Initially, the session focused on the key macro factors that are impacting and will continue to impact organizations and shape the future of work. The group identified four major factors: globalization, technology, consumerization, and generational differences, while also discussing their implications for HR. A brief summary of the discussion follows:

On February 2nd, 2015, CAHRS Director and Cornell Human Research Associate Professor Chris Collins and Lee Dyer, Cornell HRS Professor and Chairperson of the same Department, facilitated a Working Group (WG) session focused on Implications for the HR Function of the Future. The WG was hosted by Amgen at its Thousand Oaks, CA location and was attended by 17 individuals from 10 CAHRS partner and guest companies. These included Accenture, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boeing, Boston Scientific, Bristol Myers Squibb, The Gap, Hewlett Packard, McKesson, and the Cornell ILR School.

CAHRS Working Group—Future of Work

February2,2015—ThousandOaks,CA

Globalization. It is clear that the world will become increasingly connected over the next 10 to 20 years as the flow of products, services, talent, and knowledge continues apace across developed and developing countries. To compete and survive, an increasing number of companies will intensify their efforts to explore new market opportunities and develop business capabilities to take advantage of these markets while continuing to grow in more established venues. In turn, the emergence of new competitors, many from developing countries, will force well-established companies to continuously adapt their portfolios of products and services, as well as their business models. Implications for HR. To pursue emerging growth opportunities with ever-evolving efforts to enhance competitive advantages, companies will increasingly depend on building organizational and employee agility rather than relying on periodic change initiatives. They will find it necessary to develop the capacity to attract, develop and retain top-notch talent in emerging markets. Closer to home, they will need to ensure that employees at all levels develop great cultural sensitivity and understanding of how to operate and lead in new markets. This will require not only developing new approaches to leadership (discussed below) and new forms of organizational infrastructure, but also an enhanced ability to innovate, share knowledge, and work virtually across geographic boundaries, time zones, and languages. Technology. Technology is the wildest of the wild cards when it comes to the future of work. Already it is significantly changing the nature of many occupations, eliminating some while creating others and altering the make-up of still others. At the same time, the march of globalization is being greatly facilitated by new developments in computing and networking capability that enable employees at all levels to work virtually while easily collaborating and sharing ideas not only with each other, but also with outsiders such as partner companies, customers and suppliers. Continued advancements in globalization and technology increasingly turn work into a 24/7 reality which blurs the lines between work- and non-work lives and increases the pressures and stress on employees sometimes with unfortunate consequences for their physical and emotional well-being. Implications for HR. In an increasingly technologized world where the nature of work changes with great frequency, traditional approaches to filling jobs internally will give way to more systemic and decentralized approaches to matching talent to work and work to talent (see the discussion below). As work is redefined and talent flows increase, new, primarily online, approaches to employee development will become necessary to assure that requisite hard and soft skills are kept current. New efforts will be required to protect confidentiality and privacy as networks are expanded. Substantial investments of money and time will be required to stay on the leading-edge even though many companies

MacroFactorsAffectingtheFutureofWork

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are reluctant to make such investments when times are tough and trained employees can easily be poached by competing firms. One important aspect of this is to assure that when new technologies are adopted, efforts are also made to reduce or otherwise to mitigate the potentially negative consequences for employees and reduce the chances of burnout. Consumerization. Greater access to knowledge and information, combined with the spread of social media, encourages the development of a consumer mentality in which customers and clients feel empowered to shape their own experiences while companies are forced to adapt by customizing their products, services and solutions. These experiences increasingly are being replicated inside organizations as employees, and particularly younger employees (see below) come to see consumerization and customization as guiding principles on which to base the employer/employee relationship. Implications for HR. In this new model, employees expect to have a greater say in shaping the content of their assignments, their goals, and even their work environments when it comes to issues such as where and when to work. Companies will find it necessary to cut back on the number of one-size- fits-all policies and practices in their arsenals in favor of overall greater flexibility and in particular the capacity to be ever more responsive to subordinates’ individual needs and wants. Leaders and managers will find it necessary to become better at understanding employees as individuals by developing deeper relationships with them and engaging them in genuine dialogue around work, goals, and processes, as well as more personal matters. Generational Differences. Most organizations currently have four generations in their workforce: Traditionalists/Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y/Millennials — with some starting to see a fifth (Generation Z – those born in 1997 and later). While there are many similarities across generations and not all members of a given generation are the same, nonetheless some key differences seem to resonate across generations in terms of working styles, approaches to collaboration, communication, and decision-making, as well as expectations regarding feedback and rewards and the pace of promotions. In particular, the dominant values among Generation X seem already to be major factors in shaping the future of work. Implications for HR. Nearly all traditional HR practices are coming under scrutiny as companies find it particularly difficult to motivate young people and to retain this talent long enough to recoup investments made in their development. In broad terms, many if not most Gen Yers feel entitled to jobs, projects and experiences that are tailored in a way that they (as consumers) find personally meaningful. They expect to have a voice about and involvement in a wide range of business issues which in turn requires greater transparency to facilitate participative decision-making and frequent, often instantaneous, feedback on how things are working out. HR policies and practices that are built around long-term cycles and patience (e.g., annual performance reviews, lock-step leadership development programs, and extended succession plans) just don’t cut it. As leaders and managers are feeling the pressure to individualize everything and to coach and mentor (and even to be reverse-mentored), organizations are finding that some of them will and can adapt while others will not and do not. This, in turn, creates the need not only to change the way these folks are selected, but also to redefine how they are assessed, developed, and rewarded.

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Subsequently, attendees turned their attention to drilling more deeply into the leadership issues alluded to earlier. This discussion covered a wide range of issues regarding new models of leadership and new leadership competencies, assessment of potential leaders, and development and training of leaders. New Leadership Models and Competencies. There was pretty strong agreement in the group that globalization, technology, consumerization, and generational issues are having a significant impact on what is expected of leaders. This is especially true with respect to behavioral changes that are required to engage and motivate Gen Y employees. New competencies that will become increasingly important include the ability to listen and involve employees; sensitivity to other cultures and perspectives; ability to communicate through different mediums (email, text, social networks, face-to-face); ability to coach and mentor; ability to assess and develop talent for new and changing jobs; and personal agility. Essentially, future leaders and managers will be required to abandon the command and control mindset that relies so heavily on structure and defined outcomes and goals. Instead they will be required to lead in ever-changing environments with growing numbers of employees who demand greater flexibility and fluidity, not to mention customized treatment based on the understanding that comes from deep personal connections. There will still be a need for deep technical expertise, but this will become only a necessary and not sufficient factor for success. Future leaders will be required to be well-versed on the use and application of emerging technologies, while also deftly handling the (what often might seem to them outrageous) expectations of up to five different generations of employees. And they often will have to do this with a geographically diverse workforce whose members are only remotely connected to each other and to them. Leadership Assessment and Development Challenges. Assessing leadership potential and providing appropriate mixes of learning and development opportunities have always been major challenges for companies. They will become even more difficult in the future as leadership requirements continually change and good talent continues to be in short supply. Virtually all companies, for example, will be required to revise their leadership competency models and processes for assessing leadership potential to put a greater emphasis on so-called softer competencies such as coaching, cultural sensitivity, empathy, emotional intelligence, and personal agility. Further, traditional methods of leadership development will have to give way to the increasing reliance on self-development using judicious mixes of easy access to just-in-time resources on the one hand and on-the job experiences on the other. Again, these changes will play out in contexts characterized by unprecedented levels of diversity and dispersion. Accelerating learning curves for Leaders. Of particular note with respect to leadership development was the heavy emphasis participants in the session placed on the increasing need to shorten the learning curves of leaders at all organizational levels This is especially a challenge in growth markets and in functions and geographic regions where large numbers of retirements are looming. To date, it appears, few if any organizations have cracked the code on this issue.

ImpactonLeadershipandDevelopmentofLeaders

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While HR has always played a major role in the assessment of talent and the matching of internal and external applicants to job opportunities, this task also is becoming increasingly difficult. There are a number of reasons for this. First, companies are facing rapidly changing markets leading to frequent shifts in the types of talent required and the locations in which it is required. Second, employees, as we have noted, increasingly want to work on projects and assignments they find personally interesting and challenging and at times and in places of their own choosing. Also, in many cases these employees have relatively short tenure with and commitment to their organizations. In fact, many may not be employees at all, but rather free agents on short-term assignments as temps or contract workers. The Working Group participants noted several potential opportunities and challenges here. Several, for example, mentioned that their companies were working on ways to create more opportunities to push employees into often short-term stretch assignments even when the individuals involved may not have all of the required competencies. This obligates HR to take on a strong advocacy role in favor of developing internal talent over the hiring of outsiders. This has the potential to put HR in opposition to the objections of line managers who naturally are always looking for those who are “ready now” and who may have a tendency to judge insiders more harshly than external candidates. Further, several participants mentioned that they are looking for better ways to match talent to roles and projects. Currently, many companies use some form of computerized internal bidding process where managers identify open positions for which qualified and interested employees can then apply. Some, especially those with considerable project work or other types of short-term assignments, are beginning to push the boundaries on this. Here employees who are between assignments are encouraged to self-identify to managers or teams that might have use for their skills, or in some cases even to create new projects where they can put their skills to work productively. We were told of an extreme case in which an organization is experimenting with developing cultural profiles of teams and units and encouraging employees to self-select into those cultures that fits their personal proclivities. As mentioned previously, virtually every company these days is making fairly extensive use of various types of temporary employees or contractors in response to their ever-changing talent needs and the desire of an apparently increasing number of individuals to adopt work patterns that provide greater flexibility and personal control. Some companies are taking this a step further by experimenting with ways to replicate this development among current employees as a means of engaging them in work, developmental opportunities, and work-life situations that they find more personally meaningful and desirable. Finally, most participants noted that they were increasingly focused on alternative development opportunities and career paths for younger employees in particular as a means of increasing both the speed with which they grow and the level of their engagement with work. To this end, many noted a tendency to downplay strict vertical movements in favor of an increased use of horizontal movements, short-term project assignments, and even reverse-mentoring opportunities.

MatchingCompetenciestoOpportunities

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This Summary Report was prepared by Chris Collins and Lee Dyer for use by participants of the CAHRS Future of Work Working Group and CAHRS partner organizations. The Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) is an international center serving corporate human resources leaders and their companies by providing critical tools for building and leading high performing HR organizations. CAHRS’ mission is to bring together Partners and the ILR School’s world-renowned HR Studies faculty to investigate, translate and apply the latest HR research into practice excellence.