As everyone gets their proverbial legs underneath them in the new year and focuses on the challenging year ahead, Brandon Hall Group is busy providing research and thought leadership on what we believe are the most critical HCM practices for 2017 and beyond.
At our upcoming HCM Excellence Conference 17, we will release our HCM Forecast 2017, where analysts Michael Rochelle, David Wentworth, Daria Friedman, Cliff Stevenson, myself and other BHG leaders share our vision on such topics as:
- Personalized Learning, utilizing our insights from last year’s research and ongoing dialogue with Excellence Award-winning organizations. Survey respondents told us that coaching and mentoring, mobile learning, and social learning are the most critical components for tailoring learning for
individual needs in the immediate future. But the bigger picture is that machine learning will continue to evolve into a form of artificial intelligence where dynamic learning paths will be driven by complex algorithms based on personal, professional, and environmental data collected on the learner. Wentworth will also address the future of learning at HCM Excellence17 in discussions on the learning teams of the future and accelerating learning.
- Leadership Development, where our 2016 research showed that a mature LD strategy linked directly to business goals is a huge differentiator in effectiveness. The roughly 20% of research respondents that are at this top level of maturity are 63% less likely to have a leadership gap, 55% more likely to fill more than half of key leadership positions by internal promotion, and more than twice as likely to see leadership development as a competitive advantage for the employer brand. Going forward, with an increasingly knowledge-based workforce, newer members of the workforce will often be in a better position to coach and mentor than the experienced leader. We see this reverse mentoring playing a larger role in training leaders.
- Performance Management, another area where effectiveness is low and desire for change is high. As our 2016 research showed, organizations that take a people-centric approach to performance get much better results. The focus should be on performance development. Our outlook is that savvy organizations are quickly moving toward creating weekly or even daily opportunities for managers and employees to interact with one another. Those already going this route – and often shredding or significantly altering traditional PM processes along the way — are seeing a positive impact on meeting and exceeding business objectives. I will be leading a discussion at the conference, along with Accenture’s Shelby Kan, on how to knock down the barriers to effective performance Management.
Other future-focused conference highlights include:
- John Sculley’s views on the fast-evolving new American workforce and what it means for human capital management leaders. Sculley, chairman of PeopleTicker, the former CEO of Apple and Pepsi and author of Moonshot!, will sit down for an insightful interview with Brandon Hall Group CEO Mike Cooke, who in the same general session will provide his insights on driving HCM excellence in the year ahead.
- Insights on current and future HCM innovation from leaders at Accenture, UL, and MetLife in interviews with Rochelle, Brandon Hall Group’s chief strategy office and principal HCM analyst.
- Micro-Resilience: Illuminating Insights into High-Performance Leadership and Engagement, a 3 ½-hour workshop by Bonnie St. John, who will also be signing copies of her new book on the topic, due out next month.
All this will be followed by an aggressive research calendar that is future-focused and aimed at providing an insightful HCM roadmap for 2017 and beyond.
–Claude Werder, VP/Research Operations and Principal HCM Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
