“The rise of HR can be traced back to the dawn of the industrial age, and the reason behind its creation is also at the very core of what renders it obsolete today,” Adriana Stan, strategic communications consultant, Interesting Speakers, and Tom Goodwin, head of futures and insight for Publicis Groupe, write for World Economic Forum. “While easily enforceable in factories and workflows that revolve around uniformity, consistency and minimum deviation from the norm, HR faces existential threats in a world of increasingly intangible labor performed in a digital realm by workers whose motivations extend beyond monetizing their labor, into passion and personal fulfilment.”
Many HR departments are still stuck in old ways of thinking and “adapting around old systems, instead of completely rethinking leadership and management, or transforming the way they recruit and retain, or the types of roles they create,” Stan and Goodwin note.
And even if companies step out to the norm and hire “disruptors,” many fail to give them any real power and influence to inspire change in the workplace culture. Successful HR leaders will instead encourage these recruits to become leaders and agents of change. “When we listen to the mavens and misfits, when we inspire the changemakers we brought in and support them with a tribe of people they can connect with, and with budgets and decision-making power, we set the whole company up for success,” Stan and Goodwin write.