HR as Curators of Skills

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

We welcome our latest new writer to the blog; although Mervyn Dinnen couldn’t be described as a new writer as I am sure many of you will already know and read Mervyn’s numerous blog posts.  Today he looks at the workforce of the future. (Ed Scrivener)

HR as Curators of Skills

“The world is moving forward exponentially. We are preparing students for a world that we don't know, for jobs that haven't been created yet, and many that don't yet exist, using technology that has yet to be invented”

My son is in his A Level year and I’ve recently been accompanying him on university visits. Given the current levels of unemployment amongst the under 25s it’s not surprising that employability plays a big part in the open day presentations. There is usually an impressive list of jobs that alumni have obtained over the last 4 years and a wide variety of career paths that people with a particular degree have followed.

The quote above was taken from one of them. It was from a slide -as a regular conference blogger/tweeter I invariably have a tablet ready to take notes, even in a presentation such as this!

For me it also sums up an interesting conundrum for HR when it comes to attracting tomorrow’s workforce. Several of our businesses don’t yet know what jobs they will be recruiting for in 5 years’ time, or what skills they will need to find.

One thing we do pretty much know is that our workforces will become more flexible, so the need to be able to find, engage and keep in touch with a range of skills will become vital.

Last year I was at a two day conference and saw Heidrick & Struggles present their global talent report, which included a look ahead to 2015 and beyond. One of their key predictions was that today’s entrants in to the job market will have had at least 14 jobs by the time they are 38 – which is probably correct given the fragmented, part time, project nature of many of today’s roles.

It did lead me to wonder where the leaders of tomorrow will come from. How someone who shifts between so many roles/projects will acquire the capabilities to lead a business or function. I had the opportunity to facilitate an unconference session the following day and threw this out to a dozen senior HR people.

The conversation was interesting. Starting with today’s graduate recruitment and current staff projections and gaps, we then thought ahead. A lot of today’s pre-occupations – culture, engagement, talent development and staff retention – would be very different in a flexible workforce where people would be working on a project basis, remotely and possibly internationally. Being engaged for their proven skills rather than a track record of positions, and possibly using contracts that bind them to an outcome not an employer.

The conclusion we drew was:

‘Maybe in the future HR will be curators of skills, not developers of skills’

There is little doubt in my mind that HR will need take on an increasing workload of workforce planning, becoming the people who know how to put together project teams for a whole range of tasks. They will also be the link between the business and the outsourced workforce.

I can’t believe that businesses will continue indefinitely to pay third party recruiters for temporary or flexible staff, particularly on hourly or daily mark-up/margin basis. It will be within the HR function that relationships with individuals are maintained, necessary skills are identified and validated and outcomes are monitored.

And I’m pretty sure that the necessary organisational transformation from a predominantly employed workforce to a largely flexible one will keep most HR professionals occupied.

So those are some of my thoughts on HR and the future workforce…let me know what you think

Read about Mervyn and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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