Digital Age Human Capital Strategy and Workplace Transformation

What role are you taking in executing a digital age human capital strategy?

The goal is creating a productive, profitable and collaborative workplace. That workplace, in turn, continuously creates enduring business outcomes and experiences on behalf of customers as well as employees.

According to new findings from Deloitte, as organizations start their digital transformation journeys, they encounter a seismic shift impacting business models. Changing business models, in turn, create an interconnected “world of work” in which:

• The workforce and workplace is redefined.
• Employees communicate with innovative HR (human resource) platforms.
• Professional development programs are available which utilize cognitive/interactive as well as social technologies.
• Human capital strategy leverages employee experience strategies which put the employee at the center of workplace effectiveness.

The 2017 Deloitte Human Capital Trends report “Rewriting the Rules for the Digital Age” should become your Ground Zero for re-architecting the workplace.

This year’s report includes a survey of more than 10,400 HR and business leaders across 140 countries.

• 22% of respondents were from large companies (> 10,000 employees).
• 29% of respondents were from medium companies (1,000 – 10,000 employees).
• 49% of respondents were from small companies (< 1,000 employees).
• The Americas comprised 31% of total respondents.
• EMEA comprised 51% of total respondents.
• Asia Pacific comprised 18% of total respondents.
• 63% of respondents were HR professionals.
• Other business executives comprised 37% of respondents.
• More than 3,100 respondents came from the C-Suite.

10 Key trends indicate that it is time to create a digital age human capital strategy and stop pondering the arrival of the Future of Work.

Ten key trends in the report address that the Future of the Workplace is, indeed, here today. In order of importance, these factors must be addressed for the workplace to meet the relentless pace and cadence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. (pp 6-9)

• The Future of the Organization is happening right now.
• Careers and learning are all about real time learning, delivered all the time.
• Talent acquisition now involves a cognitive recruiter.
• Employee experience focuses on culture, engagement and the employee journey.
• Performance management evolves, incorporating new approaches, models and technologies.
• Leadership becomes more agile, diverse, disruptive and younger.
• Digital HR is the new norm, representing a mix of people, various technology platforms and work formats.
• People analytics is now a business discipline, owned by data specialists.
• Diversity and inclusion represent a reality gap owned by the C-Suite.
• The augmented workforce, including robotics, cognitive computing and AI (artificial intelligence), become new co-workers in the gig economy workplace.

The current HR Report Card in executing digital age human capital strategy is not good.

Unfortunately, the Deloitte report finds that business productivity has not kept up with the rate of technology advances (pp 3-4). Also, today’s workforce is stressed and overwhelmed. Why? They are pressured to meet management demands to improve technical competence and productivity.

In addition, the rate-limiting steps to digital age workplace transformation involve more than upgrading employee skills and productivity. Organizational infrastructure and mindset represent recurring impediments to executing a solid digital age human capital strategy.

Finally, some of that resistance to change might be found within the HR function itself.

Consequently, it is no surprise that the number of respondents who rate current HR capabilities as “Getting by” and “Adequate” has slightly increased from 2016 findings. However – and perhaps more significantly – the number of participants rating their capabilities as “Good” has somewhat decreased from 2016 findings. (p 9)

Digital age human capital strategy presents a unique opportunity for the HR professional.

In spite of the HR Report Card findings, IMHO the future workplace completely redefines the role of today’s HR professional. This role is translational and transformative, rather than administrative, risk-averse and transactional.

The report portrays the digital age HR professional as a holistic thinker, tasked with creating a workforce ecosystem that closes not only gaps in technological infrastructure but also total workforce skills competency. In addition, HR impacts future business models, regulations and public policy.

That is a tall order for HR to fill.

The pace and cadence of technological advances within the industrial Internet of Things ecosystem leave no room for digital age Human Capital Strategy complacency.

Clearly, HR professionals cannot afford to sit this one out and wait until “someone else” creates an easy-to-follow playbook for digital age human capital strategy.

Rather than providing a one-article analysis of the 144 page Deloitte report, I’ll be returning to the well throughout the first half of this year. Let’s take small bites out of this report and work through issues to help you make those hard calls.

Babette Ten Haken is a strategic business and human capital catalyst. She writes, speaks, consults and coaches about how cross-functional sales operations team collaboration revolutionizes the industrial Internet of Things value chain for customer loyalty, customer success and customer retention. She connects the dots between leadership, human capital / HR strategy and developing a data-driven, team-based workforce committed to creating enduring business outcomes. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. 

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