I recently attended a presentation at Deloitte, which examined issues such as the ageing population, worker shortages, attraction and retention of talent as well as the implications for HR
I recently attended a presentation at Deloitte, which examined issues such as the ageing population, worker shortages, attraction and retention of talent as well as the implications for HR.
Some of the forecasts were quite dire, with predictions of large companies going under in the long term simply because they wouldn’t have enough employees to do the work and meet productivity demands.
The presentation looked at a number of potential solutions organisations could put in place in order to help them prepare. HR played a central role in these solutions, and attendees were presented with six questions CEOs need to ask their HR leaders. These questions had far reaching implications for the effectiveness of the HR function and the long-term sustainability of organisations.
Many HR directors understood the issues at stake, and after speaking with a few, some seriously doubted their function’s ability to answer the questions. Many of the questions were simply beyond their scope, while for others putting systems in place to even begin to address some questions required significant investment that was unlikely to be forthcoming.
Issues such as the ageing population and skills shortages are not new. But in the light of short-term shareholder and CEO concerns, such issues need to be taken more seriously by raising them to the board level.
Most boards seem preoccupied with regulatory and governance concerns these days. But in the interests of many shareholders, they need to have a serious word with their executives about addressing inexorable demographic and workforce changes.
HR can bang on about such issues to CEOs till the cows come home, but given the average tenure and concerns of CEOs these days, it’s unlikely they’ll pay much more than lip service to them.
There are ways and means of getting the attention of the board in order to force executives to sit up and pay attention (Human Resources magazine will feature a special report on this early next year), but if and when this happens, HR sure as heck better be prepared to rise to the challenge.
