Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/234597
HR Forecast "What is keeping HR up at night these days is talent acquisition, management, and retention." – Jessica Miller-Merrell As another year launches, two major forces—the hunt for skill sets aligned with strategic priorities and the use of technology to assist people to perform at topnotch productivity—are colliding to redefine the workplace and the role of HR. These trends and other evidence in recent years, including the expanded reliance on contingent labor, the acquisition of innovative startup HR software firms by larger players, and the move toward more balanced shoring strategies, are solidifying in 2014. Yesterday's HR environment is increasingly yesterday's. That's the message from several top consultants and other astute observers of the HR space. "There are extraordinary technological innovations happening that are altering not just the physical workplace, but how people prefer to be working," says Jessica Miller-Merrell, CEO of Xceptional HR, a Mountain View, Calif.-based HR consulting firm. "More and more companies are leveraging such tools as video, mobility, big data, social sourcing, and the cloud to redefine how, when, and where employees work," she explains. "Keeping up with these innovations is increasingly the price of entry to recruit talented skill sets, particularly from the Millennial generation, tomorrow's business leaders." A recent report from expense management software provider Concur affirms these points. "Tasks that previously required employees to clock in and spend hours at their desks making phone calls, shuffling paper and physically meeting with colleagues can now be done anywhere in the world on a mobile device at any time," the report states. "The `office' as we have thought of it in the past, is being redefined." Office Space Obviously, organizations that fail to grasp the need to DECEMBER 2013 | www.hrotoday.com [11]