White paper

From evidence

to automation:

eight trends that’ll

shape the HR

profession in 2018

CIPHRA L L A B O U T P E O P L E

Executive summary (p4-5)

Research and methodology (p6-8)

Eight statements of intent for 2018 (p9-31)

HR will recognise its failure to tackle the productivity problem, and find the confidence to try something new

A new ethos of evidence-based decision-making will emerge (but it won’t just be all about the evidence)

Technical experts will be released from the tyranny of line management

Corporate transparency will give new impetus to the diversity and inclusion agenda

The GDPR will change HR’s attitudes towards employee data

HR will realise that employees are humans too (and you won’t believe what HR will do next)

As automation extends its influence, an imperative to future-proof skills will emerge

HR will stop worrying about how it is perceived, and start doing what it believes is right

Conclusion (p32)

Further reading (p33-35)

CIPHRA L L A B O U T P E O P L E

CIPHR is a leading UK-based developer and

provider of HR software as a service (SaaS),

offering a fully scalable solution that covers the

entire employee lifecycle. Our systems’ features

include people management, employee self

service, absence and working time management,

payroll, online recruitment, communications

and reporting, and can be tailored to suit your

organisation’s specific requirements.

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From evidence to automation

5

Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

So what does the future have in store for the next 12 months? Can we expect more of the same complexity, or is there scope to make real progress in key HR focus areas?

“I think it’s going to be a challenging year, because I think we are on the verge of really beginning to break some new ground – but obviously that’s really difficult to do,” says Lucy Adams, CEO of Disruptive HR and former HR director at the BBC. “So I think it will be a slightly scary year, but equally I think there are green shoots of genuine transformation and progress – so I think it’s going to be an exciting year, too.”

She adds: “The macro trends are starting to really bite, and I think we are seeing more pull from [business] leaders, who are saying: ‘we can’t keep saying the world around us has changed but keep doing HR in the same way’. So they are looking for more sophisticated solutions and more impactful solutions to help with issues around innovation, agility, creativity, and collaboration.”

By many measures, 2017 was a tumultuous year for UK HR professionals. They grappled with the implementation of changes to government policy and regulations (including the apprenticeship levy and gender pay gap reporting), the impact of case law on areas such as holiday pay and the definition of an ‘employee’, to say little of the abolition of tribunal fees and the continuing economic uncertainty wrought by Brexit.

Executive summary

Dave Ulrich, author and Rensis Likert professor of business at the University of Michigan, says HR is finally “recognising that HR is not about HR, but about delivering business value. This requires pivoting from [focusing] merely on employee experience, to on employee experiences which help the business win in the marketplace.”

But HR should brace itself for more “humdinger” socioeconomic events in 2018, warns David D’Souza, head of engagement and London for CIPD. “In the wonderful days before the financial crisis, we used to sit down at the start of the year and plan want we wanted to do. I would argue that two-thirds of that slate is full for most organisations now, just through some of the things that are happening and that are required by external changes.

“But the more pressed for time you are, the more certain you need to be that the work you are doing is making a genuine difference. That’s why I think there is a massive opportunity for HR to make sure it is very selective in the work that it does and the way it goes about doing it.”

The 148 HR professionals we surveyed certainly have some ambitious goals for 2018. Delivering a better-quality service to their internal customers, facilitating more transparency in corporate governance, and backing their decision-making processes with robust research and evidence are unlikely to be projects that will finished in 2018 (if ever), but it feels that a sea change in HR’s confidence in itself, and its right to be taken seriously, is coming – and fast.

Based on our research and interviews with HR experts, we’ve identified eight predictions – or statements of intent – for HR over the coming year:

1. HR will recognise its failure to tackle the productivity problem, and find the confidence to try something new

2. A new ethos of evidence-based decision-making will emerge (but it won’t just be all about the evidence)

3. Technical experts will be released from the tyranny of line management

4. Corporate transparency will give new impetus to the diversity and inclusion agenda

5. The GDPR will change HR’s attitudes towards employee data

6. HR will realise that employees are humans too (and you won’t believe what HR will do next)

7. As automation extends its influence, an imperative to future-proof skills will emerge

8. HR will stop worrying about how it is perceived, and start doing what it believes is right

Whether you choose to tackle one, all or none of these challenges in 2018, we hope you find this report interesting and inspiring.

HR professionals’ agendas are being influenced from all sides

The vast majority (98%) of HR professionals said that internal factors – such as senior leaders’ priorities, business goals, and employee feedback – influenced their strategy ‘to some extent’ or ‘a lot’.

Less crucial to the 148 HR professionals surveyed were external factors (such as government policy, employment law, and the economy), which 52% said influenced their strategy ‘to some extent’, and 40% said it influenced them ‘a lot’.

The most irrelevant source of influence was HR trends: just 7% said they were influenced ‘a lot’ by trends, while 34% said their plans were ‘not at all’ or ‘not a lot’ affected by HR thought leadership.

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

Although gender pay gap reports have to be published for the first time this year, only a third (33%) of HR professionals surveyed said this was one of their top focus areas for 2018. Even fewer (29%) expect diversity and inclusion to be a key priority.

Top 10 focus areas cited by respondents

98%Internal factors

91% External factors

66% HR trends

What influences HR strategy?% of those surveyed who responded ‘to some extent’ and ‘a lot’

Survey findings

The findings in this white paper are based on interviews with a number of HR industry experts; reviews of other HR trend forecasts for 2018; and an online survey of 148 HR professionals carried out in December 2017.

Research and methodology

Focus areas for 2018

The survey suggests that HR professionals expect their priorities to shift only slightly in 2018 compared with 2017. Top focus areas for 2017 included recruitment, and data protection and the GDPR (each cited by 63% of respondents); health and wellbeing (55%); apprenticeships, and pay and benefits (both cited by 50% of respondents).

Unsurprisingly, given that the GDPR comes into force in May 2018, data protection is top of HR’s agenda for 2018; 89% of respondents cited it as a focus area for the coming 12 months. Health and wellbeing and recruitment will continue to be key concerns (each cited by 56% of respondents), as will performance management and appraisals (53%), and pay and benefits (50%).

A complex web of competing priorities emerges

When asked to assess how influential 12 specified trends would be on their HR strategy in 2018, most respondents hedged their bets; the most popular response in all but one case was ‘to some extent’. The outlier here was replacing annual appraisals with continuous feedback, with the dominant response – ‘not a lot’ – picked by a third (34%) of respondents.

Trends that were most cited as likely to affect HR strategy ‘a lot’ in 2018 included offering a better-quality HR service to internal customers (41%, see statement 6); using evidence to demonstrate the worth of HR strategies (35%, see statement 3); future-proofing employees’ skills (also 35%, see statement 7), and the humanisation of the employee experience (33%, see statement 6).

HR professionals we surveyed were not inclined to agree with the media hype surrounding the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the UK labour market; 17% said the automation of low-value, repetitive tasks would ‘not at all’ influence them in 2018 (the highest proportion for this response category).

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

HR set to juggle multiple priorities in 2018

HR will recognise its failure to tackle the productivity problem, and find the confidence to try something new

Eight statements of intent for 2018

But the problem is startlingly severe. Before the financial crisis, UK productivity – as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), divided by the number of hours worked – was rising at a steady 2% annually. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK productivity grew by just 0.9% in Q4 2017 – the biggest increase for six years. If productivity had continued to rise at its pre-2008 rate, the UK would be 20% more productive than it is today. The UK lags behind many of its European counterparts, notably Germany and France, where productivity is 36% and 29% higher respectively than in the UK – meaning, in effect, that German and French workers achieve more in four working days than UK workers do in five.

A variety of causes have been blamed for productivity’s persistent sluggishness: most acute are organisations’ reluctance to invest in training and technology, and persistently low pay. Plus, employment growth has been concentrated in the lowest-paid and least productive sectors of the economy; output in the services sector (which accounts for 80% of all UK output) was up just

Governments and industry commentators have been talking about the UK’s so-called productivity ‘puzzle’ for so long – close to 10 years, since the 2008 financial crisis – that we’ve become almost immune to their warnings.

0.2% in the 12 months to Q2 2017, while output in the manufacturing sector (which accounts for only 10% of output) was up 1% over the same period.

“A lot of it’s because we didn’t want to invest, we didn’t want to pay more, and we’ve pursued this low-cost, low-skill model, which is bloody unproductive,” says Duncan Brown, head of HR consultancy at the Institute for Employment Studies. “Now that’s turning against us; interest rates are going up, which is exposing our inefficiencies to the capital markets, and government is forcing employers to invest in people through things such as the apprenticeship levy.”

Adams says that getting culture right is key to unlocking productivity. “I’ve been in organisations with major cost-savings targets and it is a really miserable, dark place to be,” she says. “We fail to free up the frontline [staff], to create an environment where people are able to challenge, to understand how they can make small changes, and be allowed to do that.

“If we are really going to get true productivity right, you need to have a very adult-to-adult relationship with your people – trust them to identify where savings can be made, where things can be done more efficiently, and give them space to do that.”

For Kathryn Kendall, chief people officer at Benefex, a radical shift in how we view the ‘working week’ is needed to crack the productivity puzzle. “I don’t believe people can be at maximum productivity for eight hours a day. If you look at the studies in Sweden where they have trialled condensed, six-hour working days, productivity soars because people are really focused on what they are doing.

“Ultimately, we have to completely change how we work,” she says. “We have to get to a point where the employee experience is essential – if you prioritise that, people will want to be at work, will want to do more for their employer, and deliver more. I think that’s when you really start to address productivity.”

Even if government and employers manage to make a dent in the systemic issues that are afflicting productivity, measurement problems will persist; in 2014, the Bank of England estimated that the failure of GDP to measure the economic contribution of new digital technologies accurately may account for up to a quarter of productivity’s shortfall. As Neil Collins writes in the Financial Times: “It’s simple to count cars from a factory… but in a service economy like Britain’s, measuring output is hard. Is a longer newspaper article more productive than a shorter one? What about making phone calls on the train? Search? Emails? Same-day delivery? All short-circuit problems which took hours or even days to solve in the pre-internet era.”

If we are really going to get productivity right, we need

to have a very adult-to-adult relationship with our people

Lucy Adams, Disruptive HR

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

External pressures are making the need for HR action on the productivity problem more pressing for 2018. Happily, says Brown, some of the solutions are straightforward – and are well within HR’s capabilities. “If we focused on evidence-based initiatives that are shown to have some impact, HR would have a lot bigger impact on productivity. For example, higher-paid jobs produce proportionally greater returns for employers, and the difference between a high-performing and average-performing employee is proportionally greater for more skilled jobs. Low pay is a route to low productivity.”

Other solutions require a bit more creative thinking and cultural change. D’Souza recommends HR get stuck into “anything that’s going to impact output per worker… Removing valueless work is a good start; it’s far too easy for organisations to get lost in a sea of emails and strategy documents, and lose sight of the product or customer they are supposed to be creating or serving. Technology is another clear lever [for productivity]; HR needs to make sure people have the support they need to use technology to deliver effectively.”

“I think we could do with a bit of a pause to go: ‘when we talk about productivity, what are we genuinely talking about?’” says Perry Timms, founder of PTHR and author of Transformational HR. “Is it the kilojoules of a human being, the outputs of a machine, the speed of a technical solution? I think it’s more complicated that what we are currently subscribing to.”

While Timms admits that redefining productivity as an economic measure isn’t a challenge for HR to take on, he says there is a need to HR teams to think more intelligently about what productivity measures in their organisations could look like. “I think it could be a more sophisticated scorecard, which has much richer factors in it – human, ecological, educational, societal ones. B Corporations are an example of that: when your company is evaluated, they look at your impact on your community, how local your supply chain is, and how you support education and people with difficulties. I think that is where people ought to be looking; the world is too complex for us to just look at a single measure now.”

If we focus on evidence-based initiatives that are

shown to have some impact, HR would have a lot bigger

effect on productivity

Duncan Brown, IES

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

Somewhat ironically, data about the surge in popularity of evidence-based HR is hard to come by. But with 89% of respondents to our 2018 trends survey saying they expect the use of evidence to influence their HR strategies ‘to some extent’ or ‘a lot’, it’s clear that it’s top of mind for a significant proportion of the UK’s HR community.

“Good HR has been empirically based for decades,” says Ulrich. “In an HR world where there is an overwhelming abundance of information and ideas it is important to filter those ideas according to their impact; this requires analysis that focuses on the business more than on HR.”

Today’s push for evidence can be seen as an evolution of analytics-based HR practice in the context of persistent macro-economic complexity, and a quest for humanisation within HR itself (see prediction 6). “There is a clear call now on HR professionals to use better evidence from a clear range of sources, and spend more time thinking that through,” says D’Souza. The CIPD HR Outlook winter 2016-17 found that HR professionals are most likely to use their own experience, the experience of colleagues, and internally collected data as evidence for decisions – and are least likely to turn to external sources such as academics and scientific research.

Rob Briner, professor of organisational psychology at Queen Mary University of London, has been writing and teaching about evidence-based practice for 20 years. He attributes the growing traction of evidence-based HR to a number of factors: “It’s partly about the growth of the Centre for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa), which we set up in 2011. It’s partly because we’ve been talking more about analytics in general, and professional bodies such as the CIPD and SHRM have picked up on it. And partly I think it’s because some people think this is a last-chance saloon for HR; some people have realised that they’ve tried following the fads [and they didn’t work]; why not take a more serious approach now?”

D’Souza agrees. “HR has always been under pressure from the organisation to prove its worth, and that always tends to create an activity bias – a need to be seen to be doing something – which can happen within any profession or organisation that’s under pressure for results. We’ve reached a point where we need to be more choiceful around the work that we’re doing, and the reasons for doing it.”

A new ethos of evidence-based decision-making will emerge (but it won’t just be all about the evidence)

Eight statements of intent for 2018

You don’t need

to get hung up on the

evidence itself – it’s

about putting the

evidence front and

centre of the decision-

making process

Professor Rob Briner,

Queen Mary University of

London

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

She adds: “We deal with human beings – wonderful, mercurial, messy human beings – and trying to provide clarity and certainty with human beings is quite tricky. But I do think we could make more use of marketing techniques, by building a story around key bits of data.”

Timms is also an advocate for hunting for evidence in new places. “People default to looking for empirical studies, data charts and books to validate everything,” he says. “But I’m a big fan of generating your own evidence and using that evidence to shape what you do next: evidence can mean that one company tries an experiment, and they do it long enough and deeply enough to get enough insight that means they can replicate the project and its findings.”

Briner wants HR practitioners to be more open and transparent about their failings. “It distresses me to hear stories about stuff HR is doing that clearly isn’t working, but they are too scared or embarrassed to pull the plug,” he says. “One view is, if a group of people is doing work and telling you it’s failing, it means they are a useless group of professionals. But I’d see it as a hallmark of being professional. You don’t just do stuff that isn’t working – you accept it isn’t working and you do something else.”

What’s clear is that, although evidence-based principles should form the basis of HR’s thought processes, it shouldn’t hold back the profession from action. “I worry that we could go too far in the push for evidence; that we stop being active and we become so reflective that we never do anything,” says Timms. “Equally, I don’t like it when people just jump on trends without thinking: ‘is this right for where I am now, and the future of the people I’m helping?’ Both ends of that scale aren’t good. We need to be known for using more evidence, because we get accused very easily of being faddist and trendy.”

Although Briner notes that many HR practitioners lack expertise in areas that are critical for evidence-based thinking – such as critical thinking and the ability to judge the quality of evidence – Kendall says the profession is attracting a new type of HR person who is more data savvy.

“HR has historically been very reactive, and tied up in red tape. I think those perceptions have massively changed for the better, which means it’s started to attract a very different type of person. We are starting to see more people move into HR who think more like finance directors – who like to look at the evidence.”

But Adams argues that HR has so far been “looking in the wrong place” in its drive to collect and create evidence. “We’ve tried really hard to emulate our finance brethren; to try to prove our worth in their language. I think we could do so much better by learning from marketing, who are so effective in getting key bits of impressive data and wrapping that in a compelling narrative.”

Part of the problem so far, says Briner, is a lack of understanding about what evidence-based practice actually means. “People tend to say, ‘yeah, we’re evidence-based because we look at the data’. But that’s not what it means: it’s about the practice of making decisions, not the evidence. People don’t need to get hung up on the evidence itself; it’s about putting the evidence front and centre of the decision-making process, and then doing something.”

He adds: “Even if you don’t have any evidence, you can still take an evidence-based approach to decision-making. You say: ‘this is what we know, this is what we don’t know’, and try to make a decision. Don’t beat yourself up; just follow the process (see graphic below), figure out what the solution might be, and then try it.”

AskingTranslating a practical issue or probleminto an answerable question

AcquiringSystematically searching for and retrievingthe evidence

AppraisingCritically judging the trustworthiness andrelevance of the evidence

AggregatingWeighing and pulling together theevidence

ApplyingIncorporating the evidence into the decision-making process

AssessingEvaluating the outcome of the decisiontaken

Six steps to evidence-based practice

Source: CIPD/Avado/CEBMa

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

“We have a longstanding cadre of line managers who are not going to, overnight, become the ones that want to do people management well. If we start spending as much time ensuring that great people leaders are promoted as we do designing processes to cope with the bad ones, maybe we will have some impact.”

“I think we are going to see more acceptance of the case for splitting out that task management vs people management,” says Kendall. “So if you have great task managers, don’t waste their time on managing people. Instead, bring in distinct, great people managers to spend time with individuals – kind of like the whole [HR] business partner model.” She adds that Benefex’s career ladders are shifting to separate out technical experts from people

redesigned into a subject-matter expert role – one that is still senior, but without the same leadership responsibilities. We have to recognise that what we’ve got now isn’t really serving anybody well: not the organisation, and certainly not its people. It will take bravery to do that.”

But, with nearly half (46%) of HR professionals we surveyed saying they planned to focus on line managers in 2018, things might be looking up.

managers. “Telling one of our software developers to spend half their time in one-to-one meetings is a waste of their talent. They should be spending 100% of their time on what they are good at.”

While it’s unfeasible for all organisations to redesign their structures and career paths in 2018 to enable technical experts to do more of what they are good at (and what motivates them), this goal should give HR practitioners pause for thought as they consider how best to attract, engage and retain employees in the competitive labour market.

One first step, suggests Timms, is to take a “hard look at what exactly roles were created for, when they were put in, and what the need is around them now. We might reach a point where we have a bit of an amnesty; where people who are in leadership and subject-matter expert roles now might benefit from being

Historically, we have hired people to manage tasks, and then expected them to manage people almost as an aside

Kathryn Kendall, Benefex

Technical experts will be released from the tyranny of line management

Eight statements of intent for 2018

More recently, the CIPD’s HR Outlook winter 2016-17 found that a significant proportion of HR professionals believed senior leaders’ performance and people management skills to be severely lacking.

So why are technical experts still being shoe-horned into people management roles that are clearly unsuitable for them? Why has the preference for separating technical and management career tracks not spread beyond a select group of organisations?

“Historically, we have hired people to manage tasks, and then we’ve expected them to manage people as well – almost as an aside,” says Kendall. “And I think that’s prevalent in a huge

Warnings about the general quality and ineffectiveness of UK managers have abounded for years. Back in 2012, a report from the-then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills found that nearly half (43%) of UK managers rated their own line manager as ineffective, and nearly three-quarters of organisations in England reported a deficit of management and leadership skills.

percentage of organisations. You have almost created the conflict from the start; you have people with the skills to manage tasks, and yet at the same time they are kind of expected to manage people. You’ve got HR on their backs saying, ‘we need you to manage these people’, and they are understandably saying, ‘that’s not my strength, that’s not what I do’.”

“Unfortunately, we still consistently promote people into line manager roles because of their technical ability rather than their desire to lead people,” says Adams.

It’s set to be a critical year for pay transparency in the UK, as public-sector organisations and private companies with more than 250 employees will publicly report on their gender pay gaps for the first time. Unsurprisingly, nearly three quarters (70%) of HR professionals we surveyed expect transparency in corporate governance to influence their HR strategy in 2018.

Organisations should be mindful of the likely impact of the figures – and any supporting narratives published alongside the data – on both prospective candidates and existing employees, both male and female. Research by Golin, published in November 2017, found that more than three-quarters (77%) of UK business professionals believe organisations will lose staff because of gender pay gap figures, and 73% said the worst offenders would find it harder to recruit new staff.

“I think it is going to push the whole transparency agenda forward, both in a corporate governance sense and in an HR management sense, and I think that’s good,” says Brown. “The transition will be hard, until people get used to it. But most of the evidence [suggests] that openness builds trust and builds engagement, and in the longer term that’s going to lead to better motivation and management.”

While HR and senior leaders can expect gender pay gaps to be high on their agendas this year, the issue will become more pressing in 2019 if the next round of reporting doesn’t show significant progress, says Brown. “What are organisations going to do next year when the gaps haven’t narrowed? I think there’s going to be much more of a spotlight on the initiatives that do actually encourage change. So far HR has been doing the softly, softly stuff – like unconscious bias training – and I think it’s going to have to try something else.”

Global HR consultant Rita Trehan says the new government requirement presents HR with an opportunity to make a real step forward on inclusion. “I really hope this is our opportunity to show what HR can do; to not just see it as a reporting exercise but to say, ‘this is our opportunity to help articulate what the root causes of these things are’ – so it’s not a tick-box exercise, but it helps to drive the business forward. But I’m worried. So far, many organisations are giving the [data] summary, but aren’t addressing or answering the questions: ‘So what?’ Why?’”

We have to recognise that what we’ve got now isn’t

really serving anybody well: not the organisation, and

certainly not its people

Perry Timms, PTHR

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

Corporate transparency will give new impetus to the diversity and inclusion agenda

Eight statements of intent for 2018

“This is the year when HR needs to take a truly systemic look at how it supports people to perform in organisations, including line managers,” says D’Souza. “How can HR support the leadership team to provide role models, so when people are coming into their first line manage role, they have others to look up to? How do we recruit good line managers? How do we support a coaching culture?

“If HR can create the conditions for line managers to be a success – which they will appreciate – it means HR will spend less of its time complaining about line manager capability, and more of their time enhancing it,” says D’Souza.

But organisations should be careful not to become too fixated on the gender-related data, says D’Souza. “In some organisations there will be real problems that are entrenched and need dealing with while, in others, actually it could be a distraction from broader diversity and inclusion issues that they aren’t yet required to report on.”

Data from a 2017 report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) showed that while the UK gender pay gap is 18.1%, there are also ethnic minority and disability pay gaps of 5.7% and 13.6% respectively. Men with depression or anxiety have a pay gap of 30%, while women with mental health problems earn 10% less than those without such problems. Only a small number of organisations publicly report such gaps; accountancy giant PwC, for example, published its black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) pay gap in September 2017.

The transition to reporting on gender pay gap data will

be hard, but in the longer term it’ll lead to better motivation

and management

Duncan Brown, IES

“Whenever you have a particular focus on a particular group, there’s always a risk that you stop thinking about true inclusion and diversity – of perspectives and voices – and start looking at targets that don’t necessarily increase that diversity and inclusion of voices, experiences and perspectives,” says Adams. “I’ve worked in organisations where the gender, ethnicity and disability statistics were actually pretty good, but there was a level of homogeneity in the leadership team in terms of background and education.”

“Disability is always the one that I find ends up suffering the most, when one [facet of diversity] is more prominent than another,” says Timms. Given that 83% of people with disabilities aren’t born with them, but acquire them at some point during their life time, “and the fact that we are living and working for longer, it’s something that we can’t afford to put at the bottom of the queue. No way. One facet of inclusivity and diversity isn’t more important than another; we’ve got to look at this as a whole.”

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

The GDPR will prompt a cultural change in how we regard employee data

Eight statements of intent for 2018

The GDPR’s requirements will inevitably touch every stage of the employee lifecycle. But, despite the widespread publicity and long run up to the legislation’s introduction – and the fact that nearly half of HR professionals surveyed by the CIPD recently said it was their biggest concern for 2018, and 89% of those we surveyed named it as a focus area – anecdotal evidence suggests many HR teams still have work to do. “Most of the organisations that I’ve come into contact with have a plan, but maybe aren’t as comfortable with their position as they’d like to be,” says D’Souza.

Sarah Dillon, director at ESP Law, agrees: “One of my clients has almost finished their work, but

Any HR professional worth their salt will be aware that significant changes to how employee data is collected and stored come into effect on 25 May 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be enforceable across the EU, including in the UK. Not only will the requirements on data controllers and data processors be more stringent, but the potential fines for non-compliance will rise: to a maximum of €20 million, or 4% of turnover (whichever is higher), for the most serious cases.

are waiting for the final bill to be produced by the government. On the other hand, there are people we talk to who either don’t know about it or are thinking they can just sort it out later.”

“HR needs to strike a real balance between being paranoid about some of the broader changes of GDPR, and at the same time being incredibly well prepared for it, given the information that we do have,” adds D’Souza.

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

There’s a significant amount of work for HR to do before 25 May 2018. It will need to map all the data it collects on its employees, categorise it, determine which of the six lawful bases for processing apply in each case, and gain explicit consent from employees if relevant. “You don’t need consent for passing payroll details to HMRC, for example, because there is a legitimate interest for doing so,” says Dillon. “But things are more complex if, for example, you use a fingerprint clocking in and out system: is consent needed, or does that fall under one of the other reasons? It’s actually a very big job for employers – and they need to keep records of what actions they’ve taken and why.”

Given that data analytics is becoming an increasingly core component of HR’s role – and, as Josh Bersin, principal at Bersin by Deloitte, notes, employers are collecting more data on workers than ever – ensuring compliance with data protection regulations and guarding against cybersecurity breaches is becoming more and more vital.

At Benefex, Kendall says she’s taken a “systematic” approach, reviewing the handling of data at each stage of the employee lifecycle to identify and implement improvements with the support of the company’s information security director.

While the administrative obligations are big enough undertakings on their own, HR has another significant job to do: to engender a data-aware culture within the organisation. “Organisations need to make sure they are operating not just within the letter of the law, but within the spirit of the legislation,” says D’Souza.

Kendall says she’s fortunate that, because Benefex’s business model depends on data, “there’s a really heavy onus in the business on getting people to understand that the data is everyone’s responsibility; that it’s not [just] the responsibility of our directors, or our security team – it belongs to every single person in the business. That culture makes my life a lot easier.”

So what else will HR need to worry about? Dillion warns that the end of fees for subject access requests (SARs) – which cost £10 under the Data Protection Act but will be free from 25 May 2018 – could mean employers will face a significantly larger administrative burden. “That £10 fee used to deter quite a few people from putting in the request, so I expect the number that organisations will receive to increase quite significantly. They also have less time to comply with the request; it used to be 40 days, but under the GDPR, they will have only 30 days.”

Employers have a right to turn down requests that are too ‘complex’, but there’s currently no legal definition of what that means in practice. “That’s a big outstanding question: at what point does a SAR become too complex or expensive or unreasonable?” says Dillon. “For example, one client had someone request all the emails related to her for specific dates over a 10-year period. That search brought back 65,000 emails, and each had to be looked at to decide if it included personal data or not. Under the old regime, we could say: ‘that’s an unreasonable request, you need to refine the scope of your search’. That’s not going to be as clear under the GDPR.”

In larger organisations, Dillon says that carrying out SARs will involve a number of teams: HR will likely be the initial recipient of a request, with IT carrying out data searches, and then a data protection officer or in-house legal team may review the data and sift out what’s relevant to the request. “But if you are in a smaller business, it’s going to be you, as HR, who does all this.”

The GDPR also features detailed requirements around the portability of employee data, adds D’Souza: “An employee will be able to request from a former employer the data it holds on them, in a format that would be easily moveable to, for example, a new employer or a health organisation you wanted to liaise with.”

HR needs to strike a balance between being paranoid about the GDPR, and being incredibly well prepared for it

David D’Souza, CIPD

[We have] serious concerns that the senior leaders have done no work on the data protection changes that take place in May

Anonymous survey respondent

Of course, employers will still need to hold on to selected employee documents for the required period of time, notes Dillon. “HR will probably have to tell the employee, ‘I have sent XYZ but I have retained copies of these documents, and these are the reasons why’.”

While admitting the GDPR’s introduction is a “seismic change”, Kendall remain optimistic about its likely impact. “I see it as an opportunity to get our houses in order; there’s nothing in the regulations that’s outrageous or unreasonable. Provided you are pragmatic and proactive in your approach, I don’t think there is anything to worry about.”

If you’ve been to an HR conference or even dived into HR-related chat on social media over the past couple of years, it’s unlikely you would have heard more than a few professionals talking about ‘putting the human back into human resources’ or that ‘the future of work is human’.

During the next 12 months, we’re finally set to see HR professionals realise that employees are individual humans with diverse needs, wants and preferences, and aren’t homogenous groups that can be managed according to stereotypes. Nearly 80% of HR professionals we surveyed expect their strategies to be influenced by ‘humanisation’ in 2018 – which has the potential to liberate HR thinking and strategy, usher in a new era for HR practice, and deliver a better quality of service to HR’s internal customers (a priority for a further 85% of people we surveyed).

“I think it should be a basic expectation of any workplace, that you are treated like a person rather than just a unit of production,” says D’Souza. “There’s a greater understanding that you need to do things differently to get performance out of a person, than you do to get performance out of a computer. We have different wants and needs that need to be supported.”

Kendall agrees: “People are no longer willing to be seen – and nor should they be – as commodities. They are people who are giving up a huge percentage of their week to deliver for your business. It’s surely good common sense to make that a good, positive experience for them, so that they want to deliver more. It’s obvious, but unfortunately a lot of companies just aren’t doing that.”

While Ulrich notes that the topic of employee experience has been on HR’s agenda for “40 years”, it is evolving. “Firms should not just build an employee experience, but one that links to customers and investors,” he says. “Also, employees are increasingly seeking meaning from their work. It is not just about the experience, but the meaning one gets from that experience.”

Although humanisation might have some of the hallmarks of a ‘bandwagon’, “done right, this could be a profound change in the way that organisations work and value their people,” says D’Souza.

And getting it right doesn’t have to mean making things complicated. Just as HR should be looking to marketing for inspiration on the smarter use of evidence and data to make decisions (see statement 3), so too can HR learn from its marketing colleagues about how to tailor and personalise the employee experience. “Marketing realised the importance of the customer experience years ago; we’re playing catch up,” says Kendall. “Great people want to work for great businesses who will treat them like individuals. Every day that you don’t make the employee experience a priority, your competitors are going to overtake you in terms of how they are going to attract and retain that talent.”

“We are gradually getting our heads around the fact that we need to see our employees as consumers, not assets,” says Adams. “While personalised HR is probably still well beyond our reach, we can be quite innovative and think about how we consumerise further – everything from different talent management and career solutions to learning environments that enable employees to learn how and when they like.”

Employee expectations have changed drastically in the

last 10 years and we need to move with the times

Anonymous survey respondent

Reward is another area that is ripe for personalisation, adds Kendall. “Last year we added a beer club to our range of benefits. It’s certainly not a traditional employee benefit in any sense, but I think it reflects the increasingly diverse nature of our workforce.”

The human factor is becoming more and more influential on organisations’ approach to restructures, says Timms. “A lot of people are shunning traditional restructures and saying, ‘let’s have some dialogue first before we start putting the plan together’. I did that a couple of times in 2017 and it looks like there is more coming in 2018. People are saying, ‘we know things are coming, we don’t know precisely what they are, and we want to get people involved in shaping the plans.’ It would be good if that becomes the norm; transparency and honesty always help.”

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

HR will realise that employees are humans too (and you won’t believe what HR will do next)

Eight statements of intent for 2018

Despite government interventions, the skills challenge is expected to intensify as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the labour market as we know it. Two-thirds (65%) of children entering primary school today will work in jobs that don’t exist yet. How are employers – particularly their HR departments – expected to cope with such a radical shift in work as we know it?

“I’m a real sceptic when it comes to workforce planning,” says Trehan. “With the business environment changing so rapidly, can we predict the skills [we’ll need]? I don’t think we can. I think you can predict some key skills, but more importantly you’ve got to be thinking about scenarios: saying, ‘what if we saw this change?’ Planning means that you can pivot when these scenarios emerge.”

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

More human, more personalised HR will be easier for some organisations to achieve than others – but it’s clear that it’s coming further down the path. “It’s easier for consumer businesses; they find it easier to make the leap in seeing their employees as consumers because they are used to thinking about individual end users,” says Adams.

“They are therefore familiar with the level of insight you need to develop employee personas, customised solutions, different messaging, and menus of options, for example. But we are beginning to see other types of organisations get their heads around it, too.”

While a little over half (58%) of HR professionals expect automation to have an immediate impact on their strategies in 2018, a far greater proportion – 86% – expect to focus on future-proofing employees’ skills over the next 12 months.

The two trends are closely linked. The UK’s skills ‘crisis’ has been ongoing for some time; one in four UK jobs were unfilled in 2015 because of skills shortages, according to a 2016 UKCES report. Last year, a CIPD report warned the UK lagged behind its European neighbours in four key skillsets, including literacy and numeracy, while research from the Open University found that more than half of employers have been forced to hire someone who is less skilled than they had hoped.

As automation extends its influence, an imperative to future-proof skills will emerge

Eight statements of intent for 2018

We will avoid using gimmicky benefits to attract talent, but instead look at things people really want – by actually talking to our own staff rather than going with the industry standard

Anonymous survey respondent

When AI does

eventually start

to impact jobs, it’s

going to happen

really fast

Lucy Adams,

Disruptive HR

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

HR needs to look at what the research suggests might happen in their sector, and start planning

David D’Souza, CIPD

Adams agrees that automation, and its impact on the skills required by employees, is something to watch out for this year. “It’s definitely coming,” she says. “You don’t necessarily need a project team or to be responding to it right now, but you should check in every few months and ask: ‘is now the time we ought to be responding?’ Because if we look at the types of jobs AI is likely to impact, it’s going to happen really fast when it does happen.”

PwC estimates that up to a third (30%) of existing UK jobs will be susceptible to automation from robots and AI by the early 2030s, but that “in many cases, the nature of jobs will change rather than disappear”.

As well as presenting a challenge for HR practitioners, L&D professionals will also need to rethink the nature of learning, says Kendall.

HR professionals need to be thinking more broadly than the stereotypical ‘robots taking our jobs’ scenario, warns Timms. “If we get too occupied with algorithms and robots in the true sense of the word, we might be doing ourselves a disservice, and overlook all sorts of other forms of automation such as sensors, data, and analytics tools.

“People aren’t quite sure yet how automation will impact their business – but a few are experimenting, particularly in the consumer arena,” he adds, citing a white-goods manufacturer in Slovenia that is using chatbots to help customers choose the right product to buy. “Although that conversation doesn’t involve a person, it feels very human. I think we’ll see outward-facing change to start with, followed by internal changes – which is why HR ought to have a good watching brief on it.”

“L&D will become much less about the skills you need to do your job now, and much more about the skills you might need to do a different job in two years’ time.” Worryingly, some futurists are claiming that the half-life of a learned skill is just five years, meaning that much of what a person learnt 10 years ago is completely out-of-date, and half of what was learned five years ago is irrelevant.

“Once we get to a place where AI can replicate complex diagnoses, complex patterns of activity, complex interactions and conversations, and demonstrate empathy, I think that’s when it’s something that needs a response,” says Adams.

When this revolution comes, employers will need to consider their responsibility – if any – to those workers who will be left behind. “Because it won’t necessarily be the case that because one job disappears, somewhere else another is created in a different part of the economy, and that someone will be able to make that move,” says D’Souza. “If you look, for instance, at the displacement of long-distance lorry drivers because of the growth of automated vehicles, it’s not the case that they are all going to become data scientists.”

Adams shares his concerns: “In the move from manual work to service-based industries, at least there were new jobs being created. I don’t think we are clear yet on what those new roles will be and how we can prepare people for them, or whether they will be there at all.”

“I think there is a naivety around our understanding of flexibility within the economy,” adds D’Souza. “HR professionals need to look at the research, look at what it suggests for their sector, and start factoring that into their workforce planning. Even if it is just a risk rather than a reality, it is better to have done the planning and thinking and not need it, than need it and not have done it.”

If Helen of Troy was the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’, Harvard Business Review’s 2015 article Why we love to hate HR… and what HR can do about it is arguably the story that launched a thousand agonising, soul-searching blogs.

And the trend shows little sign of abating, with 80% of HR professionals we surveyed saying that a quest for greater professionalism in HR would be an influencing factor in 2018.

But given how many other priorities HR professionals can expect to be juggling this year, isn’t it time to give ourselves a break; to stop worrying and start acting?

“I really hope HR professionals can get over this kind of stuff,” says Trehan. “For one, it’s really arrogant. What other business leader do you hear saying, ‘excuse me Mr CEO, can I have a seat at the table, because if I don’t have a seat I can’t do my job?’ They don’t – they perform, and that’s how they get their seat at the table. Younger members of HR teams today are itching to be given the opportunity [to perform]; we owe it to them to show them a different path.”

Adams agrees that actions should be speaking louder than words. “We’ve spent decades worrying about if we are being taken seriously. I think if we are creating conditions where our organisations can thrive, where people can become more creative and collaborative, and where our employees and leaders can become more productive and agile, that’s enough.”

However, one change in HR terminology is not to be sniffed at: the increasing usage of the phrase ‘HR professional’ in preference to ‘HR practitioner’. HR has “evolved over the last 60 years to become a profession,” says Ulrich. “There is a body of knowledge that shows up in rigorous research and theory; a set of standards that show up in competencies for those who work in HR; and clear outcomes for HR around talent, leadership, and organisation. In leading firms, HR professionals have a dramatic impact on business results.”

D’Souza is keen to see a clear distinction in how an HR professional and HR practitioner approaches and solves challenges, and contributes to the wider sector. “For me, the difference is that a professional is part of a broader community with a broader sense of responsibilities. That’s one of the areas we’ve focused on at the CIPD; giving organisations confidence in the credibility of HR, and allowing HR professionals to show their level of professionalism through a modern framework.”

Timms offers a different take on the distinction. “I think a professional is somebody who is affiliated more to their craft than to the actual place where they are doing it. Are you doing something for the craft, the trade, the

But however you define yourself – as a professional or practitioner, or a ‘people’ rather than an ‘HR’ person– the most important thing for 2018 will be to stop worrying about perceptions of what you do, and crack on with making robust, evidence-based decisions (see statement 3) that positively impact the employees and organisations you support.

“We need to genuinely showcase our expertise,” says D’Souza. “Our expertise in the dynamics of organisations; in the psychology of people and how they work and in how to get the best performance out of them; and also our expertise in the more traditional sense, around compensation and employment law. This year we will see some real challenges for organisations and the people within them – but we have a fantastic opportunity to step up and really make a difference.”

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

body of people who are doing similar things for you, and giving back to that community? Are you going beyond the day job? I think connecting with that community gives you confidence, because you can check yourself against fellow professionals, and gather more evidence that backs up your theories and practices.”

HR will stop worrying about how it’s perceived, and start doing what it believes is right

Eight statements of intent for 2018 We’ve spent

decades worrying

about if we are

being taken

seriously

Lucy Adams,

Disruptive HR

HR has evolved

over the last 60

years to become a

profession

Dave Ulrich,

professor and author

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

Conclusion

“I’m hoping 2018 will be the year we say: ‘right, we’ve been holding back a bit – now we’re going to go for it’”, says Timms. “I’m getting the impression that HR people don’t want to be on the sidelines anymore; they want to be the hub of innovation and creativity, and they are trying to generate a lot more of that themselves – not for their own gain, but to help bridge the gap between people, technology and processes.”

The challenges and possibilities which we’ve identified lie ahead for HR in 2018 are numerous, varied, complex and, at times, daunting.

But the potential pay-offs and rewards – for individual practitioners, the HR profession as a whole, and for the UK’s working population – are vast.

“I think we’re seeing the beginning of a third evolution of HR, which is HR as the architects of the conditions where the behaviours that organisations need can thrive,” adds Adams. “HR is about creating those conditions – which of course means working with people, with leaders, and with different departments. It’s about creating the environment in which human beings can change.”

“For a long time HR was typically seen – and probably was – a very, very reactive function. I think the tide is really changing,” says Kendall. “Now we are really starting to see HR teams proactively looking at ways to drive businesses forward. I don’t think there is any other team in the business better placed than HR to really make some quite significant strategic changes to how organisations operate, and their chances of achieving strategic goals. So absolutely I think the tide is very much turning – and about time too.”

HR people don’t want to

be on the sidelines anymore

Perry Timms

Further reading

Why do productivity figures matter? An IPPR explainerIPPR, April 2017

Four theories to explain the UK’s productivity woesGemma Tetlow, Financial Times, 23 October 2017

Strange and unhelpful ways that Britain thinks about productivitySarah O’Connor, Financial Times, 12 December 2017

Our productivity puzzleRichard Heys, Spectator, 9 December 2017

Why a joyful workforce is a more productive workforceKaren Matovu, People Management, 19 December 2017

Five ways employers can address declining productivityJoyce Maroney, People Management, 1 December 2017

What really happened when Swedes tried six-hour days? Maddy Savage, BBC News, 8 February 2017

1. Productivity

What if you don’t want to be a manager? Anne Kreamer, Harvard Business Review, December 2012

It’s not a promotion – it’s a career changeLindsay Holmwood, 19 September 2014

Making the transition from technical expert to professional leader – are organisations doing enough to help? Oliver Johnston, HR Magazine, 1 August 2013

2. Line managers

Eight talent management trends for 2018Tom Haak, HR Trend Institute, 24 July 2017

Placing people first: the humanisation of the workplaceRMIT University, October 2016

Power as a catalyst for humanising organisationsVlatka Hlupic, HR Magazine, 30 March 2016

Humanising the world of workPeter Cheese, Raconteur, 30 June 2016

6. Humanisation of HR

The robots are coming – but will they really take our jobs?David Barnett, Independent, 30 November 2017

War for talent and skills shortages are HR’s biggest problems, report revealsMarianne Calnan, People Management, 8 May 2017

From ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’: making the UK’s skills system world classCIPD, April 2017

The great tech panic: robots won’t take all our jobsJames Surowiecki, Wired, August 2017

7. Automation and skills

Is HRM evidence-based and does it matter? Rob Briner, Institute for Employment Studies, 2007

The future of HR is evidence based – and behavioural science is not a passing fadCIPD, 21 February 2017

Evidence-based practice and HR analytics – what needs to be doneEdward Houghton, CIPD, 4 May 2017

Evidence-based HR: under the microscopeKatie Jacobs, HR Magazine, 12 January 2015

Evidence-based HR: the bridge between your people and delivering business strategyKPMG, 2015

3. Evidence-based HR practice

Research report 107: the disability pay gapEHRC, August 2017

Research report 108: the ethnicity pay gapEHRC, August 2017

Gender bias ‘starts before a candidate is even hired’Dawn Lewis, People Management, 15 November 2017

4. Diversity and inclusion

What does HR need to know about GDPR? Hayley Kirton, People Management, 23 August 2017

HR and the GDPR: where do we start? Shoosmiths, 9 May 2017

What impact will the GDPR have on employers? HR Review, 19 September 2017

5. GDPR

HBR: It’s time to ‘blow up’ HRAndrew McIlvaine, HRE Online, 25 June 2015

Don’t blow up HR, appreciate and evolve itDave Ulrich, HR Magazine, 24 July 2015

Is it time to blow up HR and build something new?Helen Pitcher, HR Magazine, 24 November 2015

Time to blow up H(B)HR – and the CIPD as well?Douglas Board, HR Zone, 8 September 2015

8. The future of HR

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From evidence to automation Eight trends that’ll shape the HR profession in 2018

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