Category Archives: HR

October 7, 2014 · 4:30 am

HR: How Disconnected Are You From Employees?

ADP recently released a report which, based on data they’ve collected from several studies, examines the causes and implications of a persistent disconnect recorded between HR’s and employees’ perceptions. The topic is an interesting one: despite the vast improvement in and efficiency of communications tools and processes that we’ve witnessed over the years, employees and HR departments have seemed to maintain notably differing perceptions on many key human capital management effectiveness issues. This disparity holds true globally, and in companies of all sizes. ADP has noted this trend in three of their ADP Research Institute® global studies in 2013: Quantifying Great Human Capital Management, Employee Perspectives on Human Capital Management, and HR 360. All three studies measured perceptions of status and value of the HR function and showed consequential differences between employees and HR in key areas such as how well employees were being managed, how well questions regarding HR and benefits issues were addressed, whether feedback was communicated or even collected, and in performance evaluations. Data indicate that similar gaps in perception exist between HR and senior management on these same topics, and as ADP points out, these differences matter because they may be indicative of larger problems within organizations – such as whether investments in HR technology are actually delivering the results of more effective communication, or whether advantages of a strategic HR function are being actively sought and realized.

ADP’s research studies show that globally, employees have much more negative perceptions of how well their organizations are managing them than the perceptions of their senior executives and HR leaders. This disparity is notable in such areas as compensation, work/life balance, career opportunities, and the effectiveness of senior leadership. The data also show that the larger the organization, the greater likelihood that employees’ perceptions of how well the organization is managed will decline.how well companies manage employees

differing perceptionsSenior executives and HR leaders are also significantly more satisfied than employees with the processes they have in place for getting employees’ answers to their questions regarding HR/benefits. Globally, this disparity is greatest in the Asia-Pacific region and in the United States. In the U.S. 79% of HR leaders report that it is Extremely/Very Easy to get HR/benefits questions answered, compared to only 56% of employees. Continuing the gap in perceptions is that, when employees’ questions are answered, HR leaders and senior executives perceive that employees are far more satisfied with the process they’ve gone through to get questions answered than employees actually are.

Such differences in perception bring to light a number of potential challenges. How do organizations know they’ve secured the advantages of providing benefits if HR is more fully convinced of employees’ satisfaction than employees themselves? Additionally, if HR thinks that their processes for answering questions are more effective than they actually are, are employees even aware of all their benefit options? This becomes especially disconcerting if organizations are counting on their benefits as a way to attract and retain talent. Interestingly, more than half of employees in large U.S. companies stated that an employee portal is an important informational resource, while less than one-third of their HR leaders shared that conclusion. The options primarily cited by HR leaders for employees to get answers to their questions included an in-office HR team, a dedicated HR representative, and the employees’ managers. Employees’ responses however, cited an 800 number or internal company portal as the most important resources for getting answers.

Note too, that among respondents who felt that it was extremely or very easy to have their HR questions answered, less than 1/5 reported they would be likely to look for a new job in the next 12 months; but among respondents who said it is not easy to have their HR questions answered, that number almost doubled to more than 25%. Lastly, another key area to note where disconnect occurs is between employers and employees perceptions of their organizations talent management processes:talent management disconnect

For more on information on the disconnect between employees and human capital management, make sure to check out ADP’s full report, “Human Capital Management’s Employee Disconnect. A Global Snapshot.”

And perhaps it’s time to begin questioning whether the data you are reviewing regarding your organization’s HR effectiveness is actually true.

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August 19, 2014 · 4:30 am

Leadership Challenges, Critical Skills and the Importance of Gender Diversity

Data Point Tuesday
Development Dimensions International (DDI) and The Conference Board have recently released a report, “Global Leadership Forecast 2014|2015.” This report, the seventh of its kind published by DDI, includes survey responses from 13,124 leaders, 1,528 global human resource executives, and 2,031 participating organizations. The volume of respondents allowed DDI to look at findings from a variety of perspectives – multinational vs. local corporations, spans four leadership levels and leaders/HR professionals of different genders, ages, 48 countries, and 32 major industry categories. The report is comprehensive and contains more than one blog post’s worth of data and insight, so I’ll just pull a few of the highlights here… But if you find the data interesting make sure to take a look at the full report for more information!

Let’s start by looking at top challenges of leadership cited in the report. According to the research, the top four CEO challenges are Human Capital, Customer Relations, Innovation, and Operational Excellence. When responding CEOs were asked to identify strategies to address the human capital challenge, four of the top strategies cited included a focus on leadership:

  • improve leadership development programs,
  • enhance the effectiveness of senior management teams,
  • improve the effectiveness of frontline supervisors and managers, and
  • improve succession planning

Though the top three cited strategies for combating the human capital challenge were to: provide employee training and development, raise employee engagement, and improve performance management processes and accountability, the fact that a focus on leadership was present among the top 10 strategies suggests that leaders recognize that organizations cannot develop and retain highly engaged, productive employees without effective leadership and leadership development programs.

Top CEO ChallengesCEOs surveyed also identified the leadership attributes and behaviors they perceived as most critical to success as a leader:

  • retain and develop talent
  • manage complexity
  • lead change
  • lead with integrity, and
  • have an entrepreneurial mind-set.

Unfortunately, no more than 50% of leaders assessed their own readiness to address such tasks as “very prepared.” And HR leaders’ perceptions were even more grim, with only 9% indicating their leaders were “very ready” to address the human capital challenge.

When HR professionals were asked to rank two critical leader skills for leaders’ success in the next three years, and how much their organization’s current development programs focuses on them, the level of focus of most skills corresponded to how critical the skills were perceived to be for the future. However, there were some interesting exceptions:

Critical SkillsAs you can see in the above graphic, two skills that were listed by HR as most critical (fostering employee creativity and innovation/leading across countries and cultures) are not actually being focused on, while building consensus and commitment/communicating and interacting with others are two skills not listed by HR as highly critical to the future yet are being heavily focused on. DDI informs us that because these are foundational skills it’s easy for HR to either overemphasize or undervalue them, which supports the data we see in the graphic.

While DDI and The Conference Board’s report is chock full of fascinating data like those mentioned above, it has been getting wide attention for a particular section of the report: the section on gender diversity. The report indicates that organizations with better financial performance have more women in leadership roles. Organizations in the top 20% for financial performance report 37% of all leaders are women vs. organizations in the bottom 20%, which report that only 19% of all leaders are women.

Women in LeadershipWhile this clearly points to the positive benefits of gender diversity, at the same time, it highlights how disturbingly imbalanced the gender demographics still are when it comes to leadership. DDI’s survey explains this imbalance in several ways. There was no significant difference between the men and women in the study when it came to leadership skills or ability to handle management and business challenges, however, a noted difference between sexes were their levels of confidence. Women were less likely than men to rate themselves as effective leaders, as having completed international assignments, lead across geographies or countries, or lead geographically dispersed teams. The study cites these global or more visible leadership experiences as key missed opportunities, because leaders who had access to these experiences were far more likely to be promoted and to advance more quickly in their organizations.

Gender DifferencesThe bottom line is that this data supports what we know about diversity in its entirety: fostering and encouraging diversity in the workplace is always something to strive for as it inherently leads to more diversity of ideas, problem solving, productivity and financial success!

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August 5, 2014 · 4:30 am

What are your Sources of Hire?

Data Point Tuesday
A recent report from CareerXroads, “Sources of Hire 2014: Filling the Gaps” by Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler, aims to continue the conversation about the data collection issues, source of hire trends, and challenges related to the recruiting supply chain. The report looks at 50 large firms (all with well-known brands) that filled 507,425 openings in the U.S. last year. This was the work of ~6000 recruiters and sourcers (80+ openings filled by each).

  • 4% of these companies had fewer than 1,500 full time U.S employees,
  • 8% had between 1,005-5,000 employees
  • 18% between 5,001-10,000 employees
  • 28% between 10,001-25,000 employees
  • 10% between 25,001-50,000 employees
  • 14% between 50,001-100,000 employees
  • 8% between 10,001-200,000 employees
  • 10% had more than 200,000 employees

An initial trend observed was that at 40% of these firms the Talent Acquisition function does not match the full ‘Scope’ of full time hiring. While 62.5% of the surveyed firms’ Talent Acquisition functions agree that they “touch or know about EVERY F/T hire or move,” 8.3% don’t hire for union positions, 18.8% don’t hire hourly workers in their manufacturing facilities, 16.7% don’t hire hourly workers for store level, 14.6% don’t hire for every function (i.e. field sales), 10.4% don’t hire for every location, and 8.3% don’t hire for every division.

Additionally, when asked about employees that are not full time (i.e. contract or contingent workers) firms noted that 1 in 6 employees (or 17.7%, weighted average) were contingent and generally not tracked by talent acquisition or talent management. We’ve seen the hiring and retention of contract workers increasing at many organizations, and while whether this is a positive or negative trend can really only be decided by how a company manages its contingent workers, CareerXroads does pose the question: “Do we even know where purchasing ‘sourced’ these ‘not-employees’? How can employers build strategy without oversight of ALL those who work at the firm?” If you’re at an organization that hires many contingent workers, it’s a good question to ask.

In terms of who is recruiting talent for organizations, recruitment process outsourcing seems to be a popular choice for organizations today. Over 50% of the firms surveyed in CareerXroad’s report stated that they use RPO services in some form:

Chart
Are companies hiring globally? 80% of the firms surveyed report that they do hire globally, though only 41% state that they have access to source of hire information that would allow them to benchmark by country.

The #1 source of hire for organizations, though, is through internal promotion and movement. 41.9% of all openings are filled this way. Of the firms surveyed in 2013, 191,425 openings were filled internally. Interns are another interesting source of hire. Surprisingly, CareerXroads data highlight that organizations aren’t exactly seeing a strong ROI in this area. Only 32% of all interns organizations would want to hire after their internships accept positions. Other hiring trends that are continuing include incorporating sourcing (60.5% of organizations stated that they do have a separate full time sourcing group) and social media. With the rise of social media (and LinkedIn specifically) use of resume databases has declined. When looking at LinkedIn’s impact by sources of hire, it is perceived as a vital sourcing tool:

china2
Like the title of their report, CareerXroads offers some good data here to help “fill the gaps.” Keep this in mind when considering you organization’s approach to talent acquisition, talent management, and sources of hire.

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July 22, 2014 · 4:30 am

The Urgency of Leadership Development

Data Point Tuesday
In March I discussed a few takeaways from Deloitte’s “Global Human Capital Trends 2014” survey. After relooking through the report, I think it would be worthwhile to mention some of the other global trends for 2014. I previously discussed the need to reskill HR teams, one of the top four (out of 12) global trends that survey respondents perceived as most urgent. I did not, however, discuss the top trend perceived as most urgent by responders, that is, the need to build global leadership. Fully 38% of respondents rated this as “urgent,” 50% more than the next trend identified as “urgent.” At the time of the study, companies reported generally low levels of readiness to respond to the global trends mentioned in the report, and despite the fact that at least 60% of respondents identified these global trends as “important” or “urgent,” in all, 36% of respondents reported being “not ready” to respond to the trends. This is a significantly higher percentage than those reporting they were ready to respond to the trends (at only 16%). With us now more than half way through 2014, I’m hoping this particular statistic has shifted a bit, but we don’t have that data yet!

Deloitte urgency graph

We do know that building better leadership is a “hot-topic” trend we’ve seen repeated recently in many reports or white-papers; it’s certainly not unique to only this report. I think with trends like these it’s important to reflect on the proposed reasons: why is building better leadership perceived as so highly important now? Did we have better leadership in the past? Are leaders lacking necessary skills today, or are we simply lacking in an adequate bench of leadership? Deloitte’s study offers some insightful points. “In a world where knowledge doubles every year and skills have a half-life of 2.5 to 5 years, leaders need to constantly develop.” Consider, as well, globalization and the speed (not to mention breadth) of technological change and development, which highly fuel this need to constantly develop. Perhaps another point that highlights the reason that “leadership” remains the #1 talent issue facing organizations today is that this term encompasses leadership at every level of an organization (we’re not solely talking about developing the next CEO or the C-Suite pipeline). “21st-century leadership is different. Companies face new leadership challenges, including developing Millennials and multiple generations of leaders, meeting the demand for leaders with global fluency and flexibility, building the ability to innovate and inspire others to perform, and acquiring new levels of understanding of rapidly changing technologies and new disciplines and fields”.

According to those surveyed in Deloitte’s report, only 13 percent of companies rate themselves “excellent” in providing leadership programs at all levels—new leaders, next-generation leaders, and senior leaders. Furthermore, 66% of respondents believe they are “weak” in their ability to develop Millennial leaders (only 5 percent rate themselves as “excellent”) and only 8% believe they have “excellent” programs to build global skills and experiences. 51% of respondents have little confidence in their ability to maintain clear, consistent succession programs. In terms of skills, Deloitte’s research shows that foundational along with new leadership, these skills are in high demand: business acumen, the ability to collaborate and build cross-functional teams, global cultural agility (the ability to manage diversity and inclusion), creativity, customer-centricity, influence and inspiration, and the ability to develop people and create effective teams.

Deloitte leadership programs graph

With this data in mind, we can then ask the question how can organizations “get ready” to address the trend of building global leadership. Deloitte offers four potential starting points:

  1. Engage top executives to develop leadership strategy and actively govern leadership development,
  2. Align and refresh leadership strategies and development to evolving business goals,
  3. Focus on three aspects of developing leaders (develop leaders at all levels, develop global leaders locally, develop a succession mindset),
  4. Implement an effective leadership program.

While all of these approaches will likely involve a significant investment of time and resources along with a commitment to leadership from the board and executive team, they are doable – companies both small and large on our Best Companies to Work for Lists are a testament to this!

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July 15, 2014 · 4:30 am

Financial Stress? What Financial Stress?

data point tuesday

What are organizations doing to help employees manage financial difficulties? SHRM (in collaboration with Elevate) explored this question in their recent survey “Employee Financial Stress.” They found that 61% of HR professionals would describe their employees’ financial health as no better than “fair,” where 38% would describe theirs as “very good” or “good.” Organizations that had more full time hourly employees were more likely to have a response of “fair” compared to organizations with fewer full time hourly employees who were more likely to report better financial health amongst employees. 50% of HR professionals reported that the age group most likely to experience financial stress was 25 to 34 year olds, though 29% reported that 35-44 years old experienced more financial stress. This makes sense as both age ranges reflect periods of significant life changes, such as starting a first job, buying a home and having a first child.

If 61% of HR professionals would describe their employees’ financial stress as no better than fair, it begs the question as to what efforts, if any, organizations are making to help employees become more financially literate and skilled. SHRM and Elevate’s survey found that 70% of HR professionals report employees being “somewhat financially literate,” and while 17% of employees are described as “very financially literate,” an additional 17% are considered “not at all financially literate.” We can cycle back to the initial question, then, of what organizations are doing to help employees manage financial stress?

The research finds that 19% of organizations offer employees loan products from a third-party provider, and 18% of organizations offer payroll advances. Almost three quarters of HR professionals report that offering third-party provider loan products have a positive impact on employees’ overall ability to manage their financial difficulties. Slightly over one-half of HR professionals reported pay advances having a positive impact. When it comes to common services that organizations offer to employees to help manage their finances, retirement planning and consultation takes the top spot at 81% followed by financial literacy training for investing at 42%. Some, although few, organizations also offer financial services including financial literacy training for basic budgeting (25%) and credit score monitoring (8%).

financial-literacy-chart-shrm-2014

The fact that a combined 61% of HR professionals describe the overall financial situation of their employees as no better than fair (50% fair, 10% poor and 1% very poor) may hint that organizations should take a look at their financial benefits program and tailor it to the needs of their employees – for example, if an organization has a high percentage of Millennial employees, and the data suggest Millennials are experiencing the most financial stress, this could be a starting point. We can highlight too, that if this is the case, it could be a point for inter-generational workplace tension – if there are highly perceived financial differences amongst different demographic groups. Organizations might also consider some of the positively received but less prevalently used financial benefits. Understanding the personal financial stress points in your workforce will be a first step in providing meaningful support for a stressor that can derail productive employees.

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April 15, 2014 · 4:30 am

HR & Video: A Match Made in Heaven?

Data Point Tuesday
A recent global survey “Global View: Business Video Conferencing Usage and Trends,” conducted by Redshift Research on behalf of Polycom, Inc. dives into recent shifts in the way HR is communicating and shaping business culture. Data for the report was collected from 1,205 business decision makers in four regions and twelve countries. Major discoveries of the report included the ways Human Resource executives perceive and are using video and video conferencing technology. The data suggests that a move towards video provides advantages for talent management, staffing, training, productivity and flexible work enablement.

Screen Shot 2014-04-11 2Data from the survey tells us video is widely used by HR departments across the world. Polycom’s study found that video conferencing ranked as a top-three tool for communications, with HR respondents ranking email as the number one preferred communications tool (88%), followed by voice-conference calls at 62% and video conferencing at 46%. Interestingly, HR executives who use video at work today said they would prefer video collaboration to email as their top method of business communication within three years. HR executives that participated in the study saw clear benefits of using video communication tools over other forms of communication – with 98% of the Human Resources executives surveyed reporting that video conferencing helps companies work through issues of distance and cultural barriers to ultimately improve productivity amongst their teams.

Aberdeen Group Research 2014Respondents from the survey who use video conferencing today stated that the top advantages of this method of communication are: better collaboration between globally dispersed colleagues (54%), greater clarity of topics being discussed (45%) and more efficient meetings (44%). 76% respondents report that they use video conferencing at work and 83% of respondents (nearly 90% of those in their 20’s and 30’s) use consumer video conference solutions at home today. Laptops and desktops were the most popular form of business video conferencing, followed by conference rooms, and then mobile devices.

Inside and outside of the workplace, we’re seeing a movement towards video as the newest trend in keeping us better connected. Whether this is the addition of video features to major social media platforms, or businesses using video conferencing more frequently, it’s clear that video is on the rise. When you add in the increased focus on workplace flexibility by many organizations and a workforce that places increasingly more importance on the ability to be mobile and highly connected, integrating video communication tools in the workplace makes a lot of sense.

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April 8, 2014 · 4:30 am

The best recruitment strategy? Being a Great Place to Work®!

Data Point Tuesday
A look at LinkedIn’s recently released “Talent Trends 2014” report provides some interesting data about what’s on the minds of today’s professional workforce. As the study confirms, we live in an age of unprecedented transparency: “More job opportunities are viewable online, and the available context – information on the company, its culture, and the team including the hiring manager – has never been richer.” LinkedIn’s platform itself proves this point, and this ever increasing transparency is certainly changing the landscape of talent acquisition. It asks to us to consider how the talent, people, are approaching and considering new careers. Perhaps one of the biggest changes has been a move towards proactively seeking the best talent for the position. LinkedIn’s 2014 report surveyed over 18,000 fully employed workers in 26 countries, to shed light on professional attitudes towards job seeking, job satisfaction and career evaluation.

The report dives into many areas of the professional workplace’s approach toward careers, one such area being the importance of talent brand to professionals. Globally, professionals agree that the most important factor in considering a new job is whether their prospective company is perceived as a great place to work or not. (And to be clear, LinkedIn’s definition of “great place to work” does not synch up completely with the Great Place to Work Institute’s definition.) When respondents of LinkedIn’s report were asked which of the following was most important if they were to consider a new job, 56% said “the company has a reputation as a great place to work”, while 20% said “the company has a reputation for great products and services”, 17% said “the company has a reputation for great people”, and 7% said “the company has a reputation for being prestigious.” When looking at countries where talent brand/being a great place to work is most (100%) and least (0%) important, the global average was 56%, with high outliers being Denmark at 62%, Brazil at 61%, and the U.S. at 60%. Low outliers included Japan at 39%, Turkey at 35%, and China at 33%.

Talent brand, which LinkedIn equates with being a great place to work, is clearly important to today’s labor pool when planning a career or a job change. This line of thought underscores why it’s more necessary than ever to communicate and share a corporate mission and values. People want their work to have meaning to them, to be “more than just a job.” They want to trust their leaders and have a sense of camaraderie or family with their co-workers. The majority of people surveyed in LinkedIn’s report (85% of active job seekers ad 90% of passive job seekers) responded that they are passionate about the work they do. Additionally, 85% of active and 91% of passive job seekers stated that they are constantly learning and growing at work, and 84% of active and passive job seekers reported that they are comfortable promoting themselves and their ideas at work.

Linkedin Talent Profile

The clear results of this data are that professionals today care deeply about their work, and want the companies they work for to support this passion. Being a great place to work is a strong factor in their search for new jobs and careers – and besides being a critical selection criteria, being a great place to work is an essential foundation for success in today’s talent acquisition and retention challenges.

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April 1, 2014 · 10:26 am

Streaming Live: 2014 Great Place to Work Conference®!

Data Point Tuesday

I’m going to deviate from my normal Data Point Tuesday this week to offer you an invitation to attend the streaming keynote sessions from our 2014 conference. The 2014 Great Place to Work® Annual Conference kicks off this Thursday in New Orleans, and we’re very excited to share some of the great learning opportunities of the conference virtually! This year’s conference has sold out with 1,150 registered attendees from more than 400 companies. 39 out of our 45 keynote speakers and concurrent session leaders are business leaders (20) and senior HR practitioners (19). This is the only national event that teaches, inspires and connects professionals across industries and functions to strengthen workplace culture through building trust.

We’re thrilled to bring a packed agenda with a wealth of engaging speakers to those attending in New Orleans this year. If you’re not attending however, don’t worry! We will have free live streaming of our conference keynote sessions here this Thursday and Friday (April 3rd and 4th). Our keynote speakers this year include Bill Emerson, CEO of Quicken Loans, Terri Kelly, President and CEO at W.L. Gore & Associates, Victoria B. Mars, Member, Board of Directors at Mars, Inc., Blake Nordstrom, President at Nordstrom Inc., and Jeffrey Pfeffer, Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. We’re very excited to allow all of you to join us virtually and we hope you’ll take advantage of a great opportunity to take away actionable ideas and learn about best practices from experts at companies recognized for building trust, pride and camaraderie in the workplace! See you there!

Watch the 2014 Great Place to Work® Conference Keynotes Live Here

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March 25, 2014 · 4:30 am

Longing for Leadership

Data Point Tuesday
Last week I discussed one of the trends (reskilling HR teams) called out in Deloitte’s annual Global Human Capital Trends Report for 2014. Recently released and influenced by the work of Bersin by Deloitte, the report examines 12 trends that represent the way employees today are driving their organizations to innovate and transform human capital practices. The report, as usual, is full of interesting data on human capital management trends and observations about the impact of those trends. It is definitely worth a read.

This week I’d like to look at another top talent issue facing organizations around the world as identified by Deloitte: leadership. Leadership is cited as the number one talent issue organizations today face, with 86% of respondents surveyed citing leadership as “urgent” or “important”. This is compared with a meager 13% of the same respondents that claim they are doing an excellent job developing leaders at all levels. So of all the trends discussed in Deloitte’s survey, this marks the largest “readiness gap”. Developing the next generation of leaders is urgent, yet very few report meeting the challenge.

When it comes to organizational strategies, most are requiring some significant tweaks due to the increasingly global, tech-savvy, interconnected, and diverse people that are the 21st century workforce, and leadership development is not exempt from this. Organizations are facing challenges such as developing multiple generations of leaders – not just Millennials, developing leaders with high flexibility and global fluency, and ensuring that leaders have the skills to understand and adapt to rapidly changing technologies. Essentially, leadership is taking on a much broader meaning than it did previously, where it may have described simply developing the next CEO or company C-Suite executive.

Looking at responses from executives who participated in Deloitte’s survey paints a clear picture of perceived leadership gaps. 66% reported believing that they are “weak” in their ability to develop Millennial leaders and just 5% rated themselves as “excellent”. Additionally, 51% of executives have little confidence in their ability to maintain clear, consistent, succession programs and just 8% feel they have “excellent” programs to build global skills.

Global Human Capital Trends Report for 2014It becomes clear then that as the global recovery continues to strengthen and organizations start to execute on growth strategies, that these gaps can only be filled by intentional focus and commitment to leadership development and training programs at all levels. Deloitte’s report suggests that companies should start by engaging their own top executives to develop leadership strategies and actively participate in them; refresh previous leadership strategies to link with evolving business goals; and implement a unique leadership program. They recommend that organizations focus on three aspects for developing leaders: developing at all levels, developing global leaders locally, and developing a succession mindset.

If companies want to grow in a global world, they need to grow global leaders. And Deloitte’s research shows clearly that this doesn’t happen accidentally.

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March 18, 2014 · 4:30 am

Business Leaders Don’t Think HR is Up to Snuff

Data Point Tuesday

Deloitte’s annual Global Human Capital Trends Report for 2014 is out. Influenced by the work of Bersin by Deloitte, it examines 12 trends that represent the way employees today are driving their organizations to innovate and transform human capital practices. The report, “Global Human Capital Trends 2014: Engaging the 21st Century Worker” surveyed 2,532 business and HR leaders in 94 countries around the world over several months, also drawing upon past research on global business challenges in HR, leadership, and talent management. The result of the report is a wealth of data on human capital strategies in the 21st century workplace that can be examined for perspective and insight into our own organizations and strategies. The year’s 12 critical human capital trends were categorized into three broad categories. “Transform and Reinvent” examines the need to reskill HR teams, capitalize on cloud based HR tech, implement HR analytics as a means to achieving business goals, and create a global HR platform that is robust and flexible enough to adapt to local needs.

So. Reskilling HR teams. Really? Why is this a critical trend? According to the report, less than 8% of HR leaders have confidence that their teams have the skills needed to meet the challenge of today’s global environment and consistently deliver innovative programs that drive business impact. Business leaders unfortunately corroborate this statistic, with 42% believing that their HR teams are “underperforming” or “just getting by”. This is compared to the 27% of business professionals who rate HR as excellent or good when assessing HR and talent programs. At a time when CEO’s are reporting human capital strategies as one of the top priorities for growth, it’s important that HR departments have the skills necessary to acquire, develop, and retain top talent as well as engage employees at all levels. And with a workforce that is increasingly global, tech-savvy, highly connected and demanding, HR departments face the challenge of doing all of this with increasingly creative strategies that meet the needs of this 21st century workforce. While such skills are highly necessary, the statistics indicate that HR departments are not as equipped with them as organizations would like.

Of further interest, Deloitte’s report discusses how many organizations are reporting seeing a “disruption” of the CHRO role in their organizations. This disruption consists of a refocusing HR as a “business contribution” function with deeper skills in data/analytics as well as MBA-level business capabilities. When it comes to organizations’ readiness to respond to the 12 global human capital trends there is a discrepancy between business professionals’ and HR professionals’ perceptions. For the five most urgent trends identified (leadership, reskilling HR, global HR and talent management, retention and engagement, and talent and HR analytics) business executives report that their companies are less ready to address these issues than HR leaders report. For the issue of reskilling HR, 48% of business respondents reported that HR is “not ready,” compared to 36% of HR respondents.

Deloitte’s report links this perceived lack of HR skills to some basic attributes such as the fact that many organizations do not invest in developing the business skills of their HR teams and to the fact that more than 70 percent of all HR professionals enter the field without a specific degree or certification in business or human resources. Of respondents surveyed from Deloitte’s report, 43% stated that their companies are “weak” when it comes to providing HR with appropriate training and experiences.

While disappointing, data like this are great because they clearly identify perceived areas of weakness and allow organizations to challenge their own programs and strategies for HR, as well as draw conclusions more specific to their organization and strategies for transforming, reinventing, and reskilling the HR team.

The bad news? Business leaders think HR isn’t up to the people challenges of the 21st century. The good news? Now we know and can get to work!

Deloitte Human Capital Trends 2014

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