Congrats and Condolences to HR leaders: New trends in the HR world

Dear Friends,

Exactly one year ago, in November of 2018, I had the privilege of chairing the Human Resources Community Conference in IL, attended by all those wonderful people who deal with human capital at disrupting organizations. As I opened the panel, I said I had two words to share: congratulations, and condolences. I explained:

Congratulations:

Because as humans in general and as HR executives specifically, we have the honor of living in the most fascinating era humanity has known to date.

It's a rare privilege to have the opportunity to form and affect the development of what has already been dubbed the "fourth industrial revolution". It's a technological revolution that completely overturns the ways in which we live, work, learn, and communicate.

Condolences:

Because it's a tremendous responsibility, and it's a world in disruption: it's confusing, alarming, overwhelming, and disturbing, as the ground below us is almost constantly shaking.

It means working with very young CEOs who didn't have to scale the rungs of the organizational ladder to get where they are. It's working with job requirements for talents where experience is not necessarily the most critical factor, with titles which, in the new world, do not necessarily mean what we know. There are no more positions and tenures. Things are much more fluid: it's the liquid workforce. We recruit the talent of tomorrow and not today, we recruit whoever is capable of learning and changing.

It means working with everything hanging out, like a store window. You can't hide anything. And it all happens online, in real time. There's Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. There are awesome groups like "Hitech Tweets" where people write anything and everything about HR managers. Complete exposure; open source. This exposure allows for many good things, but simultaneously creates a state of over-reaction to any action or decision, sometimes out of context. Transparency creates pressure to immediately respond, which may sometimes sever the process before it has matured to the desirable result. In such a transparent world, the shelf-life for strategic processes continues to dwindle.

How does all of this affect HR?

Wow! We're spiraling. CEOs are writing management handbooks about organizational culture, about the abandonment of orderly processes, and us? We have to reinvent ourselves. That's the most critical skill set of all. For everyone – us too.

It has been decades since a revolution put human resources at the forefront of leading change.

Some trends that continue, or are gaining momentum now:

 What happened in the year since that conference?

The trends we dealt with last year are still relevant, they've gained power, and some new trends have come. I'll point out the major ones:

1.      The power of the individual is only increasing. There are no processes that should or can be done. Everything is about co-creation. From the very first stages of conceptualization and design, we have to engage and ask employees what they want. It simply won't work otherwise. They know better than we do about what's best for us.

Global education is already there. "Future-oriented pedagogy" – personalization, partnership, informality, "glocality", changeability (the ability to change under uncertainty) and purposefulness (backbone, personal compass, authenticity, purpose). These are the principles of future education: adapting to the ebbs and flows of reality. In education, as in organizations.

2.      Social, physical and emotional Wellbeing. To me, this is Israel's greatest challenge. It's the strongest trend today around the world. Not only the work-life balance, but also job security and confidence, a pleasant physical and emotional working environment, psychological support, nutrition, health and physical fitness, and the rising area of financial wellbeing. Organizations have realized that employees that benefit from wise financial management and who are free of financial duress are happier and more productive. It's far beyond employee care or employee experience. In the United States, for instance, organizations are known to have in-house clinics, yoga classes, or financial advice for home management.

3.      Organizations continue to try to crack the diversity code. Personally I think that we should focus first and foremost on inclusion. That's what creates the right cultural atmosphere and what brings in the right benefits from workforce diversity.

4.      A seat on the board: another auspicious trend is that an increasing number of HR women are joining the executive boardroom. What was once perceived eccentric and unnecessary is now considered desirable and crucial, primarily due to the battle over talent and its importance to the business' "bottom line".

5.      Leadership MUST BE vulnerable, brave, authentic, and listening/attentive. Because nothing else works anymore.

6.      Last, and to me most important: ONA – organizational network analysis: The most evolved stage of Big Data Analytics. This is the analysis of behavior patterns through examination of communication patterns and informal employee networks. We move from collecting data about workers, to collecting data between workers – what's called relational analytics. For what goes on at an organization does not happen through its structure but through the relationships between the people living in it, and that's what determines the company's business performance.

ONA tools that are today in their infancy can identify at-risk employees, employees who experience stress and anxiety, etc.

I know it sounds awful. Like Big Brother. But it's the trend.

Large companies today use employee email metadata (who communicates with whom), employee badge data (location, time of day), use complaints, accidents, etc. to learn about productivity, about drivers of employee retention, and about things they never understood.

If we are not there, along with the warning signals and the ability to analyze what it all means – things will get dangerous. That's why our role is critical! Because the technology is here, and we have to make sure we make the right use of it.

That's what Josh Bresin called Engagement 3.0.

After reading about it, I realized it was going to change the way we look at organizational engagements surveys. At retention and employee development.

It led me to think about a new definition of what talent is, and who to retain. And it even completely messed up my 9-grid model, which suddenly seemed obsolete and completely uni-dimensional.

Because today, for the organization to work, we cannot suffice with performance levels or delivery capabilities and not even with the collection of fine talent. They are not enough.

For example: don't fire the “glue”. They are sometimes more important than the "expert" that sits next to them solving [problems. The glue is the jester, the mascot, the organizational grounding cable, the important link in the DNA, and they are often the key to organizational vitality. You won't find that on the 9-grid. Think about how revolutionary it is.

ONA is more interested in who you know than what you know.

There are those people who move things.

There are those who will always jump on the grenade, or get on the plane first. They won't prevent the next time, it's not scalable, but there will always be that proverbial grenade to hop on. Even when you have all of the infrastructure in the world. You need those faithful souls, no matter what.

Some will ask the embarrassing and tactless questions, but they will cause managers to communicate authentically, teaching them that at the end of the day, it's all out there. And that's a good thing.

Some know how to think "system", and connect others. Some work alone, and that's good, because that's what we need.

Some always need to make accusations and place blame (usually on HR) because it's liberating. For these we need emotional strength.

Some will be our moral compass when we lose the way, creating communities and pushing for good deeds.

Some have tons of network connections outside, bringing in lots of good friends, even if they themselves are not the greatest at everything.

Some serve others, and others deliver.

I personally am going to try to create an organizational relationship map that is not about the structure, to try to lead the organization to success through this map.

I'll let you think about that one, because it's just the beginning.

Hadas Almog

Chief People Officer, WalkMe