Organisations built around an employee-centric design perform better
Deloitte Consulting LLP has found in its latest High Impact HR research that new workplace technologies and changing workforce expectations are creating unprecedented opportunities for HR to transform the way companies and their people interact.
Josh Bersin, Principal and Founder, Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP commented, “As companies focus on digital business transformation, they are discovering that the need to reskill, engage and improve the productivity of their people is paramount." These pressures, coupled with a shift toward employee-centric management and a renewed focus on inclusion and culture, has totally changed the focus of HR.
Demands of digitally-enabled customers with high expectations are pushing HR leaders to focus on empowerment of the workforce and transformation of the workplace to create an irresistible employee experience. Bersin's research finds the highest-performing HR teams surveyed tend to:
- Focus on a flexible and empowering workplace experience. Leading HR teams are applying design thinking and partnering with their organisation's product, sales and marketing teams to overhaul HR offerings and to create engaging employee experiences.
- Apply advanced HR technologies to help improve work, not HR processes. High-impact organisations are increasingly experimenting with and applying new digital platforms that can improve productivity, feedback and alignment among teams, rather than just automating existing processes or creating integrated systems of record with standard HR tools.
- Lead the company's digital transformation efforts. While companies have struggled to make HR relevant for many years, Bersin's research shows that high-performing companies use HR to lead the digital transformation of the company.
- Shape and drive culture. HR leaders who promote and strengthen a culture of trust, inclusion and accountability to empower learning, innovation and performance are five times more likely to make employees feel connected and valued.
- Revitalise and develop the HR function. These high-impact HR organisations are heavily focused on internal development and regularly outperform their peers in areas like analytics, artificial intelligence and data security.
Bersin concluded, “This research shows a whole different model for HR starting to be implemented around the world. These HR organisations are in a leadership and strategic role, they are actively redesigning the organisation to be more employee-centric. They are working directly with customer-facing groups, and they experiment and leverage technology to try to make work life better."
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
