By Debbie Landers, GM, IBM Kenexa and Smarter Workforce

These are exciting times to be in HR. Today, the primary objective of the HR function is to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals by helping attract, hire, onboard, engage, and empower the right people. That much remains constant, but, as we move into 2016, I believe two notions will become paramount. The first is more personalization, whether it is in recruitment, organizational learning, employee engagement, or career pathing. The second is collaboration, with HR forming closer alliances with other functions to drive business strategy and performance, and complementary HR solutions coming together across organizations to benefit customers.

As we plan for 2016, I decided to ask several of our Smarter Workforce leaders, who have vast, combined expertise spanning workforce science, HR technology, talent analytics and industrial/organizational psychology, to give us their predictions on important HCM trends in the coming year.



Eric Lesser: HR and IT will come together. 2016 will see stronger mutual dependency of HR and IT functions as companies look to differentiate themselves. This will result in enhanced candidate and employee experiences as well as novel solutions for upgrading the skills of IT professionals. Furthermore, as cybersecurity becomes a more important topic for the C-suite, HR and IT will need to work together to protect employee data and develop a continual vigilance to prevent breaches and identify threats.



Sheri Feinzig: A notable uptick in the adoption of HR analytics – predictive, prescriptive, and social. There is so much interest; yet only a small percentage of companies are far along the HR analytics maturity curve. IBM’s Institute for Business Value research shows that in 2015 less than 20% of CHROs reported using analytics to predict future outcomes, and one of the most common use cases, predicting retention, hasn’t budged from 2013 levels (13% usage). With continually improving data services, data integration and analytics tools, we should see a tipping point of increased adoption in 2016.



Jonathan Ferrar: The democratization of HR. HR knowledge will diffuse through the organization to executives, managers, and all workers/people as the thirst for knowledge, data, and insights grows. We will put more information at the fingertips of managers and business leaders, especially through the amplification of the employee voice and through the proliferation of data.



Jay Dorio: 2016 will be all about the individual. With more and more data available, we will have greater access than ever before to individual perceptions, behavior, movements and patterns, providing real-time insights that are laser focused on the individual. The reality of specific recommendations based on patterns of behavior will make the jump from the consumer world into the world of work.



Dyke DeBrie: HR will look to unconventional methods to hire, engage, and retain employees. HR solutions will cater to candidates and employees at a pace we have not seen before. Definitions of information needed to make hiring decisions, understand performance, or monitor engagement will dramatically change. The power will be truly in the hands of the employee, with access to information throughout their career.



Zahir Ladhani: Consumerization of HR technology. There will be an avalanche of new products developed for HCM next year, with a focus on the employee experience and the consumerization of HR solutions. They will leverage 'design thinking' methodologies and turn the market upside down for HR and traditional vendors.



Kevin Cavanaugh: Open System for HR and a Cloud of Clouds. The new world of HR will be based on an open system built on a cloud of clouds. A cloud of clouds speeds innovation across the entire ecosystem by enabling business partners and entrepreneurs, and leverages the latest technologies in cognitive computing, social collaboration, digital marketing and customer optimization. The new HR tools will evolve quickly, requiring the framework to be modern, robust and flexible.

I hope you will find these predictions useful as you plan your HR and talent strategy for the coming year. We will have some exciting insights to share early on in 2016. In the meantime, I wish you a successful and exhilarating new year!