21st Century Human Resource Challenges

Twenty-First Century Human Resource Challenges

Human Resources Management

July 11, 2009

Twenty-First Century Human Resource Challenges

The 21st century brings tremendous changes in the workplace, thus, the role of the human resources department is changing. There is an increased emphasis on the need to improve the efficiency of human resource services and delivery systems through automated information technology. Information technology changed the management of human resource operations through human resources information systems (HRIS) that streamlined the processing of data and made employee information more readily available to managers. The role of human resource management is critical to a newly transformed knowledge-based economy.

Recruiting a workforce that reflects today's diverse organizational structure is another challenge for human resources departments. Within the past few years, the job market has experienced fundamental changes in terms of technologies, sources of recruitment, and competition for skilled and talented workers. A defining shift is the changing nature of work and the workplace environment. In the new economy, knowledge is fundamental and seen as creating value. The highly educated, mobile and tech-savvy generation that falls within the demographic band known as Generation Y wants a workplace that is like them: urban, flexible, collaborative, environmentally sensitive and unconventional (Olsen, 2010).

Though the use of IT in human resource information systems (HRIS) has been around since the 1980s, HRIS is focused on automating the systems used by the human resource function itself: thus its main clients have been human resource staff rather than employees or managers. HRIS