• The top ten in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. This means we are currently training students for jobs that don't yet exist. Furthermore, it is likely that these future jobs will use technologies that haven't yet been invented.
• The amount of technical information available is doubling every four years. For students currently enrolled in a four year technical degree programme, this means that about half of what they learn in the first year will be outdated by their third year.
  
  

• If Facebook were a country, it would be more than double the size of Japan. Online communities are becoming bigger than some of the most powerful countries in the world.
• Radio took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million. TV took 13, internet 4, Ipod 3, and Facebook just 2 years. Connectivity is changing human behaviour at an alarming rate.

Amidst all this rapid change, business leaders around the world are screaming for help with three major challenges of the new economy:
1. Strategy gets outdated too quickly
2. Organisational structure rigidity prevents companies from responding quickly to market needs
3. Corporate culture needs to be changed in order for the company to survive.

The key question about HR is, whether or not it is keeping up with the changing world and responding effectively to the business leaders' cry for help. On average, when asked about HR, most business leaders say something like, "I love my HR guy, but I hate HR overall." Judging by this response, I believe the answer is a big NO.

So what can HR leaders do differently? The first step might be to completely re-align HR's work to focus almost exclusively on the three challenges, which I sometimes refer to as B-B-N: the brains (strategy), bones (organisation design) and nerves (culture) of a business. The next would be to challenge some so-called best practices because they may have outlived their usefulness.

HR as B-B-N Coach:
The brains of a business are its vision and strategy. Not only must an organisation develop a compelling strategy very quickly, it must be ready at all times to change the strategy as markets change. Furthermore, management must find a way to articulate and explain strategy (including subsequent and frequent changes) to all employees such that the clarity guides decision-making.

Can HR become a facilitator of such nimble innovation and directional clarity? Can HR help senior management in better meeting this challenge? Yes, by creating capability within its own ranks to provide facilitation, coaching and consulting services.

The best HR teams today work alongside senior management in formulating and cascading strategy such that it creates widespread understanding and acceptance. However, such teams are rare because most HR departments are still focused on administrative tasks and are not involved in strategy formulation at all.

The bones of a business refer to its organisational architecture. This means having the right people on the right jobs, and creating supporting systems and structures that enable peak performance in a rapidly changing landscape. It also means developing leaders who are fit for the brave new world of technology and information. Unfortunately, most recruiting development programmes still use competency models as their basis.

By definition, competency models document past success to determine future success on the job. This was great until about fifteen years ago, but now those competency models become outdated before the ink dries on them. Similarly, as evidenced by the financial meltdown of 2008, our incentive systems still encourage the wrong behaviours. Might it be time for HR to upgrade their tools for attracting, developing and retaining top talent in order to ensure the bones of the business remain strong?

Another "best practice" that merits a re-visit is succession planning. GE and other great companies popularised the nine-box grid to map employees based on current performance and future potential. The idea was to identify high potential future leaders and give them an accelerated development diet. This practice served many companies well for a long time. In today's scenario however, it is almost impossible to predict who will succeed five years from now because we don't know yet what the demands for leadership will be in five years.

Instead of identifying high potentials early based on look-back competency models, an alternative is to provide all employees with opportunities to show their leadership agility. HR can create action learning programmes which invite voluntary participation for any employee that wants to go above and beyond their day job to add value to the organisation.

Why should employees want to participate? Because they will get recognised by senior management, have an opportunity to stretch themselves and learn new skills, and feel intrinsic satisfaction for creating something special. Leadership is a choice, not an appointment. Real leaders choose to lead because they feel strongly about the inadequacies of current reality and decide to do something about it. Anointing someone a member of an elite future leadership group is no guarantee for effective leadership. So instead of structuring the usual high potential development programmes, it might be time to give people equal opportunity to show their proactive leadership.

Finally, if used correctly, HR can help companies in strengthening the only lasting source of competitive advantage - corporate culture. Culture is the nerve centre of the business. Here again, a lot of culture change initiatives are misguided and do not produce results. The fact is, creating a desired culture is less about organisational theory and more about seriousness of intent on the part of senior management. If senior leaders can communicate the elements of the desired culture in terms of clearly understandable behaviours, are willing to walk the talk and set the right example every day by their own behaviour, and reinforce it by aligning reward systems to the cultural elements, they can change culture every quickly. The key is to keep it simple and honest, and HR can be a big help.

A lot of HR transformation efforts in recent years have focused on using technology and outsourcing to reduce costs. These are great efforts but they can hardly be called transformational. To really transform itself, HR must not only reduce costs and leverage technology, it must create internal capability to coach senior management in proactively driving the three pillars of sustainable growth - the brains, bones and nerves. Thanks to the ever increasing pace of change, these are not periodic activities anymore and need to be managed every day. HR must therefore step up and help. For this to happen, business leaders must first demand such help from HR. If they continue to use HR for administrative tasks alone, HR will find it hard to upgrade itself.

The bottom line is, your HR function is capable of a lot more - are you demanding it?