New Year Special: Gender diversity to take centre stage in 2016

New technologies, data analytics and social networks are expected to have a deeper impact on how people communicate, collaborate and work. Are organisations prepared for the new workplace? 

Disruptive innovations are creating new industries and business models, and destroying old ones. The recent success of various startups is a clear example. New technologies, data analytics and social networks have a huge impact on how people communicate, collaborate and work.

As generations work together, workforces become more diverse and people work longer; traditional career models may soon be a thing of the past. Many of the roles and job titles of tomorrow will be ones we have not even thought of yet.

As we step into 2016, it will be interesting to see how organisations prepare to attract and retain the best talent while ensuring business continuity and efficiency. It will be an imperative for the HR function to emerge as a strategic business partner. One that is not only tuned to new business demands and helps develop a leadership pipeline but also prepares the organisation for a digital future.

Here is how it will impact in 2016

Gender diversity
The year 2015 saw many organisations appointing women in leadership roles. This trend will take centre stage in 2016 as more organisations will do their utmost to retain and hire women employees at various levels in order to promote gender diversity. This is indicated by the McKinsey Global Institute’s report on ‘The power of parity’, which establishes that advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth.

As per the report, India has a larger relative economic value at stake from advancing gender equality than any of the ten regions analysed. It also states that India could add $700 billion of additional GDP in 2025, upping the country’s annual GDP growth by 1.4 percentage points. Moreover, with the favourable governmental policies and initiatives, women are being empowered with financial, technological and infrastructural support that can help them contribute to the Indian economy.

Talent management
As leaders slowly but steadily realise the worth of their human capital, every aspect of talent management will change. The ideal talent lifecycle will now be goal centric at every phase. From recruiting to off-boarding, every lifecycle change that talent goes through will focus on organisational value-based goals.

HR analytics

A recent Deloitte study revealed that 57 per cent of HR departments increased spends on analytics. HR will facilitate this move (as was also observed in 2015) toward data-based, objective workforce decisions. They will do this by procuring and analysing the mountains of data organisations have been housing for years. They will work with the C-suite to guide confident and informed decision-making.

Employee engagement
As competition increases, it will be imperative for organisations to attract and retain the best talent through newer employee engagement practices and rewards. 2015 saw flexible maternity and paternity leave policies as well as in the dress codes at workplaces. 2016 will see organisations introduce more such flexible and innovative initiatives.

Performance management
Traditional performance management is being replaced with innovative performance solutions to value and retain the top talent while also helping medium performers do better. Experts believe that agile performance management will become a core component for this year’s focus on engagement, development and leadership.

The year 2016 brings promise of companies continuing to adopt innovative technologies and creative benefits aiming to put the employee first.

HR professionals will have to use advanced analytics to predict future talent demands, and also to measure and anticipate performance and retention issues. Moreover, it will be important for them to act as guardians of the brand and help their organisations become the employers of choice.

(The author is CHRO, Tata Teleservices).