Competency-Based Management (CBM): anticipate HR changes

by Mar 31, 2018Best Practices, Competency Based Management (CBM), HR & Management

In a series entitled "Quel DRH en 2050?" and published as a serial in July-August 2015 on the Echos Business website, Julie Le Bolzer interviews 13 HRDs from major companies on their forward-looking vision of how HR will evolve at the end of the next 30 years. How about adopting the management of the future today?...
Talent management at the heart of corporate strategy
Affirmation of the HRD’s dual mission

Jérôme Tixier, HR Director at L’Oréal, believes that the very essence of the HR function will remain unchanged in a working environment that is set to undergo extremely profound change. It will be a question, as it is today, of making the link between “business and people”: “The HRD will always have this dual mission: to be at the service of the company and at the service of its employees. (…) Every HRD builds scenarios. (…) We also make plans that take as their starting point the individual, his or her aspirations and expectations. The two approaches are complementary.

For Sylvie François, Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Groupe La Poste, the role of the HRD will be clearly reaffirmed: “As long as companies continue to exist and operate as integrated organizations, they will need to rely on a strategy and HR policies that create value for both employees and the company. (…) I am convinced that the role of the HR Director will remain that of a strategist, a builder of meaning who provides a vision and accompanies each employee in the perpetual movement of the company’s transformation”.

The concept of HRD as strategic partner and advisor

This very transformation of the company will be a key factor to take into account if we are to remain competitive: “Imagining the HRD of 2050 means first and foremost asking the question of the sustainability of the company’s business model,” says Sylvie François.

It is essential to anticipate changes in working practices and business lines, and this is one of the main added values of the HR department: “I’m a great believer in the notion of HR department-partner-consultant (…), [in] this role of strategic advice and more detailed knowledge of the business, business lines, and the major trends in business development, both internally and externally”, stresses Karima Silvent, deputy HR director in charge of business line transformation at the AXA Group. This is also the view of Leslie Dehant, HR Director at Accenture France, who is convinced that “the HR department will be seen less and less as a support function and more and more as a partner in corporate strategy”.

The war for talent: the crucial role of skills management

Many HR managers at major companies agree that, with the spread of globalization, the “war for talent” will become a particularly important issue. As Marie-Françoise Damesin, Vice President HR at the Renault-Nissan Alliance, puts it so well: “The HR department will have to keep up with changing trends, with the need to be forward-looking, to anticipate alongside the professions, and to attract and retain talent. (…) Having the right talent, the right profile or the right level of skills in the right place is crucial, and always will be, even more so.”

To remain successful, companies need to be able to attract, retain and develop talent. Hence the key role of skills management, and the major advantage represented by an offensive GPEC: “Skills mismatches have become a real strategic risk for companies. (…) [Il] There is a real competitive advantage for companies in being able to anticipate scarce skills. In this sense, the HR department becomes a real catalyst for corporate strategy,” confirms Leslie Dehant.

Building a high-performance, empowering system
Developing ecosystems

In the near future, companies will no longer be able to rely on their employees alone, but will have to develop an “ecosystem of talents” (Leslie Dehant); it’s the very organization of work that will have to be totally rethought: “Work will take place within the framework of a “virtualized” community organized through collective relationships and achievements. The hierarchical and vertical order will have been supplanted by a horizontal and collaborative organization”, according to Emmanuel Lebuchoux, HR Director at Ricoh France. Christophe de Lagoutine, Labeyrie’s Human Resources Director, echoes his sentiments: “Self-employment will continue to grow, as it not only offers flexibility and expertise, but also meets the expectations of future generations for autonomy and entrepreneurship. (…) The company’s challenge will be above all to create a positive ecosystem with all its stakeholders, and therefore to know how to generate a network of quality internal and external stakeholders, service providers and partners. The HRD will be at the heart of this challenge, (…) [qui] will be to find the future partners/providers/contractors called upon to join the company’s ecosystem.”

Skills-based recruitment

With this in mind, recruitment methods must also evolve, and no longer focus on predefined profiles, but on the skills required to manage projects: “Job descriptions will no longer have any meaning. The only thing that will count is the skills brought in by partners/suppliers,” explains Christophe de Lagoutine. Hubert Mongon, Senior Vice President HR at McDonald’s France, confirms this trend: “Managers are recruiting more and more on the basis of personality. Recruiters are paying close attention to this correlation between the candidate’s personality and the company’s culture.”

Employability: a shared responsibility

Even if employability remains one of managers’ primary responsibilities, they will have to work alongside increasingly proactive employees, in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation: “It’s all about mobilizing and helping employees to grow. The HRD will have to accelerate managers’ performance in this area. It’s up to us, HRDs, to anticipate change and prepare our companies as well as possible, in close collaboration with operational teams. Tomorrow’s company will be one of permeability and mobility. Every employee will be able to define his or her own career path”, says Philippe Lamblin, Avril’s HR Director.

Sylvie François goes even further in her forward-looking analysis: “Responsibility for employability will be multi-faceted in the long term, and its success will depend precisely on the ability to ensure effective dialogue between the various players. In some cases, cooperation between companies may even extend to skills sharing.

New tools for human and ethical work development
Refocusing HR on high value-added missions

It will be vital for HR to be able to focus fully on career and skills management. The use of appropriate IT tools will prove crucial in this respect, as Frédéric Pauthier, HR Director at MACSF, points out: “The scope of the HR department will remain concentrated around high value-added actions such as career and skills management. (…) The future of HR departments lies in making the best possible use of digital tools to intervene only in high value-added tasks requiring reflection, interpretation and decision-making.”

A digital but highly human future

The major auditing group KPMG is adamant that HR policies based on data analysis (“HR analytics”) will significantly improve corporate profitability over the next three years. Marie-Françoise Damesin adds that “HR analytics is not only a goldmine for recruitment, but also for talent management, HR development, workforce and skills management.” Pierre Joly, HR Director at Dell France, underlines the fundamental role of HR in this data analysis: “The HR Director of 2050 will certainly be appreciated for his ability to ‘think data’, i.e. for his ability to pose a problem and formulate it in such a way that technologies help him to solve it. For example, understanding how data should be analyzed, how to transform the problem into a relevant process, and how data visualization can help communicate findings.”

To master this meteoric rise of digital technology, the human factor will remain fundamental: “Human resources management requires constant adaptation, which only human beings can manage. (…) The world is changing, business is changing, professions are changing, but the company must remain focused on a social and human project,” asserts Jérôme Tixier.

Ethics at the heart of HR development

In the same vein, maintaining irreproachable ethics will be a guarantee of success for these new management methods: “Without ethics, the system will collapse. Analytics cannot replace people. Common sense, judgment and innovation, which are the human element, must prevail”, assures Karima Silvent.

Don’t wait until 2050: be at the cutting edge of management with Skillspotting!
An innovative tool

“According to Philippe Lamblin, “A company needs to capitalize on new tools to get closer to its future talent, rather than the other way round. That’s why Skillspotting has designed an innovative technology for dynamic human capital management.

“The fact-checking of CVs using technology already exists, and it won’t be long before technology makes it possible to go even further,” adds Karima Silvent. From now on, you can go even further thanks to the solutions developed by Skillspotting! Indeed, “while it’s fairly easy to detect a skill in the ‘hard skills’ sense, it’s much more complicated to assess a behavioral skill. That’s why personality tests and neuroscientific tests are becoming increasingly common in recruitment,” stresses Leslie Dehant; Skillspotting technology integrates these types of tests to help you assess soft skills.

Simple technology for a global solution

Laurent Grosse, HR Director at KONE France, predicts “the adoption of new modes of intervention, whose key words will be immediacy, networks and multipolarity”. And this is precisely what Skillspotting enables, through the technology developed by its creator and the services offered by its collaborators. Thanks to an innovative system, you can :

  • find out about your company’s skills portfolio ;
  • measure the skills and gaps between those you already have and those your company needs;
  • building loyalty and developing your talents ;
  • attract the skills needed for tomorrow.

Frédéric Pauthier, like the other leading HR directors interviewed, is convinced that by 2050 “HR directors will have tools at their disposal that will enable them to move faster and more efficiently in addressing the needs of the company and its employees.” Thanks to the performance of the Skillspotting tool and the know-how of its experts, you can implement this management of the future today, and gain a highly strategic advantage for tomorrow…

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