Focus for 2008 Is on Workforce and Talent Issues, Rather Than Traditional Service Delivery Tactics
STAMFORD, CT, JUNE 30, 2008 — For the first time, a Towers Perrin annual survey of human resource service delivery trends among global organizations found that talent management and workforce issues trump technology systems enhancements or upgrades as the top priority of human resource executives.
Since the survey began 11 years ago, respondents have consistently reported technology and systems implementation as their top service delivery issues. This year has brought a marked change, with respondents focused on leveraging their prior emphasis on technology investments in order to further their performance and talent management agendas. Specifically, 40% of this year�s survey respondents cited delivering talent and performance management via technology as the most important HR service delivery issue; 32% rated recruiting and staffing services/systems — another people-related activity — as the top issue.
�Organizations have spent years building and enhancing their technology platforms; it�s always been the automatic reaction to keeping current with new versions, applying patches and the like,� said Thomas Keebler, leader of Towers Perrin�s global HR Function Effectiveness practice. �What we�re seeing today is an evolution and maturation of the approach to technology. Today, organizations are putting the people dimension first and viewing their existing technology platforms as the foundation for — and the means of — better enabling their people agenda to deliver on business needs and goals.�
Employee and Manager Self-Service Trends
This year�s survey results also show planned high growth in employee staffing and development of self-service applications. For example, the number of companies planning to use the Web to deliver employee career planning and onboarding services in the next 18 months has more than doubled � from 25% to 60% � in the area of career planning and from 18% to 60% in the area of onboarding. These findings confirm companies� growing commitment to using self-service technology for offerings beyond basic transactions and to help achieve critical human capital objectives.
Additionally, the survey results show planned double-digit growth in many manager self-service applications in talent management, with particularly significant growth likely in succession planning and onboarding.
�This is really about using technology to deliver on a company�s business goal,� said Keebler. �Historically, talent management systems have been used almost exclusively to help companies deliver on areas such as compensation, recruitment and staffing in �transaction-centric� and siloed ways. Today, we�re seeing companies really stretch their systems to help them more effectively integrate across the HR domain in order to better reflect the world as seen by employees and managers. This is signaling a real sea change in and for HR; we�re seeing the HR function use service delivery tactics to help employees be more effective and efficient across the board, thereby improving the value both employees and HR bring to the business.�
About the Survey
The 11th annual survey on the state of HR service and technology included HR and HRIT executives from 390 organizations from around the world. Forty-four percent have operations primarily located in one country, while 56% are multinational/global.
About Towers Perrin
Towers Perrin is a global professional services firm that helps organizations improve their performance through effective people, risk and financial management. The firm provides innovative solutions in the areas of human capital strategy, program design and management, and in the areas of risk and capital management, insurance and reinsurance intermediary services and actuarial consulting. Towers Perrin has offices and alliance partner locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. More information about Towers Perrin is available at www.towersperrin.com.
