At the end of May 2017, Professor Lisbeth Claus was welcomed by HRbuilders at its headquarters in Ghent. As a personal friend of HRbuilders’ Captain Katrien Devos, Lisbeth has agreed to host a breakfast session and an exclusive dinner for HRbuilders’ community to share her expertise in global and progressive HR. Here, we share an article on the breakfast session.
Belgian born, American by choice, Lisbeth Claus has become a Global HR expert and an acclaimed, sought after speaker for international HR conferences. She has been a keynote speaker at SHRM and was awarded the EMMA award for research of the year. Last year, the IT HR Roundtable/Global HR Consortium announced the creation of the Lisbeth Claus Trail Blazer Award in honour of Lisbeth’s lifelong dedication to the development of the global HR profession around the world.
Lisbeth keeps her finger on the pulse at all times, ready to connect the dots of what companies and HR can (should) do to tackle disruption. After her visit to Ghent, we are now at least one step closer to #TheFutureOfHR! Are you part of an old paradigm company, doing more of what they were doing and spending more money doing it better? Take note of our key learnings:
Imagine #TheFutureOfWork…
- with future workers applying for a job without a CV!
- with employees being hired without being interviewed by anyone.
- without performance reviews: 60%(!) of US companies have abolished the annual performance appraisal. Nobody likes them, they’re a waste of time and we’re very biased anyway…
- with algorithms predicting who will leave the company.
- with employees having unlimited time off.
- with employers without employees.
- with HR generalists being replaced by chatbots.
80% of what HR people are doing today, will no longer be done by them in 5 or even 1 year (!)
We’re headed towards total HR disruption
With systems already strained, we need a whole new conversation as we are moving to the gig economy. We’re confronted with huge demographic pressures: people are living to 105 years old, companies are crippled by enormous youth unemployment, robotisation is pushing lots of unskilled workers towards unemployment, globalization with persistent low interest rates and mass migration of labour.
The only way to be able to pay for social security is to pay workers less and have them work longer.
No other solutions exist! Human labour will be displaced by technology because work will always flow to where it can be done at the lowest cost and in the most efficient way.
That’s why we need new working life scenarios
Changing careers due to (in)voluntary disruptions or setbacks, constantly re-creating yourself - although not yet socially accepted - will be key to building a resilient global career in #TheFutureOfWork.
This leaves employees and workers overwhelmed (working 24/7),fearful, (I will have to work ‘forever’) highly disengaged and so less productive (productivity has not increased over the past 20 (!) years, unprepared for change and transitions and in total lack of the new tangible and intangible skills required.
The HR disruption challenge
It’s a shared responsibility to overcome this disruption challenge:
- the individual: you have to be able and willing to take care of yourself!
- HR and the employer
- government and society
The first industrial revolution was all about utility, the second about productivity, the third about engagement and the 4th is about experience!
It’s high time for HR analytics, behavioural economics, agile management and design thinking!
Towards a new HR architecture and a new HR stack
Companies need to change their value proposition, build a new organizational architecture and develop an adapted HR stack:
1) Return of the HR value >> enter employee experience
- Companies should find the sweet spot where the employer’s expectations and the expectations of the employees meet
- Companies need to evolve from an implementer and developer of policies and procedures to a designer or architect of experiences
2) The new HR architecture: no one-size-fits-all
- Companies need to design a productive and meaningful employee experience in their physical (20%),technological (20%) and cultural (60%) environment
- And this is not only the job of HR, this is everybody’s job! Also co-workers and colleagues can have a positive or negative impact on your experience at work.
People don’t quit companies, they quit people: their bosses, also their colleagues (!)
The HR architecture design is agile: personalized - Responsive – Transparent – Simple and Authentic
3) a new HR stack
We need a new HR stack: traditional HR which will always remain important can be learned online. It has to be topped off with progressive HR with 4 building blocks:
- HR analytics (statistics)
- behavioural economics (psychology and economics)
- agile management
- design thinking
And every building block has tools that can be used by HR: personas, scrum, user stories, social demographics, rapid prototyping, employee experience maps, touchpoint moments of truth, nudging, data mining,…
So where do we go from here?
How do you become a progressive HR workplace leader?
- Focus on the culture (EVP)
- Be customer-centric and manage the employee experience
- Re-engineer the physical environment
- Embrace and embed technology
- Integrate knowledge from other managerial disciplines
- Use data to drive decisions
- Test prototypes
- Link HR activities to the (micro, meso and macro) context
- Keep the ‘H’ in HR
Want to learn more?
Be sure to check the livestream of a big part of Lisbeth’s interactive talk which we will be sharing on our HRbuilders’ YouTube channel.
Tired of talking about it and ready to take action?
Then you are definitely an HR rebel and you should join our #HRBootcamp this fall.
We're cooking up the program and sifting through our network to prepare the second edition of our #HRbootcamp as we speak. For a taste of what's to come, check out last year's program and thought leaders. Want more info > reach out to us!
Thanks Lisbeth for the inspiring day!
Source: HRBuilders https://www.hrbuilders.eu/en/blog/how-to-become-a-progressive-hr-leader-breakfast-session-hrdinner-with-lisbeth-claus
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