Future Trends in Human Resource Management

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Department of Management Studies

Indian Institute of Science

Future Trends in Human Resource Management

Submitted By:

                                                                            Rahul Roy

                                                                            Ist Year

Introduction: The role of human resource management has evolved considerably over the past century and has changed drastically over the last decade. The changes are not going to stop as it is a running process. The major factors which are responsible for driving such changes are:

1. Global market place - Organisations are working across the borders of different nations. Today almost every organisation is going global and no one wants just to be a local leader. Let us take the example of Indian software service sector. Organisations like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and many more are generating huge revenues from abroad. A major chunk of their profit relies on international clients or customers. On the similar lines organisations from economies like USA, Europe, and Australia etc. believe in outsourcing talent. Hence the challenge is with the human resource management to incorporate global competency in their talents.
2. Changing Technology – Technology is changing at a rapid pace. Hence the expectation and demand of market also keeps on changing. These changes effects not only the product life cycle but also brings challenges for the human resource management team to quickly build experts in the new technology.
3. Increased education levels – One of the major contributors to changing trends in human resource management is the increase in education level of the population applying for a job. People are grooming themselves by pursuing higher education not only from India but also from foreign nations. This has brought diversity in the education levels and thus gives a wide variety of choice to the human resource management during recruitment.
4. Increased attrition rate – According to U.S department of labour 1 in 4 workers has been with their current employer less than one year and 1 in 2 workers has been with their current employer less than two years. The same is the situation in many countries. Due to availability of wide number of choices to shift jobs, it has become difficult for the human resource management of an organisation to control the attrition. Moreover people are thriving for better opportunities and better roles all the time which pushes them for a change of job.
5. Social and political factors across borders – Population is very diverse across nations. In India the majority workforce is young while some countries are facing the issues of aging. In such a case the human resource management of an organisation has to take necessary steps to maintain a well balanced workforce across all the nations it is operating. Along with this country specific rules and regulations have to be kept in mind.

Considering all the above factors the human resource management in the world is making a strategic drift towards a better workplace. This has led to some of the trends which will help them achieve the goal towards more sustainable human resources in the organisation. Some of the trends will be strategic move while some might be because of government or social factors. But whatever be the case, the current and future trends of human resource management will be based on the underlying concept of recruiting, retaining, retraining and restructuring. Organisations are becoming agile and so is the HRM which is going to reshape the future. Organisations have to internally become more collaborative to sustain in the global competitive market. Let us take the example of Apple. In Apple there are no committees unlike other conventional organisations. One person is in charge of I phone operating system, one person is in charge of MAC architecture, someone is in charge of worldwide marketing. Apple still continues to work like a start up. They believe in on boarding the best talents available in the market and nurture them to bring cutting edge innovations. This is how they became the most profitable organisation in the world. The point is that success of an organisation still depends on the workforce of an organisation and how they are engaged and utilised.