Workforce Shifts In Types Of Jobs - Essay Example

WORKFORCE SHIFTS IN TYPES OF JOBS Introduction With the globalization in business, changes in demographics and mobility of a workforce, the nature of work has also come under a considerable change pattern. This change refers to the cultural integration to grow globally at both social and corporate levels, talent shortage, which continues to grow unless HR specialists will be able to manage human capital for proper strategic business decisions (The Changing Nature of Work and the Worker, 2013). The main drivers of these changes, a globalization, technology and workforce expectations will also shape the nature of work. However, in the past there were other trends that shaped the work and worker. This paper will describe the main drivers to change of nature of work and how they have changed over years. It will also speak about the impact of these changes on HR professionals. Changing nature of work There are many claims that the nature and the structure of the organizations, jobs and careers have being shifted from one economy based on manufacturing to the economy based on service and professions and that they have also being changed substantially. It is because there are few pieces of research conducted on the work and occupations and the organizational theory was not always disinterested in the work. The interest was in defining the new forms of organizing, such as network organizations, heterarchies or hybrid organizations (Barley, Bechky & Milliken, 2015). In context of the nature of employment contract, it came under the change altering the structure of work-lives, and the nature of careers gave people an opportunity to switch jobs more often. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (5 trends changing the nature of work, 2013), there are such main trends that impact the nature of work as the globalization, technology, outsourcing, workers’ changing expectations, attitudes and values and diversity. All these trends are interconnected with each other and modern businesses use them fully to reach the highest results. Thus, the increase in technology enabled companies to connect teams across the world enhancing the number of distributed teams and giving them an opportunity to work cross-culturally. The trend of globalization has changed dramatically in the last years bringing more benefits and challenges to the workers (Wilpert, 2008). The diversity creates more positive predispositions for the businesses where usually there was a cooperation and interaction between people of one nationality. The cultural diversity brought many changes in the way people do their jobs, especially when it comes to the specific group of people ready to face challenges while the native-born employees were not capable doing that (Global diversity and inclusion, n.d.). Diverse teams provide more powerful insight into challenges through gaining of new and different perspectives and more effective work. Technologies as the other important aspect influencing the way people work, including mobility, cloud computing and web conferencing have driven connectivity all around the world enabling more employees to work remotely and in different locations (Lewis, 1996). The most noticeable change in the nature of work can be seen through workforce expectations, where the notion of “going to work” has completely changed from going to a specific location to the tasks which can be chosen and dine remotely and with use of flexible hours. Such flexibility is peculiar to the generation X and Y to have the freedom to manage issues on their own way and distantly from the bosses (Tolbize, 2008). In addition, these generations value work-life balance, which HR specialists should consider when designing the workplace. Another feature of the changes in the modern work is the raising interest to the tasks done from home or the telecommute work. Bloom, Liang, Roberts and Ying (2014) consider such practice to become more common to U.S. employees, the proportion of which grew from 0.75% in 1980 to 2.4% in 2010. There are, however, certain issues which arise from the observations of companies who have employees work from home. Most of them refer to the productivity and profitability of the companies and deteriorating of work-life balance. Implications for Human Resource Management Certain complications have appeared for the HR leaders in terms of making decisions and making more choices in the present time than it was in the recent years. The difficulty is with the general perception of the world to be simpler and organizations to have simple strategies and few choices. They developed products, hired full-time employees and conducted business. Instead, the world of work is far more complex with people to be different and employers and HR leaders to have far more choices. Consequently, new situations demand HR leaders to decide types of workforce to have, whether these are the employees or contingent, consider their location, skills. HR managers should identify new ways to measure employees’ performance. With the development of technology, it will continue to impact dramatically the nature of work, demanding automation to improve efficiency and productivity. Burke and Ng (2006) recommend some of the implications for HR leaders to manage the nature of work. These are the need to realize the changing nature of workers and the demographic changes, which take place within different demographic groups. HR leaders should understand the different segments of employees and the needs of each segment. Sanchez-Runde, Whittington and Quintanilla (2000) state that more choices in the organization’s talent strategy will enable HR leaders to have more choices and develop and execute organizational talent strategies. Certain implications of HR come from outsourcing, where there are legal issues should be taken into consideration for such in-house activity as transfer of undertakings regulations. In socio-cultural context, the HR leaders should understand the labor, supply of labor and demand for products and services which come from the social developments. In the technological context, there is a need to realize how technology affects the workforce, especially if it automates certain tasks or replaces certain employees. HR leaders should think through how to leverage technology in the most optimal way. Here using data and analytics makes the work better, decisions- more informed workforce. The most visible implications for organizations are the use of video-conferencing, world-wide-web and emails and intranets. With the significant changes in the structure of the economy and manufacturing sector, there is a need for an implication for education and training for the employment. The other feature obvious for the modern workforce is the growing interest in environmental issues, where HR leaders should develop strategic management policies and employees to undertake them. This trend is likely to continue since the shift to green economy is developing and consequently HR function is to ensure people to do their work in accordance with these eco rules. The general idea stands for the changing nature of workers and of work to be a complex, a challenging task for HR and a great deal of change to be considered. However, taking all challenges for the opportunities for improvement, it is the incredibly exciting time for the HR leaders and HR experts, where forward-thinkers will understand the challenges and take action to contribute more to their organizations. References Barley, S., Bechky, B. and Milliken, F. 2015. Special Issue: Changing Nature of Work, Academy of Management, [online] Available at: http://aom.org/Publications/AMD/Special-Issue--Changing-Nature-of-Work.aspx[Accessed on August 27, 2015]. Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J. and Ying, Z. 2014. Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 165–218 Burke, R. and Ng, E. 2006. The changing nature of work and organizations: imlications for human resource management, Human Resource Management Review, 16, 86-94 Global diversity and inclusion, n.d. Society for Human Resource Management, [pdf] Available at: http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/eb/DiversityandInclusion.pdf [Accessed on August 27, 2015]. 5 trends changing the nature of work, 2013. Society for Human Resource Management, [online] Available at: http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrnews/pages/5-trends-changing-the-nature-of-work.aspx [Accessed on August 27, 2015]. Lewis, T. 1996. Studying the Impact of Technology on Work and Jobs, Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, Vol. 33, N. 3 Sanchez-Runde, C., Whittington, R. and Quintanilla, J. 2000. Human Resource Management Implications of New Forms of Organizing, University of Navarra The Changing Nature of Work and the Worker, 2013. Strategic Human Resource Management, [online] Available at: http://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/shapingthefuture/documents/3-14%20roundtable%20summary-final.pdf [Accessed on August 27, 2015]. Tolbize, A. 2008. Generational differences in the workplace, Research and Training Center on Community Living, [online] Available at: http://rtc.umn.edu/docs/2_18_Gen_diff_workplace.pdf [Accessed on August 27, 2015]. Wilpert, B. 2008. Impact of globalization on human work, Safety Science 47, 727–732, Elsevier Read More