What's hot and what's not?

摘要

Preparing for the West Midlands Employers Conference next week, where myself and the chief executive of Penna, Gary Browning will be speaking about 'What's Hot in HR' got me thinking about What's not...have some things gone out of fashion, have we forgotten them, or have we embedded them into our organisations so much that they are just'normal'? Does anyone remember establishment monitoring? Many an hour or day was lost on updating them; identifying how many people were employed, where they were, what they were paid, whether there were vacancies and how much we would save if the roles weren't filled. Excel spreadsheets (mostly completed by hand) by the pile littered our desks and offices and it seemed to take a year to complete it, only to start again. It really was like painting the Forth Bridge. Has the art of establishment monitoring been lost to the world of technology, is it so automated that we simply press a button and the data appears? And so has the level of worry, workload and resource that went into these been so reduced and automated that the data gathering itself is no longer the concern? If it has then one assumes that the focus around establishment numbers has been replaced by focus on workforce skills and behaviors, with the data gathering now simplified. Are we occupying our time with the 'what does it tell us'? and more important 'what are we going to do' to adapt and develop our workforce ready for a future where most things are automated and our workforce are mobile, shared and possibly virtual?