AMIDST economic pressures, demographic changes and growing skills shortages, forward thinking HR professionals across the Asia-Pacific are already focusing on talent and workforce management issues, according to an international human capital consulting firm
AMID economic pressures, demographic changes and growing skills shortages, forward thinking HR professionals across the AsiaPacific are already focusing on talent and workforce management issues, according to an international human capital consulting firm.
Bill Farrell, head of Human Capital Management Consulting at IBM, has seen a shift among HR in stronger and more competitive organisations whereby the function takes a lead role in business decisions around human capital management, as opposed to just managing the HR function.
“Arguments about the credibility of HR start to go away when HR focuses on more strategic business issues around workforce management,”he said.
“HR really needs to pull itself out of the ire of administration to really demonstrate its value, and there has been a whole shift in terms of adding value around workforce management interventions and other strategies such as blending learning and knowledge management.”
He gave the example of the head of HR for an Australian business, who recently said that issues around wage creep or remuneration processes have given way to more strategic issues such as talent and workforce management.
“That where HR needs to go to adopt a leadership position, in order to get away from the discussion that doesn’t add value and that questions the role of HR as a partner in the business,” Farrell said.
Citing a recent IBM study of CEOs, he said that many chief executives were concerned about a shortage of qualified candidates, while there was an increasing focus on high performing people and having the right leadership candidates in the business across the Asia Pacific region.
Combined with issues such as the ageing of the workforce and skills shortages, which were beginning to bite across the Asia Pacific, he said organisations were grappling with issues such as workforce competency, composition and how they can compete on a global scale.
“From the strategic end of HR, there is going to be an increasing focus on how organisations can help people apply the right skills to help improve their performance, what competencies are needed for the future and performance, talent management and succession management,” he said.
There was also a trend towards organisations trying to understand social networks, according to Farrell, whereby they could gain a competitive advantage through understanding organisational boundaries and developing an openly innovative workforce.
