By Robert Zampetti
What will 2012 bring for most human resources (HR) functions? If you are responsible for HR in a multinational company, no matter where you sit, you will probably need to know a good deal more about Asia than you do today. And if you’re an HR professional working in Asia, you’ll need to know a good deal about everywhere else.
North American and European-based firms will likely focus on Asia as an area of relative economic strength in the coming year ahead. Meanwhile, the rise of Asian multinationals ― including longtime global Japanese and Korean firms flexing new corporate governance muscles and Chinese firms going global for the first time ― means business leaders will be looking for advice on talent, compensation and regulatory issues from the HR professionals who work for them.
While Asia dominates many business strategies in 2012, companies expect retaining key talents to get more difficult, especially in Asia-Pacific.
Given these trends, there will be more need for HR to deal with talent mobility. In the past, talent mobility may have meant moving senior talent into the Asia region, but now HR will need to be effective ‘’in all directions”, both to and from the region as well as in-between Asian markets.
While all categories of international talent acquisition are on the rise, Asia leads the way in the predicted upturn in cross-border hiring. Think about what that means for HR in the region.
The good news is that Millennials, or the Generation Y, are more open to overseas assignments than any previous generation including baby boomers and the Generation X and that overseas assignments are seen as critical for personal development. The bad news is that HR needs to figure out how to effectively communicate and connect with this new generation of workers.
In Asia, the challenge of effectively communicating with employees demands continuing focus. The Towers Watson Communication and Change Management ROI study, which has a special data cut for Asia, clearly demonstrated that effective communication is correlated with better long term financial returns for companies. We see this trend continuing. Employee communication will be incredibly important throughout HR, and in particular, the area of talent management and acquisition.
How can companies propose to attract, motivate and retain their highest value employees if they cannot effectively communicate with them? We see three new tools and techniques which will continue to grow in prominence:
― Social media tools to enhance two-way communication
― Games and game mechanics to capture the imagination of employees and to drive long term productive competition
― Behavioural economics and choice architectures to help understand the impact of the messages employees are receiving.
The Asian region is more ready than most to embrace these challenges with the younger workforces and the emerging, highly technically savvy generation of leaders. Leading companies are already using these techniques and reaping the rewards.
HR professionals will need to learn these new tools and disciplines and how best to apply them to their talent management and communication programs. We believe 2012 will be a watershed year in the adoption of these new tools by HR.
Robert Zampetti is the director of HR Service Delivery in Asia Pacific for Towers Watson.