HR Trends to Watch Out for in 2017: The Future is Here

Year 2017 is looming and it is time to focus on what the industry will be like in the coming year. The year 2016 has been great for HR practices but this means the coming year should be even more exciting. I would like to look at some of the new trends that are going to surface in 2017. Here are some trends I feel will make big sense in the coming year. Feel free to add to this list. Bouquets and brickbats are welcome.

The increasing social media popularity and use of technology cause organizations to redefine their HR roles to help businesses function at their best.As HR professionals, we constantly try to make innovations that stem from visible challenges. So, what innovations can the industry expect from the rolling new year?

1. The Future of HR is No HR

The statement given by Mike Ettlling, President, HR line of business at SAP Success Factors created great buzz in the industry, “The Future of HR is no HR”. With this statement, he suggested that HR departments in a majority of organizations still define themselves by transactional back-office processes, which should be put to an end in the upcoming years.

Hence, in the year 2017, Human Resource department will move its focus to strategic as well as tactical roles; eliminate functional work to avoid complexities and adopt automated approach that can be integrated with the core business processes.

Ettling explains, “The more we can free our time for strategic tasks, the more we will transform the role of HR, with little resemblance to what it is today. Hence, the future of HR is . . . no HR.”

2. Organization will move core HR to Cloud Technology

While cloud transformation has already begun in the HR industry, a large percentage of companies still rely on in-premises HR systems. This has been causing various security issues for the organizations leading to crucial data loss. Hence, companies in the coming years seems to move HR systems to public cloud at a rapid speed. Such a migration to the cloud is also because companies want to reduce dependency on IT as it is easy to maintain and allows easy implementation. By 2020, cloud technology is expected to completely dominate the HR-IT industry.

3. The Impact of IoTon HCM

According to a Pew Research titled ‘The Internet of Things Will Thrive by 2025’,industry leaders have given some interesting ideas on how we will be using gadgets as an integral part of our lives but we will be bumbling in the process. According to Cisco, there will be 50 billion internet-connected devices in 2020. Gartner also estimated that there could be a total of 6.4 billion connected devices using IoT by the end of 2016 alone.

The good thing is that even Human Resource will greatly benefit from IoT. Everyone will be on devices and the world will be more inter-connected. These devices will have a deep impact on our personal and professional lives. Hence, IoT will dominate in Human Resource as ‘a wave of digital enhancements’ which will play an important role in recruiting, employee management, scheduling and paying the new hyper-connected employees.

4. Technologies that will be on the HCM Forefront

HR professionals and managers will focus greatly on improving employee experience and engagement. With the changing dynamics in business models, functioning and new streams of operations in place, there is likely to be a dearth of the new age required skill set. This has made it supremely urgent to hone and nurture in-house talent to create leaders within the team. Organizations, therefore, will be looking more closely at the skills of individual employees and find ways by which they can be turned into more cost effective through in-house training and learning.HR Technology systems that offer novel functionalities in talent management will act as powerful tools for the HR professionals and line managers for making the standalone processes more integrated, scalable, extensible and transparent.

5. The game of big data

Big Data has become a very popular buzzword in the last few years. It is expected to empower human resources to make more informed business decisions. Further, this will help them to better understand the current and future market trends in order to be prepare for the contingencies.Organizations would make use of predictive and prescriptive analysis through big data in order to generate insights for HR professionals and streamline the chaos.

What do you think are going to be the big trends in HR tech next year? You can share your ideas on my Twitter handle @JaiHasrajani  or leave them as a comment below.

(Jai Hasrajani is a multiple award-winning entrepreneur with interests in HR consulting, software product development and skill development. He is also the CEO and Co-Founder of ValeurHR)