HR PROFESSIONALS – MEETING THE FUTURE WORLD OF WORK

In this two-part series, Jaen Beelders, Director and Head of Analytics Business Stream at 21st Century, and Elmen Lamprecht, Consultant at 21st Century outline the skills that will be required by present-day HR Professionals – for now and into the future.

“Skills required by all contemporary HR Professionals

Due to the increasing automated and digitized world in which HR professionals need to serve their stakeholders, as well as the added intricacy of a VUCA environment, all HR professionals will need to upskill and reskill themselves to meet the challenges of this Future World of Work. 

This article discusses the seven skillsets required by all contemporary HR Professionals.

Skillset 1 – Digital Literacy

HR professionals must become more digitally inclined and analytical to deliver more value to all business stakeholders. As HR Technology is becoming more specialised and entwined in HR processes, HR Departments are taking control of their own technology strategy in partnership with ICT Departments. For this reason, HR professionals need to understand how HR systems (e.g., front-end, back-end, databases) work and how systems integrate with one another.

Additionally, as workplace demographics change from Baby Boomers and Gen X towards Gen Z and Millennials, a wide range of HR processes and employee experiences are expected to be available online to accommodate the digital customer experience that younger workers tend to prefer. HR professionals need to be proficient in working with different systems being deployed on various platforms (laptop, tablet, smart phone).

Skillset 2 – Data Analytics

HR Departments already deal with excessive amounts of data. In a few years’ time, when all HR processes have been digitized and artificial intelligence has entered mainstream HR, the volumes of data will only increase further. Therefore, HR professionals must become highly literate in data management and data hygiene, learning the necessary skills to process, produce, sanitise and leverage digital information. 

More importantly, HR Professionals also need to learn how to exploit data to support better decision making within the business. This requires advanced data analytics skills, including advanced Microsoft excel skills. Although advanced People Analytics will be the responsibility of the HR Data Scientists, every HR professional will be required to create and interpret their own reports applicable to their role and department.

Skillset 3 – Commercial Awareness

Future HR professionals must be able to directly contribute to the strategy and financial success of the organisation.  They must have a clear understanding of their organisation’s business model and the challenges it faces. Beyond understanding profit and loss, HR professionals must understand the strategic direction and the economic and social environment in which the organisation operates.

By having an in-depth knowledge of the organisation’s intended strategic direction, the organisation creates value. HR professionals must have the skills to deploy the entire employee lifecycle to increase this value for both internal and external stakeholders.

Skillset 4 – Critical Thinking

A study by the World Economic Forum report has found that Business Leaders believe that critical thinking is one of the most important skills for the Future of Work. Two applications of critical thinking are particularly important for HR professionals.

Firstly, they must have the necessary skillsets to objectively analyse and evaluate proposed business strategies and present new insights by making connections between employee behaviour and business success that other departments might have missed.

Secondly, as custodians of the organisation’s most important asset – People – HR professionals must employee design thinking to ensure that every business process is human-centred at its core.  Through design thinking, HR professionals will be able to continuously improve HR processes, policies and procedures by focusing on the people for which all of this is created for.

Skillset 5 – Situational Judgement and Ethics

It is true that HR must always deal with the tricky situations that line management want to avoid. From dealing with inappropriate behaviour, such as sexual harassment or bullying in the workplace, to managing an increasingly diverse workforce made up of people from different cultures, religions and generations – HR professionals need the situational judgement and ethical skills required to meet these challenges successfully.

Skillset 6 - Stakeholder management

As the HR function is moving away from an administrative role into a strategic role, it requires HR professionals to strengthen the skills employed to influence decisions and manage stakeholders, such as:

• Proposal writing
• Report writing
• Advanced PowerPoint
• Presentation & facilitation skills
• Managing online meetings
• Skillset 7 – Marketing

Although this skillset is particularly relevant for HR professionals that are involved in talent acquisition and employee engagement, all HR professionals need these skills to successfully engage candidates and employees.

Understanding how to position the employer brand and Employer Value Proposition (EVP) in an attractive way is vital for anyone responsible for attracting new talent into the organisation. This involves understanding brand management principles and copywriting, as the responsibility involves writing content such as job advertisements. Additionally, marketing principles such as market segmentation (identifying the right candidate target market) and understanding how to use the various channels available to the University to get its message out to its target market (including job portals and social media) is a vital skill. HR professionals should have.

The HR professional will need to leverage the connection between Employee Experience (EX), Customer Experience (CX), and User Experience (UX) is another marketing skill that allows HR to successfully engage and retain talent within their organisations. Learning the skills necessary to ensure that every employee interaction, whether an email or a face-to-face meeting, contributes positively to the employer brand is of vital importance.

The second piece will present the skills required to capacitate HR staff to comfortably manage their HR analytics reporting.”

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About 21st Century
21st Century, a level 2 BBBEE company, is one of the largest Remuneration and HR consultancies in Africa, with a team of more than 60 skilled specialists, servicing over 1700 clients – including non-profit organisations, unlisted companies, government, parastatals and over two-thirds of the companies listed on the JSE. 21st Century offers bespoke business and strategy planning services, operating model and organisational design, creative reward practice modelling, change, stakeholder and culture management, training courses and comprehensive human capital and talent plans. These are all underpinned by our analytic and survey capability tailored to the African environment. 21st Century continues to offer solutions via a combination of virtual channels and on-site presence. 

21st Century has expanded its services to offer a full turnkey sustainable business and remuneration service. Beyond remuneration and reward consulting, 21st Century offers local analytics for business advantage; remuneration and HR training; change management services; talent and people solutions; and end-to-end organisational design and development.

Issued By: The Lime Envelope
On Behalf Of: 21st Century
For Media Information: Bronwyn Levy
Telephone: 076 078 1723
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