H.R.

CHALLENGE # 1: THE DEMOGRAPHICAL CHALLENGE

The world is changing and how? The melting pot of business world is getting more and more homogeneous at the centre and the heterogeneous particles are increasingly finding themselves at the corner of the melting pot, left out. The work force is changing dramatically. It is more diverse than ever before, people are shifting, immigration and expats are the new buzzwords. Travelling and relocating are becoming a norm especially amongst the youth in workforce. The demographic challenge is here to stay. Most of us would not credit it with the kind of importance that it deserves or tend to ignore it. But this is a very real challenge that will only accentuate with time. It is in our hands now to handle this problem and to ensure that this challenge metamorphoses into an opportunity. There is increasing diversity at the work place and it becomes the prerogative of the HR manager that not only is diversity respected but also that it is promoted. So now HR manager also become responsible for the organizational sensitivity. Organizations showing no sensitivity would be shunned by employers and stakeholders alike and would not be sustainable over time. This problem would affect every aspect of HR, in recruitment one would need to make sure that biases do not come into play and that the right talent is chosen. But recruiting the right talent would not be it, HR would have to ensure that even in systems such as performance management, there are no biases that creep in or employees do not feel discriminated against due to their diversity factor. Other HR issues in this area would be relocation packages, cross cultural training and host country orientation. In a lot of developed countries the working population is aging. How does an HR manager balance this with the stream of new entrants in the work force? How do you decide between the energy of youth and the experience of age, where do you define the intersection point? And if you choose youth, one might end up compromising on the ethics of the older workforce whereas choosing them might lead to higher medical pay. What does this signal for the developing countries newer jobs or lesser demands? Another problem that this demographic shift is harbingering is the change in the nature of work. A one job career is a thing of past, even now working people are increasingly holding on to more than one job. Employees are getting entrepreneurial in nature and are also working on things/issues that excite them. How does HR manage their productivity, is there any drop in their productivity and how would one measure it? But this is a changing trend that is being widely accepted. These amongst other are a few of the challenges which HR needs to address proactively and not reactively. In essence the challenge for HR managers is to manage the demographic change in a way so that not only is it managed effectively, it results as a source of competitive advantage for the organization.