Jobs are being reconfigured in response to technological advances, and is also changing the way human resources departments work by shifting their focus from recruitment and evaluation to emphasizing employee engagement.
That's according to the "2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends" report, which examines changes already underway in the workplace as technological advancements such as artificial intelligence and robotics, in addition to a rapidly accelerating pace of change, are challenging firms to restructure how employees work and realign their tasks with new needs.
According to the report, "Organizations face a radically shifting context for the workforce, the workplace and the world of work. These shifts have changed the rules for nearly every organizational people practice, from learning to management to the definition of work itself."
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The underlying survey, which included more than 10,000 respondents from 140 countries, finds that tech is changing "the way we live, work and communicate," and at an ever-accelerating pace.
Learning to accommodate and work with artificial intelligence, mobile platforms, sensors and social collaboration systems, especially at such a breakneck pace, "causes stress for individuals as well as societies," the report says, with research indicating that "employees and organizations are more 'overwhelmed' than ever."
Companies aren't keeping pace with either technology or change, and it's reflected in their productivity; the report cites data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that, since the 2008 recession, growth in business productivity (gross domestic product per hour worked) is at its lowest rate since the early 1970s (1.3 percent).
The continually growing gap between technological sophistication and the amount of work actually performed, the study finds, is causing "income inequality, wage stagnation and social and political unrest around the world," and low-productivity companies are increasingly shut out of competition with "most stock market valuations … driven by IP and services, not by physical or capital goods."
The gap, the study says, is human capital strategies — "how businesses organize, manage, develop, and align people at work" — and HR is at the nexus of closing the gaps "among technology, individuals, businesses, and society and governments."
So even as the business of companies changes, with employee responsibilities changing to keep pace, HR will find itself transforming as well to keep up with its new mission: "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."
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