1. Agents of Change: The Future of HR
Presented by: Isaac E. Dixon, Ph.D., SPHR-SCP Portland State University November 2, 2018

2. Agenda Where HR is today?
Where HR is headed in the near term, and why?
Emerging trends
Beyond tradition
Growing HR’s Visibility On Campus
Change by reaching out, venturing out, seeking out and breaking out!
Why the future of HR looks bright!

3. What do you think? When someone says to you,
“Let’s talk about the future of HR,”
what things come to mind for you?

4. Where is HR today, and why?
For most HR organizations, identity is rooted in transactional work.
Payroll, benefits administration, time and attendance tracking, policy generation, employee discipline, compliance related activities…
Most of the work listed above has high levels of transactional work attached.
This is the HR conundrum: “How do we keep the lights on and become more strategic at the same time?”
HOW DID HR GET HERE?

5. Where is HR today and why?
In the early days of personnel work, much of the activity was on paper.
Paper-based processes required lots of people with specific tasks.
From the late 1980s through the 1990s, a plethora of products for time and attendance reporting, leave usage, and payroll hit the market.
The continuing digital revolution in our field will challenge HR professionals to develop deeper skillsets in key areas such as Workforce Assessment and Planning, data analysis that will help organizations make faster, and fact-based decisions on managing human capital.
As the Center for Effective Leadership noted in their work, “What is the Future of HR?”, we can make great progress by devoting more time, energy, and money to the emerging trends.

6. Emerging trends Beyond tradition Reaching out Venturing out
Seeking out
Breaking out

7. Beyond tradition Fundamental re-examination of how HR works.
Using technology to buy back time to focus on faculty, staff, and student employees.
Intentionally finding student employees who are interested in HR and building their skills via student labor.
Change our institution’s thinking about recruiting and retaining talent. This is no longer a five-days-a-week exercise!

8. On your campus, how often do you get out to see your clients across the campus?
Is face to face contact with your key stakeholders a priority for your HR team?
The key change is that in the near future stakeholders will actually want more of this not less. (Particularly for you to explain data from your shop.)

9. Growing HR’s Visibility on Campus

10. Change By Reaching out
Infuse talent into HR from other disciplines: finance, marketing, logistics, and engineering, to name a few.
New perspectives deepen your HR talent bench and the ability of your team to touch people across your institution.
Bring these new talent sources to bear on some of your stickiest problems, such as performance management or data analysis.

11. Change By Venturing out
Connecting with leaders and influencers in government, business, and other sectors provides you with access to leaders.
Developing connections with HR professionals in business gives you exposure to new ideas, concepts, and implementation methodologies.
In turn, you can give businesses access to really smart people who can help them address their issues.
Be sure to include multigenerational teams in improving/developing processes. The pace at which things move has changed dramatically.
Plan to get out of your office every day!!

12. Change By Seeking Out
Seek out opinions and input outside the HR world.
Infuse continuous learning and development into your team’s world no matter how long they have been in their roles.
Seek out advice and counsel from unlikely sources on campus. Talk to under-heard voices such as adjunct faculty.

13. Change By Breaking Out!
Break out of processes that pull data and reports that no one uses.
Break out of silo-driven roles that do little to retain top talent on your team and in your institution.
Break out of annual performance reviews and replace them with conversations about individual goals/ development.

14. Why the future of HR looks bright
The fastest-growing fields in the US and elsewhere are knowledge-related.
Those who dedicate themselves to “lifelong learning” will continue to move.
Employees know these things, and the push for performance management is testimony to that.
Transparency push will continue via social networking and employee expectations.

15. Sources
Boudreau, John. (2014). What Is the Future of HR? Retrieved from
Moody, Kathryn; Golden, Ryan; & Tornone, Kate. (2018). 10 Trends that Will Shape HR in Retrieved from /513665/

16. Thank You
Isaac E. Dixon