Check Your Sources

Every year end, industries look back or look forward at their performance. This is particularly true for strategic HR planning as it is key to look forward and try to predict where the work world is going?

According to Robin Domanik Havre’s blog, there are seven interesting trends for 2016 that all HR Practitioners should be aware of:

  1. Some 3.6 million baby boomers are set to retire in 2016
  2. Millennial’s are moving into the work world and soon they will make up 20% of the workforce
  3. Greater time flexibility is a key to attract new employees
  4. Office design must be taken seriously, the way you design your workplace does affect productivity
  5. Big data: from buzzword to actual thing, big data and HRIS will be disruptive technologies in the working world
  6. Greater transparency, if your organization has to say, “it is transparent,” then it is not. Organizational transparency is a feeling not a statement
  7. More immediate feedback is a must to actually change employee behaviour and performance

Click Here to Visit the Blog.

The trends listed above are happening now and all organizations should be developing strategic plans on how to address them.  All seven might not apply to all organizations right away, but they soon will.

Let’s dig a little deeper and ask ourselves – are these actual HR trends for 2016?  Let’s check the source?   Robin Domanik Havre’s is a blogger – here is his bio.:

“Robin Domanik Havre is the CEO of New Intranet. He’s helped many companies deploy successful mobile intranets that are easy to use and specially designed for employees not working in front of a computer. The goal of this blog is to provide research-backed intranet and internal communications advice for more successful HR strategies.”

The goal of his blog is to provide research backed intranet and internal communications advice for more successful HR strategies.

He may have great supported research or he may not, nowhere on his site are his sources of research noted.  We just don’t know!

As an HR professional it is easy to fall into the online research trap.  Just because it is online does not make it true. Before you start to implement any HR programs make sure you have true, creditable research to defend your position.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you think these seven (7) trends are valid?  Your VP of HR has asked you to pick two trends that you think are most relevant to your vision of HR. Pick two trends and research the topics with the goal to support your position.
  2. Once you have validated your position with research, what executable plan(s) will you recommend to implement the plan(s) in order to stay ahead of the trend?

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