Human resource management agenda

An extensive review of recent research prepared by a variety of consulting firms and academic, governmental and other relevant institutions. The focus of our review was the identification of the primary business challenges from mostly publicly held, multinational organizations are facing.

The survey identified seven key challenges:

1. Changing Workforce Demographics - Increasing pressure from aging employee populations on leadership succession, workforce productivity, the financing of retirement and health care programs, and intergenerational knowledge transfer
2. Continuously Improving Processes - Better, faster, cheaper…all management and administration processes are under scrutiny, none more so than HR administration and the growing pressure to outsource or offshore employee services
3. Controlling Costs and Managing Risk - Reducing organizational costs and liabilities in order to meet earnings targets and to protect the investment dollars needed to generate growth; reducing the possibility of unanticipated events that may negatively impact business performance
4. Engaging Employees - The impact of employees’ changing commitment to the organization, due to reduced or eliminated investments in long-term employee development and tenure, such that employees have developed more of a “free agent” mentality to career development and organizational loyalty
5. Generating Top-Line Revenue Growth - Enhancing top-line revenue growth and market share through product innovation, increasing sales to existing customers, and identifying and securing new markets
6. Globalizing Business Operations - Acquiring, organizing and strategically deploying global resources, identifying and securing new markets, meeting the needs of global customers, and creating global alliances and partnerships
7. Responding to Emerging Skills Shortages - Attracting and retaining the talent needed to support a successful business model in an environment where key resources are increasingly difficult to identify as a result of changing education standards and rapidly changing organizational needs

Each of these challenges has significant implications for the management of human resources. It furthered our view that it is the way in which an organization manages its human capital and, in particular, how well it aligns its human capital with business strategy that is the difference between organizational success and mediocrity.

Source(s): Mercer's 2006 Global Business Challenges Survey