Recent months have seen organisations in both the public and private sector face unprecedented change in their operating environment. Many commentaries have been written about the financial, social and economic impact of such. Little however has been written on the potential impact of the people agenda particularly around leadership, talent management and the HR function that determines the strategy and plans to support the desired changes.

The changing demographics coupled with the need to ensure a pipeline of succession candidates to critical positions will require organisations to explore and understand the demand and supply chain dynamics in a more focussed way. We are likely to see the re-emergence of workforce planning as a systematic tool and process to help talent and OD specialists understand and respond to the ‘gap’ between the demand for talent (based on the business strategy) and the supply of talent (both internally and externally).

The rapidly changing business environment coupled with the demand to create shareholder value will require organisations to take a fresh view on what success looks like in terms of leadership behaviour. Future potential and predicted performance will become the ‘norm’ and line managers will need to up their game in identifying future leaders for the organisation.

Developing leadership capability will be key to business success, more so than in the past. ‘Pushing the same peddles harder’ will not result in delivering a cadre of leaders who will be successful in tomorrow’s challenging environment. The more demands are put on executive’s time, the more creative L&OD needs to become in the development solutions it offers the organisation.

Leadership behaviours need to be developed earlier in people’s careers and should be based on a range of blended learning interventions. Effectively ‘negotiated’ learning contracts will become the norm where development is discussed, planned, implemented and monitored and its effectiveness assessed in a more robust way. Development will be a necessity and become more individualistic in nature and will require line managers to enhance existing or develop new skill sets around coaching and feedback.

With increasing financial pressures and critical decisions being faced on a daily basis CEOs will need to demand a greater focus on measurement, benchmarking and return on investment for an organisation’s people strategy and plans. The need for such plans and interventions to be supported by a strong business case and ROI data will become a way of life for talent and L&OD specialists. Gaining commitment to the required levels of investment will require greater evidence that it will deliver the desired Results. Relying on gut feel and previous experience will not be enough.

The trend towards ‘strategic business partner’ will continue with HR under pressure to ensure that the operational delivery of products and services to the organisation is achieved with greater efficiency and at less cost. The HR function size will continue to decrease with an expectation of moving from an average ratio to employees of 1:75 to 1:200 within five years.

HR will need to bring the ‘outside in’ to the organisation by understanding and translating the external market place demands into organisational and leadership capabilities. It will need to avoid being caught between operational excellence, cost reduction and ultimately becoming the strategic partner.

Retaining and engaging a high quality workforce is critical to an organisations ability to deliver Results and grow in a competitive environment. Continual downsizing and the ‘doing more with less’ will Challenge both line managers and HR to continually seek new and focused ways to engage and retain key workers.

The characteristics and requirements for example of generation X versus generation Y will require fresh and innovative approaches to satisfy both their employment needs and their values. Failure to recognise and respond to these potential changes in ‘what really matters’ to future employees will mean higher turnover rates or a devaluation of the organisations employer brand. Not only will organisations lose people, they will also fail to attract them in the first place.

One of the key success criteria identified and almost always quoted in why change interventions fail is a lack of engagement of senior executives in the process. The rationale is no different when looking at talent management, leadership development and performance management. Gaining C-suite attention and commitment will remain an issue for many HR and talent professionals in the years to come. Short-term operational requirements will continue to impact on the levels of executive engagement.

Unfortunately we are in danger of the ‘people brand’ being intellectually viewed as a long- term strategy but emotionally and pragmatically being managed on a quarterly basis. Gaining C-suite attention and time will be critical to the effectiveness of the people processes particularly those which are focussed on developing the pipeline of future leaders in the organisation. The ultimate question is not whether can we afford to invest in development but can we afford not to.

The concept of ‘employer branding’ has been in existence for a while and provides the framework for the way an organisation attracts, develops and retains it people. Like most branded goods and commodities marketing and delivering its proposition is key to selling the product and gaining consumer loyalty. The concept of an employer brand is no different and provides the framework for the organisation to attract, develop and retain its staff.

What is increasingly emerging is the concept of the ‘employee brand’ which in this context is the same proposition but applied to the individual rather than the organisation. As we move through the next decade the ability to get compatibility between the two brands will be key to an organisation attracting and retaining its people. We have already mentioned the different values and requirements for generation X and Y, both of whom will in theory have a different outlook on the employment environment of the future. Potentially their employee brands will be different and hence managing the requirements will be different.

The increasing complexity that has developed recently will continue to be a part of organisation life. HR professionals may seek increasingly complex solutions both in terms of process and content. The danger of line managers becoming more critical of the demands being placed on them to understand, practice and deliver the requirements of the process is very real.

Is it now time to take a step back and review the processes that have been introduced and assess their real effectiveness in terms of outcome? Can the concept of ‘simplification’ be applied not only in reviewing existing processes but in developing new ones?

A return to basics, focusing on the ‘right things’ that deliver the ‘right Results’ but at the same time reduce the complexity should be an aim for HR professionals in the future. The dangers of ‘over engineering’ solutions is a real threat to HR’s position and credibility in the organisation.

The final question facing HR professionals over the next decade can be summarised as - are we trying to find solutions to the perceived problems or are we really trying to manage the resultant paradoxes? In many instances the problems we have identified cannot be solved. For example we cannot change the fact that demographic trends are telling us there is a decline in ‘leader age’ population for the future which in itself provides a numbers of Challenges in talent management and succession planning. Those Challenges can best be described as paradoxes in that they provide us with opposites (declining pool of future leader age people versus an increasing demand for capable leaders in the future). Demand is therefore likely to outstrip supply. The question therefore is more about managing the paradox effectively rather that solving the problem. This is also true of a number of key people issues that need to be addresses as we move forward. There is however one final salutary reminder as quoted by Charles Handy in his book “The Empty Raincoat” as follows:

“To live with simultaneous opposites (paradigms) is, at first a recipe for indecision at best and schizophrenia at worst”.

Let’s not make the above Challenges at best a reason for too much discussion and indecision, and at worse an excuse for not taking action.