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Научни трудове на Съюза на учените в България-Пловдив, серия Б. Естествени и хуманитарни науки, т. XVIII, ISSN 1311-9192 (Print), ISSN 2534-9376 (On-line), 2018. Scientific researches of the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria-Plovdiv, series B. Natural Sciences and the Humanities, Vol. XVIII, ISSN 1311-9192 (Print), ISSN 2534-9376 (On-line), 2018.
ЧОВЕШКИТЕ РЕСУРСИ В ДИГИТАЛНАТА ЕРА - ТРЕНДОВЕ И
ПРЕДИЗВИКАТЕЛСТВА Десислава Шатарова, Елена Златанова-Пъжева Технически Университет - София, Филиал Пловдив
HUMAN RESOURCES INN THE DIGITAL AGE - TRENDS AND
CHALLENGES Desislava Shatarova, Elena Zlatanova - Pazheva Technical University of Sofia, Branch Plovdiv
Abstract
The article explores the 2017's global trends in the Human resources management. Evidences and results from Deloitte's "Global Human Capital Trends" survey are presented. Some challenges ahead for business and HR leaders in the digital age are discussed.
Key words: age of information, human resources management, human capital force
Introduction
We are living in a period of intensive and extensive technological development. The speed of new technology commercialization, huge number of new products that arise every month exceed individual capabilities to follow and track them. However, it is not the new technologies that dominated the management science in the 21st century (Rakowska, 2015). In the era of information, paradoxically, it is employees competencies that became the focus of researchers attention. It is an employee, characterized by sets of competencies (such as knowledge, skills, abilities and others), who helps organizations to create and maintain competitive advantage over its market competitors and guarantees the company performance (Rakowska, 2015).
Today, we are living in the digital age, the age of information. There are many possibilities for the organizations, but also threats if they are not adapting to the dynamic changing world. The digital transformation is not concerning only the new computer systems, robots, production systems, but is also relevant to the changing mentality and mind of people - the consumers and those working in the organizations. The HR management is very important to be adaptive to those changing conditions. This fact means that every organization needs to know what are the global trends in the HR in the digital age as well as what are the challenges in the country they operates. In this connection this is the purpose of this article - to present evidence for the global trends in the HR management and to discuss some of the challenges for HR leaders in Bulgaria.
Human Capital Trends
The 2017 survey of Deloitte is the largest and most extensive to date, with input from more than 10,400 business and HR leaders across 140 countries.The trends in this year's report identify 10 areas in which organizations will need to close the gap between the pace of change and the challenges of work and talent management.
Twenty-two percent of respondents were from large companies (more than 10,000 employees), 29 percent from medium-sized companies (1,000-10,000 employees), and 49 percent from small companies (fewer than 1,000 employees). Respondents from the Americas accounted for 31 percent of the total; Europe, Middle East, and Africa contributed 51 percent, and Asia Pacific 18 percent. Respondents represented a broad cross-section of industries, including financial services; consumer business; technology, media, and telecommunications; and manufacturing. Sixty-three percent of the respondents were HR professionals, with other business executives comprising 37 percent. C-level executives accounted for 30 percent (more than 3,100) of the respondents.
The first trend - "The organization of the future" is the most important challenge for 2017. In this year's survey, nearly 60 percent of respondents rated this problem as very important, and 90 percent rated it as important or very important. Agility plays a central role in the organization of the future, as companies race to replace structural hierarchies with networks of teams empowered to take action.
The second trend is called "Careers and learning: real time, all the time". The concept of a "career" is being shaken to its core, driving companies toward "always-on" learning experiences that allow employees to build skills quickly, easily, and on their own terms. This year, careers and learning rose to second place in rated importance, with 83 percent of executives identifying these issues as important or very important. New learning models both challenge the idea of a static career and reflect the declining half-life of skills critical to the 21st - century organization.
"Talent acquisition: enter the cognitive recruiter", is now the third-most-important challenge companies face, with 81 percent of respondents calling it important or very important. How leading organizations use social networking, analytics, and cognitive tools to find people in new ways, attract them through a global brand, and determine who will best fit the job, team, and company, can be really challenge. As jobs and skills change, finding and recruiting the right people become more important than ever.
Trend 4 - "The employee experience: culture, engagement, and beyond". Culture and engagement are vital parts of the employee experience, and leading organizations are broadening their focus to include a person's first contact with a potential employer through retirement and beyond. 79 percent of executives identifying these issues as important or very important. Today, companies are looking at employee journeys, studying the needs of their workforce, and using net promoter scores to understand the employee experience. Workplace redesign, well-being, and work productivity systems are all becoming part of the mandate for HR.
The 5th most-important-trend is "Performance management: play a winning hand".
Nearly 78 percent of respondents rated this problem as important or very important. For the last five years, companies have been experimenting with new performance management approaches that emphasize continuous feedback and coaching, reducing the focus on appraisal. This year, companies are moving beyond experimentation to deploy new models on a wide scale. Even though HR technology tools have not quite caught up, new approaches to performance management are working, and they are increasing productivity and changing corporate culture.
The next 6th trend is "Leadership disrupted: pushing the boundaries". As companies transform and digital organizational models emerge, leadership needs change as well. Eighty
percent of the respondents say that leadership is an important issue, and 78 percent call it very important. Organizations are clamoring for more agile, diverse, and younger leaders, as well as new leadership models that capture the "digital way" to run businesses. While the leadership development industry continues to struggle, companies are pushing the boundaries of their traditional leadership hierarchies, empowering a new breed of leaders who can thrive in a rapidly changing network.
Trend 7 is "Digital HR: platforms, people, and work"
As the enterprise as a whole becomes digital, HR must become a leader in the digital organization. This means going beyond digitizing HR platforms to developing digital workplaces and digital workforces, and to deploying technology that changes how people work and the way they relate to each other at work. Fortunately, the path to digital HR is becoming clearer, with expanded options, new platforms, and a wide variety of tools to build the 21st-century digital organization, workforce, and workplace. 73 percent of respondents rated this problem as important or very important.
Trend 8, "People analytics: recalculating the route", is with 71 percent of respondents calling it important or very important. Data about people at work has become more important than ever, but the focus of people analytics has changed. Formerly a technical discipline owned by data specialists, people analytics is now a business discipline, supporting everything from operations and management to talent acquisition and financial performance. Readiness to capitalize on people analytics remains a challenge, however. Only 8 percent of organizations report they have usable data, while only 9 percent believe they have a good understanding of the talent factors that drive performance.
"Diversity and inclusion: the reality gap" is the 9th trend, with 69 percent rated it as important or very important. Fairness, equity, and inclusion are now CEO-level issues around the world. Executives can no longer abdicate diversity strategies to the CHRO or chief diversity officer. A new focus on accountability, data, transparency, and "diversity through process" is driving efforts around unconscious bias training and education throughout the business community. Despite these efforts, however, we see a reality gap. Issues around diversity and inclusion continue to be frustrating and challenging for many organizations.
The last most-important-10th trend is "The future of work: the augmented workforce. Robotics, cognitive computing, and AI". Nearly 63 percent of executives identifying this issue as important or very important. Robotics, AI, sensors, and cognitive computing have gone mainstream, along with the open talent economy. Companies can no longer consider their workforce to be only the employees on their balance sheet, but must include freelancers, "gig economy" workers, and crowds. These on- and off-balance-sheet workers are being augmented with machines and software. Together, these trends will result in the redesign of almost every job, as well as a new way of thinking about workforce planning and the nature of work. Change is already taking place: In this year's survey, 41 percent of the respondents have either fully implemented or made significant process in adopting cognitive and AI technologies, and another 35 percent report pilot programs.
These new trends show us how to run an organization, to a set of new rules, which define how leading companies now think and operate.
Today, a new set of digital business and working skills is needed. Companies should focus more heavily on career strategies, talent mobility, and organizational ecosystems and networks to facilitate both individual and organizational reinvention. Organizations must look at leadership, structures, diversity, technology, and the overall employee experience in new and exciting ways.
Challenges in the Human Resource Management worldwide and in Bulgaria
Contemporary business environment brings new challenges affecting many aspects of management including one of its crucial aspects - Human Resource Management. As Katarzyna Stankiewicz states the most frequently mentioned challenges of modern HRM are: globalization, economic and legal environment, workforce diversity resulting from both globalization and demographic change, technological development, changes in educational background of employees and in their expectations regarding working conditions (Stankiewicz, 2015). These factors directly and indirectly determine human resource management strategies and the possibility of their implementation.
To describe some of the challenges for HR leaders in Bulgaria we will present some serious evidences from a research conducted in 2016 in Bulgarian industrial enterprises (Mihova, 2016). This research tackles the main problems of the management of human resources in Bulgaria, together with the factors and reasons for these problems. The results confirm the need of change in the views, mentality and attitude in HR leaders in Bulgaria (Mihova, 2016). The authors Mihova and Nikolova-Alexieva states that effective human resources management cannot exist in the above-mentioned relationship of senior management with the employees in the enterprises.
They found that the main problems in HR management standing for the Bulgarian enterprises are: recruitment and selection; performance appraisal; training and development; motivation.
Those problems found in the Bulgarian HR practice will lead to problems in the whole management for the organization. The authors suggest some guidelines for improvement such as:
- specialized training of existing professionals and attracting new, young employees with adequate training in the field of human resources management;
- implementation of an intensive relationship between the management of companies on the one hand and universities, research institutions and consulting companies on the other hand with regard to human resources management;
- the management of industrial enterprises must approach with the necessary competence for the crucial activities of assessing the work performance, training and motivation of the human resources and not doing them formally;
- training of all human resources of the company on company culture with the goal of involving people in sharing business values in anticipation of each individual's contribution to change, progress, and growing competitiveness of the company.
Conclusion
The Human Resources function is basic to the fast-paced digital transformation in every sector. Digital technologies are radically impacting the manner in which employees are being sorted for and even the attraction of the organization to highly skilled personnel. In the digital age, business practices shift from batch to real-time, retrospective to predictive, desktop to mobile, and corporate-driven to people-centric. It's time to modernize HR.
Literature
1. Mihova, T., Nikolova-Alexieva, V., Problemi pri menidzhmanta na choveshki resursi v industrialnite predpriyatiya v Balgariya, XIV Mezhdunarodna nauchna konferentsiya , "MENIDZHMANT I INZHENERING' 16", Sozopol, 19-23.06.2016;
2. Rakowska, A., Babnik, K., Human Resources Management Challenges: Learning and Development, ToKnow Press, 2015, ISBN 978-83-65020-02-4;
3. Stankiewicz, K., Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Human Resource Management, Gdansk, 2015, ISBN 978-83-62197-45-3;
4. Rewriting the rules in the digital age - Deloitte Global Human Capital trends, 2017.
