India Employer Forum

Human Capital

Transforming Human Capital

  • By: India Employer Forum
  • Date: 18 November 2020

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The world of work is mostly driven by technology and innovation. In the face of this rapidly changing landscape, organizations struggle to maintain a balance between human capital and innovative technology. Discussions around humans and technology often take separate paths. But the 2020 Global Human Capital Trends report published by Deloitte seems to challenge this notion. Here are some of the leading human capital trends the report posits can benefit organizations.

A human approach to compensation

According to a recent report by PayScale, retention, recruitment, and in-demand skills are the three factors behind compensation adjustments. This approach to compensation is reactive. Organizations need to have a full-on proactive compensation reform to improve workforce productivity.

Unlike a reactive compensation strategy that is based on the radical transformation of job roles, increasing pressure to ensure transparency, and compensation fairness, the future of human capital lies around a proactive compensation strategy designed around a set of human-focused principles. It’d be informed by the individual contributions of employees and ensure a fair living wage.

You might also be interested to read: Importance of Strategic Human Capital Plan

Belonging as a driver of workplace performance

Many factors influence employee performance in an organization and belongingness is one of them – perhaps the most important factor. The workplace environment determines whether or not employees feel like they belong, and it’s essential to reimagining human capital.

The majority (93%) of the study’s respondents in Deloitte’s reports agree that belonging improves organizational performance. They also stated that organizational culture (43%), leadership behavior (33%), and personal relationship (24%) promotes belonging in the workplace.

Another report published by BetterUp in 2019 drew a strong connection between belonging and workforce productivity. It found that when employees feel like they belong, their job performance increases by 56%.

Belonging requires the complete and total inclusion of an employee in the workforce. But the workforce is very segregated, making building workforce resilience challenging. The increased proliferation of (and the dependence on) technology can further aggravate a sense of isolation among workers.

To tackle this, organizations must seek to improve collaboration among employees. There are tools organizations can leverage that promote communication and cooperation among employees.

Perennial workforce and the evolution of leadership

It’s a common practice among organizations to divide the demography of their work, workforce, and workplace by generation. And this forms the basis on which they build their workforce strategy as regards leadership and learning. 

Many HR professionals are beginning to abolish this trend. 42% of the managers surveyed believe that, in three years, an attitude-based approach will be the most important factor in workforce segregation. 27% of the managers reported that their organizations have begun to adopt this.

Subsequently, as upskilling and reskilling continues to take center stage, the future of human capital will be defined by these new skills. And this will become a defining constant within the workforce. However, generational differences, which influence an employee’s expectations and values, will remain relevant for the next decade.

With only 6% of managers capable of leading a multigenerational workforce, there’s the need to evaluate and revise their styles of leadership. The use of command and control styles must give way for a more efficient leadership style that has emotional intelligence, empathy, communication, and collaboration as its centerpiece. Also, managers need to change the learning methods of perennials to prepare them for the new and emerging workplace environment.

Reference: 3 leading trends from the 2020 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Decoded | Puja Lalwani | June 16, 2020

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