As many of you know, I went to Talent Camp last week and it was quite the experience. From getting to meet some of the great people to discussing some of the most important issues of the day to just spending some time out on the coast, it was a great experience to simply be a part of. I know people are dying to know some of the things we discussed and I wanted to share some of my key takeaways.
Did We Figure Out The Future of HR?
No. Figured I might as well get this shortcut out of the way. If that’s what you’re here looking for, you’re not going to be happy with the rest of this post. What we talked about are possibilities for the function.
The Idea of Freedom Versus Restriction
One of the things we talked about is the idea of freedom and tearing down barriers that make people work in less than ideal ways. Here’s the scenario:
You’ve got a workplace issue that you need to fix. Let’s say two departments aren’t speaking to each other as often as they should. What’s the first thought that goes through your head about how to fix it? You could create something that makes sure these departments get together on a weekly basis. That’s what I think initially.
What happens if you thought about the things that keep these people from naturally meeting and communicating? If, for example, the teams are in different buildings and they need to communicate more frequently, why not move them closer? Or if one team is being directly impacted by a business initiative that kills their available time, why not do more to reduce that responsibility or change expectations?
Freedom is a powerful mindset change and it is one that is often misunderstood as always being contrary to constraint. Sometimes constraint can be an extremely powerful tool of freedom. That’s a post in and of itself though.
The Talent Dynamic Shifting
For so long, that talent function in most organizations has assumed that being strategic meant making sure your plans fit with corporate needs. As an example, if the organization wanted to shift some functions to a different part of the country, the talent function is best served by a person who could tell you how to get it done right and efficiently.
The problem with that is that isn’t strategic at all. We’re coming into the conversation too late. If HR came into the conversation saying “We have key competencies elsewhere in our company that we can use to expand and one of our locations is close to a college that is one of the top ranked in this area as well.” that changes the dynamic completely. Speaking of which…
Building Your Business Around Talent
Let’s say you want to start a business. Where do you start it? How do you find the best people to run it? I think that second question is going to start driving the first one. Rather than make the consideration solely based on where the entrepreneur is at or where the market is at, they are going to be building the business where their talent is at. With product delivery easier than ever, the major differentiation strategy will be pulling together those pieces from wherever they may be and making it happen.
As our economy and workforce continues to evolve, I think it will be more important than ever to think about this. Think about the business executives that will be retiring in five years. What happens if you could engage with them from their house in Florida on an ad hoc basis? It isn’t even a hypothetical anymore but it will become more of a business consideration as we work into the future.
Going Forward
These are just a couple of ideas that transpired through our conversations (I have pages and pages of notes and conversations in my head that I am still digesting). The cool thing of course is that these are only possibilities right now. There is a lot of work to be done to make these reality too.
As the conversation continues to evolve, I encourage people to get involved and opine on some of the ideas that get presented out.
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