Accenture-Future-of-HR-Digital-Radically-Disrupts-HR

Digital Radically Disrupts HRBy David Gartside, Catherine Farley, Maureen Brosnan,Himanshu Tambe and Susan M. Cantrell

Digital technology is continuing to evolve atbreakneck speed, and it permeates nearly everyaspect of our working lives. In the coming years,digital will empower people to take significantlymore responsibility for talent management and HRactivities. As digital enables talent management tobecome less of a centralized HR activity and moreof an activity that is embedded in the fabric ofeveryday business, it will fundamentally changeHR as we know it.2 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Eventually, the lines between businessand people management systems mayblur, wiping away functional siloswithin HR and even the silo of HRitself. For example, better integrationmay fundamentally change the role ofprofessionals in HR Centers of Excellence.Typically, professionals in these roles areorganizationally divided by functionssuch as recruiting, compensation andbenefits, training and development, andcareer development. But when informationsystems help enable talent management tobecome truly integrated across processes,rigid functional boundaries between talentmanagement processes may no longercontinue to make sense.And it won’t stop there. As mobilityapplications develop and people spendmore of their work and personal time ontechnology platforms, they will leave anever larger digital trail of informationthat can be tracked, integrated, andanalyzed as well. Already, enterprises likeGoogle Inc. are analyzing a wide array ofdata on people’s lives (such as whethersomeone has set a world record or whatmagazines someone subscribes to) tocreate statistically valid predictors ofperformance at work. 1 For example, Googlehas determined through quantitativeanalysis that ability to take initiative is afar better predictor of high performance onthe job than stellar academic records fromprestigious schools. 2 SuccessFactors, anSAP company, tracks employees’ searchesof external blogs or podcasts to showexecutives how and what employeesare learning. 3 And it is now possible forbenefits information to be provided toindividuals based on their physical locationas determined from the GPS systemembedded in a person’s mobile device.In the future, companies will integratetraditional business and talent data withBig Data obtained from social and localdata sources—tweets, blog posts, RSS feeds,customer service feedback, GPS coordinatesand more—to get a complete picture oftheir workforce’s abilities, wants and needs.Data and the insights it yields mayeventually trump processes in termsof relative importance. The ability tostatistically determine the key drivers ofperformance and productivity for particularworkforce micro-segments based on harddata, for example, may become muchmore important than generalized rewards,development, or learning processes4 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

and rapidly adopted for nearly everyprocess to make it easier to performthese activities anywhere, anytime, andon any device—including talent analytics,performance management, and leadershipdevelopment. Technology companies likeSAP are now designing apps with a "mobilefirst" approach, promising to make mobilityfar easier than ever before for nearly everytalent and HR practice.Finally, the infusion of all things socialinto talent management—and the infusionof principles derived from gaming as well—will further weave talent management intothe very fabric of employees’ everyday worklives. Already, employees can learn togetherthrough corporate versions of Facebook orYouTube in addition to centrally mandatedtraining curricula. Companies can alsouse technology to draw on an employee’ssocial networks to target and recruit newhires with the right skills for an openposition. Moreover, workers can use socialmedia to advise career counselors howbest to counsel them, instead of having HRprovide this advice. Sites like Mixtent, GILD,and TrueOffice can also help companiestransform everything from recruiting toperformance appraisals to learning into agame. New site Knack, for example, usesa game format to help workers discovertheir "knack"—their unique combinationof strengths, talents, abilities, personalitytraits, likes and preferences. The site canbe used by companies to help identifyhigh performers for recruiting purposes;it combines gaming, analytics, and theapplication of behavioral insights fromscience. (For more on gaming, see sidebaron page 8: “Changing the HR Game:How Serious Games and GamificationAre Disrupting Human Resources”). Weexpect innovations to keep arising inthis space, as start-ups take off and astalent management software companiescontinue to layer social and gamingfunctionality onto their existing offerings.Eventually, new social, gaming and mobilecapabilities may replace traditionaltalent management practices, as well astime-honored HR tools such as employeesurveys and e-mail communications.Eventually, advances in digital will notonly empower the line to take much moreresponsibility for talent management,but they may even shift the locus ofinformation and decision making from acentral group like HR or a small group oftop leaders to employees themselves. Socialmedia could take HR as a middleman outof the picture, for example, by enablingthe following:• Employees to define their owncompensation in reverse talent auctions.• Employees to negotiate schedulingchanges with one another on shiftswappingsites.• Benefits choices to be determinedby consensus through analysis ofcorporate social media sites revealingwhich benefits are important to whichemployee populations.• Managers to analyze Big Data fromsources like blogs, social networking sitesand other online forums to determinewhat employees need and want andto find new employees.• Talent exchanges where workers andhiring managers can find each otherwithout the help of an intermediarythrough matching of open opportunitieswith an analysis of individuals’ skills orpast performance and interest profiles;or exchanges that act like stock markets,where the value of each individualworker is determined by the crowdin a quantifiable and searchable wayfor sourcing purposes.• Workers to define their own careerpaths by seeing each other’s customizedcareer paths (through sites that minetransfer and promotion histories) andnetwork with them.• New leaders or successors to be selectedin part through opinion polling by thosemost affected by the decision.In this future, the administrative burdenthat HR departments currently carrymay lighten up considerably. Not onlywill technology continue to automatetransactional HR processes like benefitsadministration, but it will continue toenable more strategic practices like manyof those described above to be performedby employees. Technology could thenfree HR professionals so they can focuson other work such as analytics. As aresult, the group primarily responsiblefor HR processes and transactions—whether a shared services organization, abusiness services group or an outsourcingpartner—may shrink to a fraction ofwhat it is today. Employees may evenmanage their own data, and HR dataand transactions may become the soleresponsibility of the business with the6 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

support of IT. What’s more, HR may shiftits mission and mandate to concentrateon building a culture where people canuse talent management tools to enhancetheir own job performance. New roles andresponsibilities for HR professionals mayensue accordingly.Consumer Applications Will Find a Homein the Enterprise. Closely linked to theadvent of cloud computing is the rise ofbusinesses like LinkedIn® and BranchOut TM ,where talent management systems liveon the web and are shared by companies.Today, for example, employees and jobcandidates can input the equivalent oftheir resumes and skills on such sites. Bydoing so, they may circumvent the needfor internal talent profile databases thataggregate individuals’ skills, job history,education, competencies and more. Othersites, like GILD TM and TalentBin, even letorganizations build talent profiles bymining the “social exhaust” from siteslike Facebook®, Twitter®, Meetup TM andQuora® to build searchable talent profilesabout people’s professional interests, skills,passions, and accomplishments. Withthe advent of companies like these thatsupport more user-friendly processes, suchas searching for people with particularskill sets in particular geographiesand interviewing them through video,processes like staffing can be shifted toline managers instead of being performedby HR. Market-based mechanisms couldmotivate people to use external systemsfor internal purposes. For example, ifemployees don’t input their skills into asite like LinkedIn®, they risk missing outon opportunities (such as projects andnew job assignments) that might havebenefited from their skills.Already, some organizations are drawingmore on such external, public sites andintegrating data from these sites into theirown HR information systems. Althoughdoing so may require some work matchingdata definitions used in external sites todata definitions used in internal systems,some companies are successfully blurringthe line between internal and externalapplications. We expect use of publicsites to accelerate—especially if the sitescan ensure that data is accurate andqualified. We may even see the equivalentof electronic medical records for peoplearise. In this scenario, organizations won’tmaintain their own talent managementrecords on employees, training histories,performance reviews, salary informationand so forth. Instead, such records willbe shared in a standardized format acrosscompanies on a public site, and theywon’t be lost when an individual leavesan organization. Shared solutions suchas these will be particularly valuable aspeople more rapidly move from employerto employer or strike out on their ownas independent freelancers. (See: TrendsReshaping the Future of HR: The Rise ofthe Extended Workforce). With this change,HR organizations may become primarilycoaches and educators for line managers—explaining how they can get the best valuefrom such shared applications and data.IT Will Enable Customized TalentManagement. Technology transformedmarketing by enabling customizationof products, services and marketingmessages. (See: Trends Reshaping theFuture of HR: Managing Your Peopleas a Workforce of One). Likewise, itcan transform HR by empoweringit to offer highly customized talentpractices that optimize each employee’sperformance. Most organizations havealready achieved maximum cost savingsby using information technology tostandardize and harmonize their peoplepractices across their global operations.But HR professionals can now leveragethat standardized framework to tailoremployment practices to every worker(see Figure 1).Figure 1: Evolution of talent managementYesterday's practice Today's practice Tomorrow's practiceWorkforce of manyPeople are treateddifferently, but with littlestructure, control or goodbusiness reasonsWorkforce as a single monolithic entityMore standardized systems thattreat everyone the same andenhance control and efficiencyWorkforce of oneSystems become more flexible andtailored to meet individual needs andachieve business value while retainingcontrol and structure7 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Changing the HR Game: How Serious Games andGamification are Disrupting Human ResourcesManish Mehta and Alex Kass, Accenture Technology LabsSince the first Nintendo sets arrived inhomes in the mid-1980s, the workforcehas become increasingly populatedwith employees who have grown upwith computer games. For many peopleentering the workforce now, such games—including Massively Multi-Player OnlineRole-Playing Games (MMORPGs)—aremore than just an occasional pastime.Games form the very backdrop of theirlives. These individuals do much of theirsocializing through computer games anduse the vocabulary of gaming [“levelingup,” "epic win," “GG (good game)”] evenin conversations that have nothing todo with games. With gaming conceptsand terminology gaining prominenceamong young employees, it’s probably notsurprising that companies eager to attract,engage, incentivize and retain members ofthis generation have been taking gamesseriously. Gaming concepts have begunworking their way into key HR processesin two distinct forms, often called seriousgames and gamification. Whereas seriousgames are actual games used in theworkplace whose purpose is beyond merelyproviding entertainment, gamification isthe weaving of game mechanics such asvirtual currency, leaderboards (boards thatdisplay leaders in a competition), badges,or leveling up (progression to the next levelin a game) into existing work activities orprocesses without the development of afull-fledged actual game.Why now?The idea that gaming elements can beuseful in the workplace is not new. Forexample, sales groups have long usedleaderboards and other gamification-likemechanisms to foster friendly competition.And organizations as serious as themilitary have used war games and theircivilian equivalents to train soldiers andleaders. What is new is that more andmore workers are familiar with and enjoygaming. In addition, the commercialplatforms that have industrialized thedevelopment of games and gamificationare more widely available to organizations.These factors have made it much moreaffordable for enterprises to create seriousgames and to incorporate gamificationinto business processes. For example, someserious games leverage general-purposegame engines (such as Unreal Enginefrom Epic Games, or Unity Technologies’platform)—which provide graphics,game editors and artificial intelligencefunctions—to achieve high levels ofsophistication and create simulatedcharacters. Likewise, vendors such asBunchball and Badgeville have createdcloud-based gamification engines, whichdeliver key gamification functions as webservices. This greatly reduces the cost andcomplexity of incorporating gamificationinto enterprise web applications. Thesedevelopments have given rise to a variedset of applications that have transformedvarious HR processes.8 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

HR processes and gaming applicationsHR processRecruitmentGaming application examplesAmerica's Army® (AA) comprises serious games and was developed as an element of the U.S. Army’s recruitingprogram. AA strongly resembles battlefield entertainment games. The simulation-based game conveys thechallenges involved in common Army missions, making the soldier’s role appealing to the Army’s target audience.TrainingStone City is a serious game commissioned by Cold Stone Creamery Inc. The purpose of the game is to helpemployees learn correct “portioning behavior” for ice cream and understand its effect on profitability andcustomer satisfaction. A viscosity model simulates the way in which various flavors “scoop” differently. Success inthe game requires speed and skill, which makes the simulation fun and effective.America’s Army® has been extended to include training components in addition to recruiting. Training modulesenable players to try out various types of weapons, vehicles and military procedures. The game environment allowssafe trial-and-error learning of job functions that are dangerous in real life.SourcingTopCoder® is a programming community site that, among other things, uses gamification to help companiesidentify strong programmers for contract work or permanent hire. Software projects are divided up into smallcompetitions. Participants can earn royalties for winning results that are licensed for sale. However, the reputationa programmer earns by doing well in the competitions is often more important to participants. TopCoder®maintains programmer reputations and makes them accessible to potential employers.Performance ManagementWork.com TM , from salesforce.com, Inc., uses gamification mechanisms to provide timely feedback to employeesand to recognize high performers. Employees can recognize colleagues with customized badges that reflect theircompany’s culture and values. Any recognition employees receive becomes part of their social profiles, makingtheir reputation visible throughout the enterprise.ContestBuilder, by LevelEleven, LLC, enables sales managers to gamify any aspect of the sales metrics tracked insalesforce.com’s customer relationship management (CRM) system. Managers can design contests to incentivizecreating, responding to or converting leads or closing deals. The contests motivate salespeople to achieve, thusboosting their productivity. Companies can create customized contests and change the contests to reflect shifts intheir sales pipeline, making this an agile approach to performance management.Achievers provides companies with a stand-alone, branded social recognition portal, through which employees canrecognize each other with endorsements and virtual currency points. Recognition is broadcast in a social newsfeedand on the platform’s dashboard, fostering a sense of accomplishment and friendly competition. Recognitionpoints can become a source of pride for employees and can be redeemed for merchandise.The road aheadGamification of HR is still in its early days.Still, games and gamification have begunto alter the way HR professionals andemployees experience various HR processes.Some of the changes are incremental.Others could prove disruptive, such asWork.com TM ’s use of gamification to replaceoccasional, private top-down feedback withreal-time, public 360-degree feedback.We’re just beginning to understand whichgame-related transformations are mostbeneficial to organizations and how toestimate the degree to which workersmay embrace these changes. As games9 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.and gamification—along with insights intohow they can help organizations generatevaluable business outcomes—continue toimprove, this trend will likely become moreimportant. We may never get to the pointwhere the experience of going to work isas exciting and engaging as a great game.But high-performance enterprises will likelypush the boundaries to see just how closethey can get.

As we explain in our book Workforce ofOne: Revolutionizing Talent Managementthrough Customization (Harvard BusinessPress, 2010), such tailoring need not bea hodgepodge of one-off deals betweenmanagers and employees. That’s notscalable, controllable or fair. Rather,customization can be built on standardsthat exist on top of a common process andinformation system platform—standardsthat allow for flexibility rather thansameness. For example, companies cansimply offer a greater variety of standardpractices—such as different compensation,development or performance appraisalprocesses tailored to different employeesegments. Or, they could let employeeschoose from a menu of predefined,standard options.It is only due to advances in technologyin the past few years that customizationof people practices in such ways is noweven possible. Consider, for example, howtechnology can now help an organizationbetter know individual employeesthrough data that is captured and minedon everything from demographics andbehaviors to communication or e-mailpatterns to determine customized offerings.For example, by mining employees’ e-mailand other electronic communications,companies can now segment employeesinto networking types—central connectors,peripheral players, boundary spanners,and information brokers. Companies canidentify who is critical to collaboration andexecuting the business strategy as well asmodel the impact of losing specific peoplein a network in order to target tailoredretention practices.Consider also how technology canenable organizations to break downinformation on things like learning content,performance appraisal criteria, benefits,or even job activities into smaller chunks,keep track of it, and modularly configureit to create a custom offering. For example,some companies use internal temporarystaffing agencies to allow employees tomass configure their jobs by choosingspecific assignments best suited to them.Such internal agencies can draw onskills databases that send only relevantassignment choices to employees basedon their skill and interest profiles. Or takelearning. Learners at the news serviceReuters can custom configure learning onthe fly, based on their individual needsand preferences, by choosing among a vastarray of ten- to twenty-minute bite-sizelearning components. 5 Companies todaycan create small components like shortvideos, simulations, games, traditionale-learning, podcasts, virtual classrooms,and more to be delivered on an employee’splatform of choice.Digital can also now be used to pushout customized offerings, includinglearning and job opportunities, targeted,personalized messages, or personalizedinformation based on an analysis of anindividual’s social media digital trail andartificial intelligence that predict what anindividual needs and values based on theirunique employee segment. For example,to help people forge customized careerpaths, technology can now provide a fewwell-defined options regarding possiblenext positions—both lateral and vertical—that each employee may consider basedon competencies and experience, andcompute the person’s readiness for eachopportunity. 6To support such a customized model,HR may need to evolve to look more likethe marketing department next door.That is, it may have to become “employeecentric”just as marketing organizationshave become “customer-centric.” HR mightalso need to create altogether new roles(such as those focused on understandingand supporting specific segments ofthe workforce), new activities (includingcollecting and mining data to determineemployee segments or preferences) andnew organizational models (for example,integration of talent solutions that worktogether to suit specific employees’ needs).(See: Trends Reshaping the Future of HR:Managing Your People as a Workforceof One).Cloud Computing Will Enable NewFlexibility and Agility. Increasingly,organizations are accessing sharedresources, software and information overthe Internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.Whereas the traditional big, siloed,industrial HR application that spanned10 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

multiple areas of functionality wascreated precisely because connectingdisparate systems from different vendorswas quite difficult (and usually involvedexpensive systems integration experts onthe back-end), today big ERP vendorslike Oracle and SAP are offering thesesystems over the Internet in the form ofsoftware-as-a-Service (SaaS). Likewise,new cloud-based platforms like thosefrom Workday and Salesforce.com arebeing built from the ground up withweb-services-based connectors, openarchitecture, and an orientation towarddata analytics and integration. This maymake it increasingly easy and inexpensivefor newer cloud-based solutions to connectwith one another.We thus imagine a future in whichfaster-moving, loosely collaborativecloud-based HR applications tied togetherin an integrated network may replaceexisting systems altogether. Unencumberedby legacy code, mindsets or businessmodels, newer cloud-based players mayalso be able to more nimbly capturemarket share – through building successfulbusinesses by (for example) charging 10people within a single client organizationa subscription fee rather than relying onlicensing fees based on thousands of usersper organization.This cloud computing approach will giveHR more flexibility to support the business.With the advent of software-as-a-service,for example, companies can now updateand introduce the latest innovationsenabled through software every 3-6months instead of every few years. Inaddition, organizations can more quicklyscale their computing power up or downand switch vendors as their needs change.Although fewer organizations have adoptedplatform-as-a-service (PaaS), we expectmore of them to in the future. That’sbecause PaaS will enable HR organizationsto more easily tailor software applicationsto their unique requirements and processes.How? PaaS will let HR build an ecosystemof extension applications from a variety ofvendors based on business needs—withoutrequiring an army of IT support to handlemessy customizations and integration withother systems. The result is that softwarecan be readily configured to meet theneeds of users in an individual group,business unit, department or geography.The platform involved may take the formof a hub-and-spoke model comprisingmultiple plug-and-play applications thattie into a central data system.Thanks to SaaS, technology updates,flexible configurations and applicationsintegration are easier than they havebeen in the past. But they still requiresome work from organizations, includingthe conversion of data so that it maps tovendors’ data structure or the restructuringof a company’s IT environment. But inthe future, such conversion efforts coulddisappear if vendors adopt consistent orcompatible data structures. Of course, thismay be a long way off, as there is currentlyno commitment by vendors to do so. But ifthat ever happens, managers may be ableto easily download HR applications from anapp store and integrate them with coreHR systems as handily as consumersdownload apps to their mobile phonesor tablets today.In the consumer world, people arebecoming accustomed to smaller, singleuseapplications available for iPhones andiPads. By using similar kinds of applicationsin the enterprise, organizations can provideemployees with the functionality theyneed and can avoid costly seldom-usedfeatures. With smaller cloud-based apps,companies can implement and change HRapps swiftly as their business demandsshift. The resulting flexibility could reducecosts and the number of IT and HR staffneeded in organizations. Organizations likeAccenture are now developing their owninternal app stores, offering extensions ofexisting internal apps and third-party appsto their employees.To make the shift to SaaS, HR will need towork closely with IT to regularly evaluatenew software innovations and functionality,assess current people managementprocesses and determine how emergingsoftware may change those processes. Newroles may arise within the HR function toperform these evaluations in conjunctionwith IT professionals. And as SaaS becomesincreasingly user-friendly and intuitive, HRprofessionals might be able to configuresoftware on their own without the helpof IT at all. The move toward SaaS willbe one of many factors contributing toa future of HR in which the HR functionintegrates other disciplines or relies heavilyon spanning boundaries between itself andother functions such as IT.11 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Impact onthe BusinessAs we have discussed in the context ofeach of the five IT developments, digitaladvances will have significant implicationson employees, managers, and leaders alike.The most important implications include:• Talent management will become aneveryday activity for each employeeand manager.• The locus of information and decisionmaking will shift to employees—andaway from a central group like HRor a small group of top leaders.• Digital will knock down silos and blurboundaries—between HR and businesslines, between consumer applications andenterprise applications, between layersin the organizational hierarchy, betweenbusiness processes and HR processes,and between work and personal life.• Talent management processes willbetter serve the business—becausethey’re customized to an organization’schanging needs and to the employeesthat work to make the business a success,and are able to more flexibly adapt tochanging business conditions.• Talent practices will become moreintegral to the business’s strategiccapability—because they are datadriven,and because talent data isbetter integrated with an organization’sbusiness data.Impact on HRAs digital infuses nearly every aspect oftalent management and work itself, it willtransform how HR organizations operateand how they serve the business. It willimpact HR in the following ways:• Structure and size of the HR function.The HR function may become smalleras digital more efficiently enablestransactional processes and as linemanagers and employees adoptconsumer-like applications to handle HRprocesses themselves. What remains inHR may become more project-orientedand aimed at improving organizationaleffectiveness—such as helping tointegrate a new acquisition. In addition,new organizational structures may ariseto help HR professionals collaborateclosely with the business and otherfunctions such as IT.• Core activities of the HR function.HR may start acting like a marketingorganization, by analyzing employeedata to mine it for insights; creatingcustomized talent offerings; andmarketing, branding and educatingemployees about talent and HR processes.Already, in some leading companies, HRanalytics groups have been establishedwhose mission is to analyze datato determine drivers of workforceperformance. HR professionals will alsolikely take on more of a coaching role,helping to design cultures, incentivesand educational programs to supportemployees as they engage in IT-enabledtalent processes.• HR information managementand technology roles. As the linecontinues to blur between internal andexternal applications, the role of HRinformation management and technologyprofessionals could change. Insteadof implementing internal applications,information technologists specializingin HR and talent management may bemore involved with evaluating externalapplications and building interfacesbetween them and an organization’s owndata and systems. In addition, new rolesassociated with constantly evaluatingnew cloud-based software and theimpact the software might may have onthe business may arise. And as softwarebecomes increasingly user-friendly andintuitive, HR professionals may configurepackaged software instead of IT experts.Eventually, software and the manipulationof data may become so user-friendly thatemployees themselves may even be able tomanage their own data, with only limitedinvolvement from the IT or HR function.Bottom LineFor years, the human resourcesfunction has shouldered much of theresponsibility for managing people, in alargely segregated operation. Technologyadvances will change all this, byintegrating talent management intothe fabric of everyday business. HR ITwill thus become a vital componentof organizational performance in anincreasingly competitive and fast-changingworld. As HR heads toward a futurecharacterized by Big Data, integration,mobility, social media, gamification,and cloud computing, the ability fororganizations to manage their people willgrow more flexible, agile and customized.12 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

About the AuthorsDavid Gartside, managing director,Accenture Strategy, Talent & Organization,leads large scale HR transformationprograms for clients around the world.He is also the executive sponsor for theAccenture Future of HR research initiative.Based in New York, Mr. Gartside has deepexperience in addressing the complexitiesinvolved in driving a successful globalHR strategy.Catherine Farley, managing director,Accenture Talent & HR services. She isresponsible for integrating and innovatingend–to-end talent and HR solutionsAccenture brings to its clients, spanningall aspects of Accenture’s business inconsulting, technology and outsourcing.Based in Seattle, Washington, Ms. Farleyhas extensive experience with workforcerestructurings and the implications of thistype of change.Maureen Brosnan, managing director,Accenture Human Capital Managementpractice. Based in Boston, Massachusetts,Ms. Brosnan has in depth experiencehelping companies transform their HRorganizations to drive strategic valuethrough automation, self service andshared services.Himanshu Tambe, managing director,Accenture Strategy, Talent Organization.Based in New Delhi (Gurgaon), Mr. Tambespecializes in Business & Human CapitalStrategy and HR Transformation solutionsfor the metals & mining and bankingindustries as well as the public sectoracross Asia Pacific.Susan M. Cantrell is a research fellowat the Accenture Institute for HighPerformance. Based in Fort Lauderdale,Florida, Ms. Cantrell is the coauthor ofWorkforce of One: Revolutionizing TalentManagement Through Customization(Harvard Business Press, 2010). She hascoauthored more than 30 articles or bookchapters, including Elements of SuccessfulOrganizations (The Workforce Instituteat Kronos, 2011).About Our ResearchThe primary objective of the AccentureFuture of HR research initiative is todevelop insights that can be useful to bothHR and business executives as they seekto maximize the role of HR as a criticalfunction within the organization. We areexploring how current business trendsmight reshape the nature of the function—in terms of HR’s mission and mandate, thekey activities HR performs, the skill setnecessary for HR professionals, the metricson which to evaluate HR’s performance,and the organization and governancemodels and roles that will most effectivelyhelp HR maximize its value to thebusiness. We also are examining currentbest practices in HR, as well as some ofthe obstacles HR is facing and how thoseobstacles can be overcome in the future.Related Reading“Trends Reshaping the Future of HR:Managing Each Employee as a Workforceof One,” by David Smith and SusanM. Cantrell.“Trends Reshaping the Future of HR:The Rise of the Extended Workforce,”by David Gartside, Yaarit Silverstone,Catherine Farley and Susan M. Cantrell13 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

Notes1. “Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is anAlgorithm,” by Saul Hansell, New YorkTimes, January 3, 2007.2. “Competing on Talent Analytics,“ byThomas H. Davenport, Jeanne Harris, andJeremy Shapiro, Harvard Business Review,October, 2010.3. “Your Co-Worker, Your Teacher:Collaborative Technology Speeds Peer-PeerLearning,” by Ed Frauenheim, WorkforceManagement, January 29, 2007. PlateauSystems, mentioned in the article, wasbought by Successfactors.4. “Salesforce.com Rolls out Rypple,Revamps Website-Builder Tools,” by ChrisKanaracus, March 15, 2012: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/251904/salesforcecom_rolls_out_rypple_revamps_websitebuilder_tools.htmlAbout AccentureAccenture is a global managementconsulting, technology services andoutsourcing company, with approximately281,000 people serving clients in more than120 countries. Combining unparalleledexperience, comprehensive capabilitiesacross all industries and business functions,and extensive research on the world’smost successful companies, Accenturecollaborates with clients to help thembecome high-performance businesses andgovernments. The company generated netrevenues of US$28.6 billion for the fiscalyear ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page iswww.accenture.com.About the AccentureInstitute for HighPerformanceThe Accenture Institute for HighPerformance develops and publishespractical insights into critical managementissues and global economic trends. Itsworldwide team of researchers connectswith Accenture’s consulting, technologyand outsourcing leaders to demonstratehow organizations become and remainhigh performers through original, rigorousresearch and analysis.5. Kay Baldwin-Evans and Charles Jennings,“Taking a Bold Approach to OrganizationalLearning,” Strategic HR Review 6, no. 5(2007): 28.6. Erik Berggren and Jason Corsello,“Talent Management 2017,” SuccessFactorsResearch Report, http://www.successfactors.com/research/talent-2017.This document makes descriptive reference to trademarks that may be owned by others. The use of such trademarksherein is not an assertion of ownership of such trademarks by Accenture and is not intended to represent or imply theexistence of an association between Accenture and the lawful owners of such trademarks.14 | Accenture Institute for High Performance | Copyright © 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved.

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