besides a new reliance on technology, employers may widen their scope
in candidate geography. After we weather the storm, there will be at least
a month of data that demonstrates certain jobs can be done remotely that
weren’t done remotely before.
So, if a company was originally only interested in hiring local employees, they may be able to extend their
reach outside local geography to hire key talent. If someone can do the job
from their home office in New Jersey, that job can most likely be done by
someone else in their home office in Illinois.
Also, the job market has contracted as a result of COVID, but I’m not sure
it will necessarily expand when this is all over. Companies across the
world have had to truly define essential and non-essential employees as
they restructure their workforces. Those same companies may not rush to
fill the vacant, non-essential positions.
Employers are going to recognize their ability to run on a lean headcount and may rely on that lean
headcount to get through the next few months before considering going back
to market. Companies and employers are going to be incredibly mindful of
how they spend their money because of the financial upheaval of COVID-19.
So they will be reticent to fill positions once we get back to work.
HR Due Diligence
Even when companies do go to market, I imagine it will be for truly
essential positions. HR and leadership will do their due diligence before
posting a job. They will have assessed the financial impact of filling
this position and have evaluated the potential ROI. Employers and HR
will be a bit more selective and have the opportunity to be incredibly
discriminating (not discriminatory) through the interview process.
Since the focus will be on hiring essential personnel – and the impact of
COVID-19 will be with us for a long time – hiring managers and owners will
be thinking in the back of their mind If we have to shut down again, and
this person is considered essential – based on their interview performance,
is this the person I want in this role?
With the record unemployment numbers, there will most likely be a lot of
people applying for any open jobs they see – even if they don’t meet any of
the basic eligibility requirements. So, companies will need to adjust and
ascertain how they will adapt initial resume triage to manage an influx of
candidates. Organizations may need to identify better tools to assess
candidates for fit long before they show up in the conference room.
We recommend and actively use DISC assessments to understand candidate’s
communication and working style to understand how they will fit and work
within the team. Having this information early on in the process allows
there to be a more comprehensive view of candidates to make the decision
that is best for your company and helps you make sure you’re picking the
person who can help the company recover and grow – and be part of the
crisis management team if this happens again.
Eric Mochnacz,
HR Consultant at Red Clover
People and Culture Directors
HR is moving towards culture and for the people tactics instead of the
very corporate, legal attitude that HR professionals usually carry. More
and more companies are hiring people and culture directors either as a
replacement or in addition to HR professionals.
Benefits are changing from one-size-fits-all health insurance to a buffet of options. Companies are
adding benefits like in-house daycares, dog-friendly offices, and financial
wellness benefits.
Hiring is going to have to be more personable. We can’t use resume-reading
technologies and expect to hire perfect culture fits. Hiring is going to
start to rely even more on networking than ever before, and companies are
going to start looking at social media profiles more seriously.
It won’t necessarily be to see if you like to post inappropriate pictures, either.
That might be part of it, but companies will also start looking for
personality clues. People and culture leaders will be trained to look at an
Instagram profile and determine whether they think a person is likely to be
a good culture fit for the team.
As culture becomes more important to employees, it HAS to become more
important for employers. We’re already starting to see this change, and I
fully believe that my children will have an extremely different view of HR
than what was instilled in me.
Anastasia Iliou
Marketing Manager at Rain, an employee benefits company
Centralized HR Organization Structure
COVID-19 is having profound effects on our workplaces that will forever change how we work. In the short-term, the market for HR technology is surging in a way we have not seen before. Companies are migrating to virtual training, onboarding, and recruiting processes. Schedules are changing as employees balance caregiving, homeschooling, and working.
Many companies are also offering access to new benefits and professional development to support their teams. For the companies that are financially able to survive COVID-19, their workplaces will be significantly different on the other side.The ability to work from home and work flexible hours will be a new expectation that top talent will have. In addition, candidates will be acclimated to a completely virtual interview process.
4 predictions for the future of HR:
You will see CHROs, VPs of HR, and strategic HR consultants play more of an elevated role in every organization. You will see HR partnering with CEOs and earning compensation that is more in line with the rest of leadership teams. Many organizations are currently seeing the effect their culture and policies (or lack there of) is having on the workplace. Historically it was easier not to prioritize culture if sales were going well, but I think many CEOs have a new appreciation for the work of good HR leaders in this crisis environment.
You will see more companies move to a centralized HR organization structure. Companies who had a highly decentralized approach struggled to react to COVID-19 with the same agility and success.
You will see a growth in cybersecurity jobs. Companies that have historically not offered remote work options because of security concerns or inaccessible technology, will now be forced to strongly reconsider their approach given the new expectations of their top talent.
You will see greater diversity in the recruiting pool and ideally in the workplace with an increase in virtual interview and offer processes. It can be challenging for candidates with varying abilities or with caregiving needs to participate in extensive in-person interviews. As we get more comfortable interviewing virtually and having accessible recruiting technology, I’m hopeful that candidates who haven’t been able to participate fully before will now get that chance.
EmilyGoodson
CEO – CultureSmart
Video Interviews
As we look to how hiring will be done in the immediate future; I think we will continue to see video interviews taking the place of face to face interviews as companies are already doing that now for safety and health reasons.
Obviously, video interviews can save a company a lot of money and I think that practice will continue. I also think we will see companies using executive search firms more to help fill roles as there will be a lot of roles that will need to be filled quickly once things settle with COVID-19.
As we look farther into the future, I think we will see things shift back to more face to face interviews. If you ask both candidates and interviewers, most of them will say they prefer to meet face to face as you don’t run into the issues that you do with video interviews.
Plus, there is just something about face to face interviews that you can’t get any other way. As we look even farther into the future, I think we will see virtual and augmented reality technologies being used for interviews. The key is companies will need to adapt and adjust to the candidate’s needs and the marketplace to attract the best people.
Ralph Chapman
HR Search Pros, Inc.
www.HRSearchPros.com
Distributed Teams
The future of HR is distributed teams. I don’t think more companies will
move to entirely remote but more companies will move to mixed teams. We’ve
done a lot of research on this field at Hoppier in the last 2 months.
We spoke with over 50+ Founders of companies between 10-500 employees and
surveying them.
There will be a lot of opportunity for geo arbitrage as companies look to
save money and hire people in different geographical locations. Instead of
sourcing local talent at job fairs or on job boards within your local
geographic area, people will find the best of the best talent in different
parts of the world.
We will have global competitions of coding competitions and finance simulations. As a result, employers will spend more money to sponsor and connect with these people.
Cassy Aite
Co-Founder & CEO | Hoppier
AI and Machine Learning
The rise of AI and machine learning can be incredibly useful for detecting language patterns and finding inappropriate messages and emails. Instead of dealing with major HR issues after the fact, we will soon be able to stop them before they become truly problematic.
New software will be able to detect aggressive, sexual, or antagonistic tones and report it to HR for review. This will be a major step in preventing bullying, inappropriate relationships, and other unprofessional communication before more serious damage can occur.
Stephanie Lane
Safe Space Hub
www.safespacehub.com
Future of HR
The role of HR is constantly changing. What do you think the future of HR will look like?