Architects Of Destiny: HR Leaders To Build A Future-Ready Workforce

Staying ahead of the Covid curve

Human evolution has been distinguished by an invariable constant: our capacity to shape tools in the cooperative endeavor of survival. From flint axes to cloud computing, technology and innovation have been the beating heart of our species since time immemorial, with a surprisingly simple purpose – to augment human ability.
 

And the latest chapter in this inspiring, millennial story will also be written by game-changing new tools and the ways in which we collaborate in putting them to use. This time, however, we will be cooperating with our own creations – from automation to artificial intelligence – in a human + machine partnership that propels our innate creativity to soaring heights. 
 
As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, an event which has rapidly accelerated digital adoption, HR leaders will gain a commanding profile as architects of this new blended workforce, matching the best human talent with the technology they need to excel. Businesses are already reaping benefits from this new way of working, and future-ready HR executives have learned quickly that automation will be an enabler of unparalleled advances in employee productivity and engagement. 

Staying Ahead of the Covid Curve

Throughout history, the technological imperative has come to the fore in times of human need. There is no better example of this than the pandemic. Global lockdowns coupled with physical distancing have given huge momentum to the adoption of digital technology, from remote working to automation. This has dramatic implications on the way we work and is prompting many business leaders to think hard about how their company operates.
 
A key lesson of the past year has been the importance of operational reinvention. As business leaders take advantage of cutting-edge innovation, they are rethinking how best to use technology, processes and people in order to work in more efficient, synchronized ways. This enables humans to work better and smarter.
  
At one level, this makes perfect business sense: the rewards of reinvention are vast. A recent study by Accenture found that future-ready, digital-centric ways of operating could unlock $5.4 trillion in profitable growth. 
 
At a more fundamental level, HR executives know that rapidly embracing technology is not just about value – but about people. Technology enhances human activity. Businesses that act decisively to scale up the automation of transactional tasks can free up their most precious asset – human talent – for more strategic and creative work. 

Homing in on Human Skills

This puts HR leaders in the vanguard of a tectonic shift in human society. It is no exaggeration to say that, with vision, they stand to become the architects of a new future. As demand for skills shift from transactional to specialized expertise, there is a critical need to match the right people to the right tasks, not least those paired with robotics.
 
HR leaders also understand how vital it is to bring their people with them by equipping workers with the skills they need. For example, Accenture is witnessing growing demand for skills associated with new roles, such as business advisors, whose task is to reduce inventory and optimize working capital, and tech advisors, such as automation engineers.
 
There is also a growing space for industry and functional experts who can envision new ways of working, areas of expertise, and how best to adapt to revolutionary changes in markets. For example, consider data scientists extracting value from information – an area with significant untapped potential given just 1% of data is currently being exploited.
 
And industries and services everywhere need smart, skilled tech engineers who dream of algorithms at night to continually scale and advance our use of AI, cloud and security. 

Transitioning to Future-Ready Leadership 

In this context, HR leaders must take the initiative – and doing so requires insight. While making automation and AI a priority, they can position themselves alongside traditional operations teams to sync processes and attract top talent.   
 
This starts with embracing the characteristics that make future-ready leaders stand out. First and foremost, these leaders think big, going beyond incremental change to opt for reinvention with cloud infrastructure at its core. They enhance intuition with better, more diverse data, mindful that critical thinking and problem-solving must take root from insights in order to translate into higher productivity. They must take automation, AI and integrated solutions to a new level, escaping today’s productivity “whitespace” by which we automate only 20% of what is possible.
 
And, above all, they understand the value of fostering a specialized, dedicated workforce that is augmented with the technological tools that enable them to achieve their ambitions.  

Understanding the Growth Opportunities

As we emerge from the pandemic, we survey a transformed market landscape that has been shaped by the human response to an unprecedented crisis.
 
It is the dawn of a new era. HR leaders are in a unique position to shape the path forward and marshal the talent needed as they progress operations to future-readiness. Companies are looking ahead to ways of operating with use of rich data to make decisions, and machine intelligence to augment and an agile, specialized workforce.

Case in point: On average, companies progressing even one maturity level higher in 2020 were 7.6% more efficient and 2.3 percentage points more profitable.
 
But, on the other hand, this role is even more profound – and speaks to a deeper truth. Humanity has devised new tools for a new era, and having the right talent helps us master the skills to work with them.

Manish Sharma is the Group Chief Executive – Accenture Operations. Visit www.accenture.com  Connect Manish Sharma Follow @ManishSharma_70