Every year, Deloitte conducts an extensive study on the emerging and prevailing trends in human capital and the future of work. Each year, the post we write on our HR blog about that report is always one of the most popular. In 2020, the Human Capital Trends Report highlights an intensifying combination of economic, social, and political issues impacting HR and business leaders. These factors continue to put pressure on businesses to operate in a more socially oriented manner (a continuation of 2019's trend, which we covered in a previous HR blog post), and to reinvent their organisations around a more ethical and human focus. Let's take a look at the highlights of this year's report and discover the HR metrics that matter in 2020 and beyond.

Automation will certainly change human resources as we know it, but the impact will reach far beyond the HR department to encompass the entire employee lifecycle. Organisations that manage such transformation successfully will be those in which leaders and HR professionals recognise what tasks machines can do significantly better than humans and automate only those tasks. Focusing human effort on activities that humans do best will result in a happier, more engaged and more productive workforce overall. Designing such an organisation requires a much longer-term people strategy (one that goes beyond the usual succession planning), coupled with transparent dialogue with the existing workforce about the benefits of automation on what it means for them. This Blog in the HR automation series explores the broader implications that automation will have on leadership, employees and the entity of the organisation itself.

Apparently you can’t solve the ‘how to automate work’ problem by thinking solely about automation replacing jobs. This is the premise behind Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work by Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson, and John Boudreau, professor and Research Director at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and Center for Effective Organisations. Based on their decades of experience helping companies transform approaches to work and leadership, Reinventing Jobs offers a new set of tools for applying automation and artificial intelligence in today’s organisations. In this Blog we will examine the 4-Step framework for applying automation to work outlined by Jesuthasan and Boudreau, who believe that 'simply asking which humans will be replaced by automation fails to take into account how work and automation will evolve.' Now let's continue our exploration of this series on whether to automate or not to automate tasks and processes across the employee lifecycle.

The technological revolution has brought with it both hope and fear, excitement and trepidation. The jury is still out on whether the advances that technology enables will be overwhelmingly positive or negative. The reality is that it we humans need to take responsibility for making well informed, intelligent decisions about how we use and apply technology in our lives to ensure that the results are positive. Nowhere is that more relevant than in the workplace. Over the next few weeks, we will be doing a deep dive into HR automation to unpack the latest research, best practice and trends about how to apply HR automation to the employee lifecycle. This blog series will highlight what every leader and HR professional needs to be aware of in order to make those fully informed decisions about HR automation so as to ensure that the effects those decisions have on employees and the workforce generally, create positive results for all parties. Not to mention for the future of HR and the future of work.

Every year, Deloitte conducts an extensive study on the emerging and prevailing trends in human capital and the future of work. Each year, the post we write on our HR blog about that report is always one of the most popular. In 2019, the Human Capital Trends Report highlights an intensifying combination of economic, social, and political issues impacting HR and business leaders. These factors continue to put pressure on businesses to operate in a more socially oriented manner (a continuation of 2018's trend, which we covered in a previous HR blog post), and to reinvent their organisations around a more human focus. Let's take a look at the highlights of this year's report and how to prepare for the future of work.

According to HRD's annual research, CEOs across the Asia-Pacific are empowering their HR teams with increasing budgets to purchase HR tech platforms and systems. 74% of HR professionals surveyed said they were planning to increase their spend on HR tech over the next 12 months. With more virtual working arrangements and tech savvy employees than ever before, HR departments are working to keep up with the pace of change, looking to tools like technology to help manage that change. However, HR technology can bring with it a set of issues that HR professionals are (and will continue to) grapple with, including AI, machine learning, implementation and how to manage future workforces. This HR Blog will examine the HR tech issues you need to consider in your business and how to mitigate them going forward.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, building a successful career required young people to learn core technical skills for an occupation, and gradually broaden their skills and experience over time. This is what it meant historically to be ‘work smart’. Today, automation and globalisation have led to a loud, compelling and quite different narrative about the future of work, and it is fair to say that career paths appear more complicated. Media reports warn on an increasingly frequent rotation that “robots are coming to take your jobs”. Parents, carers and young people read these reports with rising concern: what occupations will be around in 2030 that a student today can train for? According to the Foundation for Young Australians, today’s 15-year-olds will likely navigate 17 changes in employer across 5 different careers. They will sometimes be self-employed, at other times working with and for others. Clearly, we need a new understanding of what it means to be ‘work smart’ and that new understanding doesn't just apply to today's students, it applies to all of us. This week's HR Blog explores multiple perspectives from which to consider and prepare your organisation for the future of work.