Dive Brief:
- With today's countless recruiting platforms, onboarding programs and talent management systems available to employers, many experts have argued that HR as a whole will have to quickly adapt or face extinction, according to an article at Fast Company.
- Jason Averbook, a long-time HR expert, told Fast Company that HR is at a crossroads, as technology can now accomplish many of HR's traditional responsibilities faster, cheaper and better than before. "It's now moving from transaction to interaction," Averbook said.
- While the writing has been on the wall for some time, many factors that point to this outcome have only recently come to fruition.
Dive Insight:
The Fast Company article makes the point that HR may be at a turning point, as technology has taken HR out of its origins and into a new era, where it has to be more strategic in helping the organization not just get paychecks out on time, manage benefits and hire and fire people, but also ensure talent and other critical factors truly are meeting business needs.
While the prognosticators may be correct, this mantra has been chanted by HR experts and executives for the past 5 years at least and may still be in rotation when 2020 arrives. Some in the article are calling it an "evolution," not a revolution. Others says it's a tipping point.
Well, almost.
Either way, HR has proven a very change-resistant entity, and as such it will take more than a few "HR is on the verge of extinction" warnings before it actually reaches its Holy Grail, or not.
