Human resources (HR) has changed in the last decade and is continuing to change with the globalization of information. Ever widening content and conversation between all forms of people has led to innovative initiatives and calls for understanding the culture and goals of all people. What’s more, is that HR has needed to evolve with the changing of how jobs are sought after by potential employees, and thus, HR has needed to become creative in how they search for employees to fill their company’s positions.
HR In the Past
In the past, HR was used as a conflict solver. They were meant to mediate between employees as well as keep the company out of harm’s way. This resulted in an untrustworthiness being attached to HR persons, and a series of common jokes about their place within white-collar offices. As a response to this, HR persons began hosting company events and retreats, most of which were mandatory, and resulted in more dissatisfaction from employees. Recently however, there has been a large shift in HR persons and their roles within companies. They are considered integral to the operations of businesses, as they always have been, but their techniques for dealing with conflict and for collecting and retaining employees has become advanced.
HR Currently
Over the last decade, HR persons have needed to advance their practices along with evolving technologies and search engines. Some of these practices are known as implementing a sort of HR software. These different types of software are helping to advance businesses into technology driven machines. Timecards, administration, accounting, all of it, can be done via this new software. While those companies who remain without the technology are left to waste resources, time, and paper in physical books. Indeed, there are some HR persons who have taken to group interviews and multiple phone interviews, in order to cut down on processing times to weed out those individuals who will not be hired.
HR persons has also needed to become more advanced in their searches for credible, great employees. Some HR persons have gone as far as becoming HR headhunters. Indeed, those HR persons who utilize these new search engines and skills can find high-ranking, elite, executives for searching companies. They can also find specifically skilled people, particularly if those individuals have a unique, multifaceted degree from college.
Where HR is Heading in the Future
As it is, HR persons sometimes spent a large amount of time looking for the right candidate to onboard for their company. The increased access to information from the internet does not make things easier. Increased and better knowledge means more college degrees, which also means more qualified candidates and more time searching to find the perfect one. The working population will continue to become more educated, and the searching requirements will need to become even more specific and more elite in order to operate efficiently. But, in narrowing the scope of search, many people are cut out of the running for a job, because of increasingly smaller reasons. An example of this is choosing between two English graduates, one of which has a minor in European History, the other of which, has a minor in German History.
Further, there is a known issue linking college degrees with joblessness. Where before, the younger generation was told to go to college to receive a good paying job—that ideal has gone out the window since the time of Millennials, many of which have degrees, and few of which have jobs in their own fields. It has become common place for students to take on low paying jobs to help pay their tuitions and loans—and then continue at those positions because their chosen fields are too saturated to hire new graduates.
HR persons, although adapting impressively to current technologies and ethics, will need to further adapt—preferably before the next technological leap. They will need to develop and understand that the population is becoming more educated, and that the pool of qualified candidates is widening thanks to increases in diversity in the workplace. Once they understand this, they can begin to get a handle on how to face the serge of in-need people, waiting to get jobs, despite having college degrees. Adaptation is the key to progressing the work force forward, while having enough people to produce goods is necessary to survive. Young people will continue to get more educated and more qualified, and it is HR’s responsibility to answer this fact with common sense initiatives and beneficial growth.
