HUMAN RESOURCES to be the ‘Center of Organizational Excellence’ (COE) that will leave its footprints on the organization’s growth by influencing best human capital outcomes. This COE will thus not be one of the departments that are different from other departments but rather will be a ‘CENTER’ of an organization’s energy and vitality.

In the coming years, key drivers that will work as a catalyst for change in the HR operating model will be largely dictated by the change in the workforce demographics. They are:

• Unprecedented economic change – this calls for increased productivity
• Employees challenges – need for a more responsive workforce
• Different technology for different generation – use of technological and social enablers will increase
• Change in the Talent Management agenda – retention will be the focus
• Evolution of the HR Vendor Market and services – achieving a balance between better tools, data and value for money

The primary focus of COE leaders will be promoting excellence in outcomes and authenticity in the employer-employee relationship by changing the mental models. This will mean moving from a process oriented approach to a practice oriented outlook. It will have less to do with techniques but more to do with developing philosophy.

There will be a clear shift in the domains that this COE will handle. Such professionals will be thoughtful players who will be competent subject matter experts; sensitive to gauge what is absent in addition to analyzing what is present. And lastly be courageous professionals who will not deter from taking the right actions at the right time.

The change in the HR approach can be summarized as below:

Though the domain in which Human Resource professionals will operate will not change, but the activities that they perform will undergo a stark change. Some new trends that will emerge are of talent enrichment, which will serve the dual purpose of multi skilling the workforce and secondly be an anchor to retain key talent. As globalization gathers further momentum, the workforce will be scattered across the globe compelling organizations to become virtual organizations. As the transaction based activities will be outsourced to external vendors, a crucial aspect of the job will be managing these vendors and getting the best out of them.

In short, the activities that will fall in their domain are depicted as below:

To execute this strategy, HR professionals will have to play three major roles that of: Enabler for realizing uncovered or untapped potential, Designer who will be the architect of the organization’s future and Educator who will promote accellerichment (accelerated learning for talent enrichment).