Digital technology is continuing to evolve at breakneck speed, and it permeates nearly every aspect of our working lives. In the coming years, digital will empower people to take significantly more responsibility for talent management and HR activities. As digital enables talent management to become less of a centralized HR activity and more of an activity that is embedded in the fabric of everyday business, it will fundamentally change HR as we know it.
Digital Advances Promise to Reshape Work as We Know It
Digital is fundamentally changing the way businesses and governments operate—from how they interact with customers, citizens and suppliers, to how they manage their employees. New digital technologies enable not only greater integration and flexibility than ever before, but also the ability for employees to have a greater share of voice and ability to participate in defining and even creating their own work experiences. Digital is thus poised to radically disrupt HR as usual and redefine the future of the human resources function in the next decade. Eventually, HR and talent processes and the technology that enables them will no longer constitute their own domain or even be primarily performed by a central HR function. Rather, many aspects of HR and talent management will become fully embedded in how work gets done throughout an organization, thereby becoming an everyday part of doing business. HR departments that ignore this transformation could face obsolescence.
In this point of view, we explore five recent digital developments that we believe will conspire to transform HR:
- Data and integration will be king
- Digital will give power—and people management—to the people
- Consumer applications will find a home in the enterprise
- Digital will enable customized talent management
- Cloud computing will enable new flexibility and agility
Borja Burguillos
Global People Strategy 