A Brave New World for Human Capital Management

“Disruptive innovations are creating new industries and business models, and destroying old ones. New technologies, data analytics and social networks are having a huge impact on how people communicate, collaborate, and work. As generations collide, workforces become more diverse and people work longer; traditional career models may soon be a thing of the past. Many of the roles and job titles of tomorrow will be ones we’ve not even thought of yet.” – Michael Rendell, Head of Human Capital Consulting, PwC

Rendell’s above quote was taken from the forward of PriceWaterhouse Cooper’s recently released,  progressive report entitled, “The Future of Work, a Journey to 2022”.  The incisive report offers some salient insights into the current, undeniable trends in the realm of human capital. It offers several scenarios for how these potent technological and social trends may play out over the next 8 years.  Editors here at nextSource were stricken by the similarities to what we’ve been talking about here and in other materials produced as part of nextSource’s thought leadership document library.

In several of nextSource’s recently released, industry-specific trends reports, the effects of disruptive technologies such as online social networking on sourcing, hiring, and retention has been examined in depth.  One of the many demonstrable effects of the proliferation of social media and its adoption as a tool for workforce management has been the rise of reputation-based sourcing processes.  That is, the leveraging of an organization’s reputation or brand name in order to develop pools of talent that are more closely aligned to the organization’s culture and ethos.  Social media enables the development of these pools both by providing an interactive outlet for a company’s brand as well as a means for qualified candidates to engage with the hiring organization.

Understanding that these new, exciting, and disruptive technologies are not likely to behave in ways we can easily predict, the PwC document extrapolates three potential realities from the current state of workforce management.  One prediction is that the trends will lead to a world where large companies are broken down into smaller collaborative networks. Another is where corporate power increases its dominance in the workplace and one where social responsibility dominates corporate agendas.  Each potentiality seems quite plausible and displays a logical outcome.  Perhaps there will be other, unexpected outcomes for human capital management as a result.  Everyone can agree, whatever the future holds will significantly change the practice of human capital management and it is imperative to have the support of cutting edge tools and practices if your organization is to successfully navigate these uncharted waters.  We recommend reading the PwC report and then sharing your thoughts in the comments below.