Tools for the job

The world of work is chang­ing. Devel­op­ments such as big data, cloud com­put­ing, the inter­net of things, the mobile inter­net and automa­tion are caus­ing dis­rup­tion to estab­lished busi­ness norms. This means the core skillset that both employ­ees and employ­ers require is also chang­ing.

In the com­ing years, entire­ly new job roles will be cre­at­ed as new mar­kets emerge and firms need dif­fer­ent types of skills, while many tra­di­tion­al posts will dis­ap­pear. Oth­er jobs, such as those in spe­cial­ist tech­ni­cal posi­tions or man­u­fac­tur­ing, might become more auto­mat­ed or parts of the process robo­tised.

This is already lead­ing to a skills gap in cer­tain indus­tries. Accord­ing to research by NGA Human Resources, 88 per cent of busi­ness lead­ers believe there is a skills gap in the UK and 74 per cent admit they cur­rent­ly have one in their own organ­i­sa­tion. Fur­ther­more, 91 per cent say this is hold­ing back their plans to grow.

To be able to take on a more strate­gic role in the busi­ness, HR needs to make bet­ter use of data, draw­ing on uni­fied sys­tems and sim­pli­fied process­es

Oth­er trends in the work­place are also hav­ing an impact. The work­force itself is get­ting more diverse, with peo­ple work­ing for longer, so it’s now com­mon to find four gen­er­a­tions work­ing along­side each oth­er. There are more women in senior posi­tions too, while flex­i­ble work­ing is chang­ing tra­di­tion­al work­place rela­tion­ships.

HR, how­ev­er, is not well pre­pared to cope with these chal­lenges or to under­take a more strate­gic role that would enable it to influ­ence the debate at board lev­el. To oper­ate effec­tive­ly in the new envi­ron­ment, HR needs to have a detailed under­stand­ing of the busi­ness mod­el and how this will change over time. This will include poten­tial impli­ca­tions in terms of recruit­ing and man­ag­ing a more diverse and dis­persed work­force, tak­ing into account new skills and the poten­tial need to replace cer­tain roles with automa­tion.

Yet HR does not always have the required stand­ing in the busi­ness to influ­ence this debate. NGA Human Resources research reveals that HR plays a role in the for­mu­la­tion and exe­cu­tion of strat­e­gy in 54 per cent of organ­i­sa­tions, but this means there is still a size­able minor­i­ty where this is not the case.

To be able to take on a more strate­gic role in the busi­ness, HR needs to make bet­ter use of data, draw­ing on uni­fied sys­tems and sim­pli­fied process­es, to help it make the case for imple­ment­ing changes that will help the busi­ness cope with the chal­lenges of tomor­row.

Being able to access peo­ple-relat­ed data can help iden­ti­fy which skills are required and where, as well as how to devel­op peo­ple inter­nal­ly to address these. Such data can also be matched with oth­er infor­ma­tion. By com­bin­ing data around peo­ple per­for­mance with sales, for instance, it is pos­si­ble to see the impact a train­ing pro­gramme can have on cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and reten­tion or sales fig­ures.

There are a num­ber of issues that need to be over­come before HR can take advan­tage of this, how­ev­er. Some­times that infor­ma­tion does not exist at all, but even where it is avail­able, it can be spread across mul­ti­ple dis­parate sys­tems which do not talk to each oth­er. An organ­i­sa­tion may have an HR admin­is­tra­tion sys­tem, a tal­ent man­age­ment pack­age, a pay­roll sys­tem, and a learn­ing and devel­op­ment plat­form, but noth­ing to link these up and no way of cross-exam­in­ing the data that resides in them.

This means it’s almost impos­si­ble to see wider trends or to iden­ti­fy the end-result of peo­ple-based ini­tia­tives, which means it’s hard­er to make the busi­ness case for invest­ment with the board. It the long term, this can restrict the influ­ence of the func­tion to the detri­ment of the entire busi­ness.

What HR needs is to have all its peo­ple data in a sin­gle data­base or repos­i­to­ry, with access to pow­er­ful ana­lyt­ics func­tion­al­i­ty built in. This should cov­er the entire employ­ee life cycle, stretch­ing from recruit­ment to on-board­ing, tal­ent devel­op­ment, employ­ee reviews and exit inter­views, allow­ing the busi­ness to see why peo­ple leave and put in place strate­gies that will help attract and retain tal­ent in future. It’s vital, too, that this is easy to use, pro­vid­ing clear infor­ma­tion to HR in a for­mat they are used to as con­sumers.

Get­ting more involved in such analy­sis and mov­ing the HR func­tion into a more strate­gic role will cre­ate addi­tion­al time and demand pres­sures, espe­cial­ly in the wider con­text of adapt­ing to new ways of work­ing. As the func­tion itself becomes more strate­gic, one option is to out­source the more trans­ac­tion­al parts of HR and pay­roll to an estab­lished provider, which is able to take away the has­sle asso­ci­at­ed with time-con­sum­ing, but rel­a­tive­ly low-val­ue-added tasks, free­ing pro­fes­sion­als to con­cen­trate on get­ting clos­er to the busi­ness and becom­ing a trust­ed con­fi­dante of the chief exec­u­tive.

If HR is to remain rel­e­vant, influ­ence the agen­da, and help dri­ve key deci­sions around peo­ple and broad­er busi­ness strat­e­gy, it sim­ply can­not afford to ignore the need for effec­tive busi­ness intel­li­gence that can com­bine peo­ple-relat­ed data with that avail­able in oth­er parts of the busi­ness.

From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, organ­i­sa­tions that are able to iden­ti­fy, recruit, on-board, engage, retain and devel­op the right tal­ent will have a much bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty to exe­cute their busi­ness strat­e­gy, and ulti­mate­ly out­per­form com­peti­tors. HR needs to play its part.

The world of work is chang­ing. Devel­op­ments such as big data, cloud com­put­ing, the inter­net of things, the mobile inter­net and automa­tion are caus­ing dis­rup­tion to estab­lished busi­ness norms. This means the core skillset that both employ­ees and employ­ers require is also chang­ing.

In the com­ing years, entire­ly new job roles will be cre­at­ed as new mar­kets emerge and firms need dif­fer­ent types of skills, while many tra­di­tion­al posts will dis­ap­pear. Oth­er jobs, such as those in spe­cial­ist tech­ni­cal posi­tions or man­u­fac­tur­ing, might become more auto­mat­ed or parts of the process robo­tised.

This is already lead­ing to a skills gap in cer­tain indus­tries. Accord­ing to research by NGA Human Resources, 88 per cent of busi­ness lead­ers believe there is a skills gap in the UK and 74 per cent admit they cur­rent­ly have one in their own organ­i­sa­tion. Fur­ther­more, 91 per cent say this is hold­ing back their plans to grow.

Oth­er trends in the work­place are also hav­ing an impact. The work­force itself is get­ting more diverse, with peo­ple work­ing for longer, so it’s now com­mon to find four gen­er­a­tions work­ing along­side each oth­er. There are more women in senior posi­tions too, while flex­i­ble work­ing is chang­ing tra­di­tion­al work­place rela­tion­ships.

HR, how­ev­er, is not well pre­pared to cope with these chal­lenges or to under­take a more strate­gic role that would enable it to influ­ence the debate at board lev­el. To oper­ate effec­tive­ly in the new envi­ron­ment, HR needs to have a detailed under­stand­ing of the busi­ness mod­el and how this will change over time. This will include poten­tial impli­ca­tions in terms of recruit­ing and man­ag­ing a more diverse and dis­persed work­force, tak­ing into account new skills and the poten­tial need to replace cer­tain roles with automa­tion.

Yet HR does not always have the required stand­ing in the busi­ness to influ­ence this debate. NGA Human Resources research reveals that HR plays a role in the for­mu­la­tion and exe­cu­tion of strat­e­gy in 54 per cent of organ­i­sa­tions, but this means there is still a size­able minor­i­ty where this is not the case.

To be able to take on a more strate­gic role in the busi­ness, HR needs to make bet­ter use of data, draw­ing on uni­fied sys­tems and sim­pli­fied process­es, to help it make the case for imple­ment­ing changes that will help the busi­ness cope with the chal­lenges of tomor­row.

Being able to access peo­ple-relat­ed data can help iden­ti­fy which skills are required and where, as well as how to devel­op peo­ple inter­nal­ly to address these. Such data can also be matched with oth­er infor­ma­tion. By com­bin­ing data around peo­ple per­for­mance with sales, for instance, it is pos­si­ble to see the impact a train­ing pro­gramme can have on cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and reten­tion or sales fig­ures.

There are a num­ber of issues that need to be over­come before HR can take advan­tage of this, how­ev­er. Some­times that infor­ma­tion does not exist at all, but even where it is avail­able, it can be spread across mul­ti­ple dis­parate sys­tems which do not talk to each oth­er. An organ­i­sa­tion may have an HR admin­is­tra­tion sys­tem, a tal­ent man­age­ment pack­age, a pay­roll sys­tem, and a learn­ing and devel­op­ment plat­form, but noth­ing to link these up and no way of cross-exam­in­ing the data that resides in them.

This means it’s almost impos­si­ble to see wider trends or to iden­ti­fy the end-result of peo­ple-based ini­tia­tives, which means it’s hard­er to make the busi­ness case for invest­ment with the board. It the long term, this can restrict the influ­ence of the func­tion to the detri­ment of the entire busi­ness.

What HR needs is to have all its peo­ple data in a sin­gle data­base or repos­i­to­ry, with access to pow­er­ful ana­lyt­ics func­tion­al­i­ty built in. This should cov­er the entire employ­ee life cycle, stretch­ing from recruit­ment to on-board­ing, tal­ent devel­op­ment, employ­ee reviews and exit inter­views, allow­ing the busi­ness to see why peo­ple leave and put in place strate­gies that will help attract and retain tal­ent in future. It’s vital, too, that this is easy to use, pro­vid­ing clear infor­ma­tion to HR in a for­mat they are used to as con­sumers.

Get­ting more involved in such analy­sis and mov­ing the HR func­tion into a more strate­gic role will cre­ate addi­tion­al time and demand pres­sures, espe­cial­ly in the wider con­text of adapt­ing to new ways of work­ing. As the func­tion itself becomes more strate­gic, one option is to out­source the more trans­ac­tion­al parts of HR and pay­roll to an estab­lished provider, which is able to take away the has­sle asso­ci­at­ed with time-con­sum­ing, but rel­a­tive­ly low-val­ue-added tasks, free­ing pro­fes­sion­als to con­cen­trate on get­ting clos­er to the busi­ness and becom­ing a trust­ed con­fi­dante of the chief exec­u­tive.

If HR is to remain rel­e­vant, influ­ence the agen­da, and help dri­ve key deci­sions around peo­ple and broad­er busi­ness strat­e­gy, it sim­ply can­not afford to ignore the need for effec­tive busi­ness intel­li­gence that can com­bine peo­ple-relat­ed data with that avail­able in oth­er parts of the busi­ness.

From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, organ­i­sa­tions that are able to iden­ti­fy, recruit, on-board, engage, retain and devel­op the right tal­ent will have a much bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty to exe­cute their busi­ness strat­e­gy, and ulti­mate­ly out­per­form com­peti­tors. HR needs to play its part.

NGA ResourceLink is proven solu­tion that allows you to man­age the entire employ­ee life cycle, from recruit­ment to staff devel­op­ment and suc­ces­sion plan­ning, with a mod­ern and famil­iar user expe­ri­ence and pow­er­ful report­ing capa­bil­i­ty. NGA Human Resources also pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive HR out­sourc­ing and man­aged pay­roll ser­vices for organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing those with a glob­al employ­ee base. For more infor­ma­tion about how NGA could help your busi­ness vis­it www.ngahr.co.uk