Dive Brief:
- Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends Report found that technological advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are making firms restructure their organizations, revamp their HR departments and adopt new training models. Deloitte collected surveys from 10,000 HR and business leaders from 140 countries.
- Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, told Fast Company that AI isn’t eliminating jobs but that, instead, it’s eliminating job tasks and creating new jobs, which humans will be doing.
- The survey revealed that 41% of the respondents said they’ve fully adopted or made significant progress in adopting new technologies, but only 15% are prepared to manage a workplace with humans, robots and AI working side by side.
Dive Insight:
Technology has already eliminated some burdensome and time-consuming tasks HR traditionally has been charged with executing. This report envisions technology helping HR shift from focusing on recruitment and evaluation to emphasizing employee engagement.
HR’s new focus will be on workers and their well-being — a job that will undoubtedly require the attention and judgment of humans. AI may, at some point, replace certain job types, but HR will be assisted by these tools rather than replaced by them. The need for HR as run by humans has become especially clear in the news as of late, with a smattering of accusations of sexual harassment at a variety of companies all coming to light in the same week.
If the report is a portend of things to come, employers will need to replace top-down management styles with a team-based model, hire employees based on their cultural fit instead of their skills and adopt on-the-job training strategies to help employees transition to a technology-based workplace.
