The future of HR: Key Challenges for 2015

According to a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group in conjunction with the European Association for Personnel Management under the name "The Future of HR: Key Challenges for 2015," Talent management is the great challenge of European firms for the year 2015. Obviously not the only challenge.

Among the 17 items considered, five emerged as more important in coming years. According to officials of this study, these five themes also represent gaps that human resource departments of European companies have today.



1. Talent management

It is about a shortage of talent, and companies will have to take some steps to address that shortage. To exploit all sources of highly qualified professionals, HR departments should be used to find new talent anywhere in the world. Also be obliged to ensure that their offerings meet the needs and aspirations of different ethnic groups and nationalities, women and older workers.

2. Population management

With the aging workforce in Western Europe, European companies must mitigate two risks: the loss of capacity and knowledge as workers retire and lost productivity as the workforce ages.

To solve these problems, the report recommends that companies introduce a family working structure to lower the average risk population and to identify specific initiatives to recruit new employees.

3. A learning organization

Another of the challenges that will face companies 2015 is the training of their employees. Specifically, human resources departments will have to train their workers to enable them to cope with the speed and complexity of the global economy.

However, spending on training programs will not result in an automatic increase in productivity. HR executives will have to assess very well the ROI they expect to achieve with the training programs to achieve tangible results.

4. Management of work-life balance

While the boundaries between public life and private life are blurred, workers tend to choose their new jobs on the basis that the balance between their professional and private lives is the most appropriate. To "catch" and retain highly qualified talent, companies have no choice but to relax the conditions of employment of its workers.

5. Change Management

Predictably, the companies will be recruiting more workers from different countries and cultures or new markets quickly. Change management becomes an essential capability of enterprises. The survey shows that executives expect their companies to be able to develop tools and methodologies to help them communicate to employees the need to address this new multicultural horizon.