PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS:The changing world of work will require new and very different attitudes both to people and to human resource management itself.
In what may be one of the cruellest ironies, the success of human resource (HR) managers in persuading their organisations of the importance of people management and development could actually spell the end of their own discipline. Indeed, while few business thinkers have proposed that marketing or finance functions may cease to exist in their present forms some are starting to say this about HR.
This led a team from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to gather at the beginning of 2007 to explore the future of people management.
The thinking was sparked by the rising profile of people issues on the business agenda.
PwC European HR services leader, Henk Van Cappelle, says: "These issues include the talent crisis, an ageing workforce in the western world, the increase in global worker mobility and the organisational and cultural issues emerging from the dramatic pace of business change in the past decade."
The PwC team wanted to explore how these issues might evolve and adapt to stay successful.
Many earlier studies have attempted to set out a vision of the workplace of the future, but the PwC aim was to understand the people challenges that will affect organisations and the implications these will have on the HR function.
The result was a research project carried out in alliance with the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation at the Saïd Business School in Oxford which identified three different scenarios which describe the way organisations might operate in the future. In addition, some 3,000 new graduates from the US, China and the UK were surveyed to test their views and expectations on the future of work.
The report which emerged from this process, Managing Tomorrow's People: The Future of Work to 2020, finds that the workers of the future expect their employers to behave responsibly.
They expect to use foreign languages at work and to work across international borders far more than previous generations. They do not, however, expect flexible hours and home working. Over a third of the UK respondents expect to be using a language other than English at work which challenges the common perception that learning languages is in decline in UK universities.
Some 90 per cent of Chinese graduates believe they will use a language other than their mother tongue.
The Unites States is the home of the most idealistic top young graduates with 90 per cent saying they will actively seek out employers whose corporate responsibility behaviour reflects their own. China is not far behind. The UK response is lower at 71 per cent.
The portfolio career is a myth according to this survey group. Some 78.4 per cent believe they will have a modest two to five employers in their careers, reinforcing the point that stability and certainty is still the first choice of many. An average 5.5 per cent of respondents expect to have more than 10 employers through their careers.
Only 5 per cent, on average, believe they will be working mainly from home. This is as high as 7.4 per cent in China, but remains a meagre 0.6 per cent in the UK. Some 75 per cent of respondents expect to work regular office hours.
"We used the scenario planning methodology pioneered by Shell in the 1970s for the project," explains Mark Carter, partner, HR services, PwC Ireland.
"They project three possible future scenarios for work. In one, business is king, one is ruled by the themes of social responsibility, and in the other, informal networks continually supplant any attempts at global domination."
The role of people management and human resources is examined in detail in each of these "worlds".
In the first scenario, competition for the right people is fierce and companies are forced to extreme lengths to get the people they want by providing increasingly sophisticated benefits packages. Through these, employees can be tied-in by "lifestyle dependency" deals where the company picks up part of the tab, not only for childcare and pension provision but also transport, food and even accommodation.
In the second, employment law drives responsible employer behaviour and in the last scenario, HR as a discrete function, has become completely obsolete.
"It is said the future is not just a place we go, but a place we partially create", comments Van Cappelle. "The challenge for employers is to create a platform for employment and talent management brave enough to look beyond the mid-term and focus on what kind of organisation they want to be 15 years from now - when today's new recruits will be leading those businesses.
"The resources that big companies will be competing for in the future, are people with the right skills, but there is a worrying lack of board-level thinking on how this challenge is to be met, especially given the dramatically changing expectations of the future workforce."
Carter adds that the supply of the right people will be critical to the success of organisations in the future.
"Companies who do not ensure the viability of their people pipeline will find themselves in trouble or even extinct over the next two decades. Those who survive the 'talent crunch' will work to get the employment deal right on an ongoing basis," he says.
Van Cappelle says that, regardless of which one of these "worlds" emerges as the dominant one in future, organisations still have to focus on people.
"The argument is not about whether the human resources function should have a place at the boardroom table," he says. "It is about the top management including the chief executive, the financial director and so on taking responsibility for people management and putting it at the centre of the organisation's agenda.
"These are the organisations which will survive and succeed in the future," he says.
