HR Professional - December/January 2008 - (Page 11)

LEADERSHIP M AT T E R S BY DEBBIE BENNETT DEVELOPING PEOPLE, BUILDING ADVANTAGE e don’t need to dust off our crystal balls to see what the future holds for HR. It’s not hard to imagine what the issues will be. As HR professionals, we are already seeing the consequences of a shrinking talent pool and an increasingly globalized world. A spring 2008 report, Creating People Advantage, by the Boston Consulting Group, looks at how to tackle HR challenges of the next seven years. The authors surveyed 4,700 HR professionals worldwide, including 758 from Canada. The respondents discuss the problems we’d expect—talent shortages, demographic changes, globalization, the need for HR metrics and building credibility in the organization. They also talked about how to raise HR’s proﬁle. “HR managers often can’t quantify their successes. Our hope is that this report will help rectify that shortcoming, raise the proﬁle of HR to its proper place in the corporate hierarchy, and enable companies to start to create a sustainable people advantage,” it begins. As we all know, people power is, more than ever, linked to the success of organizations. And that will only continue to grow. As the report points out: “Those who can create the ‘people advantage,’ which is the ability to gain competitive advantage through people strategies, will race ahead of their competitors.” W Defining the critical issues The survey identiﬁed speciﬁc topics that our profession felt needed the most immediate and greatest attention: managing talent, improving leadership development, managing change and cultural transformation, managing demographics, becoming a learning organization and managing globalization. From my point of view, managing talent, anticipating change and improving leadership are the top three. Survey respondents, in all countries except South Korea, rated managing talent as most urgent. w w w.H RThoughtLeader. c om With the workforce graying, employers need to take a long view of how many employees they require, what skills they must have and when they will need them. Talent will soon be scarcer than funding while at the same time, individuals will have more and more employment options. As employees increasingly exercise their ability to decide where they want to work on the basis of more than just money, employers need to communicate their values and their plans for the future activity of the ﬁrm, as it will determine the future activities of the employees. Compensation must include non-traditional and non-economic features to suit lifestyle choices of potential and current employees. Employers and HR departments will be driven to ever-increasing ﬂexibility in their approach to career paths, schedules and health management. To improve leadership, all players need to understand that companies are complex social systems that require clarity of purpose and direction. Organizations will have real advantage if leaders can add value through managerial engagement. Leaders must serve as role models and developers of people who in turn become engaged. We must also be nimble when it comes to these workplace changes. As the pace quickens, managing organizational and cultural change will become two of the most critical capabilities for HR professionals and other leaders. Change is like the Canadian winter. To enjoy it, you have to embrace it. So embrace change, and lead your organization, your culture and your corporate leaders to success. You may ﬁnd it exhilarating. Debbie Bennett, CHRP, is chair of HRPA’s board of directors. D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 / J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9 11 http://www.HRThoughtLeader.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - December/January 2008

HR Professional - December/January 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Upfront Legal Compensation Human Capital Talent Management The R-Word Speak No Evil On Message Strategy HR 101 Interview with Donna Wilson Off the Shelf The Last Word

HR Professional - December/January 2008

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