HR is slowly changing to meet the needs of knowledge-based organizations, though it appears to be missing the boat in some important areas, most notably, globalization. For Western workforces, globalization accelerates the imperative for innovation, creativity and productivity. For stewards of talent, it demands a deeper understanding of international economics, laws and culture, as well as requiring a range of new expertise.
Between July and Aug.’07, the Human Capital Institute and Vurv Technologies surveyed HR and non-HR practitioners, managers and execs from North America, Europe and Asia Pacific about their attitudes and experiences related to the role of HR in their organizations. HR appears, finally, to be gaining respect and credibility in most organizations. It is difficult to determine whether this is due to the achievements of HR or more so to the attention “talent” and human capital has been receiving over the past several years.
In the series of questions in the survey related to global talent management and business (including global sourcing of talent, foreign assignments, cross-border mergers and acquisitions and global talent-management processes and practices) HR is involved in less than one-third of global talent initiatives.
Given the importance of global business and the critical need for organizations to compete internationally for talent — including remote virtual workforce acquisition and management — it is somewhat alarming that HR is so far behind in this respect. Worse in some ways, HR is relatively unconcerned about their lack of involvement in global business matters, including outsourcing and offshoring and the need for global managers. Even though these are among the top concerns of executives, they are near the bottom of the HR agenda.
Of eighteen measures, the survey group ranked “offshoring/outsourcing” as the least worrisome by a wide margin. “Finding talent and leaders with global management skills” was the next least important issue overall. In both cases, respondents “strongly disagreed” that these would present major challenges in the coming three years.
Consistent with their response to immediate challenges, survey takers expect to prioritize talent acquisition, retention and succession planning for the next three years while de-emphasizing global workforce issues and specific measures relative to the aging workforce.
According to respondents, less than one in five assess their organization as being “well prepared” or “very well prepared” to address even their most high-priority challenges. Perhaps because the fires of recruitment and retention are burning so intensely, HR has little time for issues that may be less pressing in the short term, such as the strategies related to the management of global talent.
Lori Blackman is Founder and President, DNL Global, a talent-management solutions provider. Allan Schweyer is President and Executive Director, Human Capital Institute.
