Ready, Set,
Future
THE CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES OF HR PLANNING IN
A QUICKLY CHANGING WORLD
By Melissa Campeau
A decade ago, you probably weren’t contemplating the
best onboarding app for your new recruits. You likely
weren’t having conversations about interpreting employ-ee
analytics to manage performance, either. And looking
beyond Canadian borders for talent? That was likely the excep-tion,
not the rule.
How ready was your organization for each of those changes?
Did you, for example, dive into cloud technology when it was first
available? See the value of employee analytics when that possibil-ity
came to light?
Change is happening at a faster and faster pace. HR profes-sionals
who can predict and prepare for what businesses and
employees will need next can help ensure a competitive advantage
for their organization.
NEXT CHANGES GROW FROM
CURRENT EVOLUTIONS
Predicting future disruptions or opportunities can start with a
quick glance backward. Considering recent and current innova-tions
– and how an organization can maximize those or how they
might evolve or be used in concert with other developments – can
help pinpoint strategic next steps.
Take technology, for example.
“From my perspective, cloud-based technology has had a huge
impact, since organizations are now able to manage big data and
generate predictive analytics,” said Nan Oldroyd, director of talent
management at George Brown College in Toronto.
Not every organization, though, is collecting data or analyzing
it effectively – at least not yet. For those companies, gathering and
making the most of that invaluable information could be a top pri-ority
for the immediate future.
To make sense of all that detail, organizations of the future will
also look to HR professionals with data analytics expertise.
“I’m starting to see a demand in the marketplace for that skill
set,” said Oldroyd. “It’s not rampant yet, but in the last year or two
I’ve been seeing postings for data analytics experts in HR, and
that’s quite new.”
Cloud computing has also helped enable a work-from-anywhere
movement, says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs
Willyam Bradberry/Shutterstock.com
16 ❚ MAY 2017 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL
