Potential...

One of our managers, Paul, just sent me the following comic which he had found interesting and thought it applied to what I do in terms of getting great people into our organization.

Strategic Humor from December 2014 Harvard Business Review

I'm always joking with our employees when they occasionally bring their children in that they (the kids) must be my next interview so I  also got a chuckle when he sent it to me. It did get me to thinking, however, of what the work world will look like when this baby reaches the age of entering the job market. When we meet with candidates interested in working at Pinnacol we look not only at can they do the specific job they applied for but whether they have the skills necessary to move into other roles over the next 5-10 years. The average tenure with our organization is about 10 years and I'm the first to admit that I'd hazard only a fuzzy guess on what the world will look like in a decade let alone the 20 or so years it will take today's babies to enter the job market.

In a recent Workplace Matters magazine sent out by the folks at Mountain States Employers Council (which is celebrating its 75th anniversary) one of their research consultants tried to tackle this topic in an article titled "The Future of HR". The author was hypothesizing what the work world might look like some 75 years from now, about the time our comic baby might be looking forward to whatever the future of retirement looks like. Some of their prognostications wouldn't come as much of a surprise: technology - specifically web or cloud-based - will continue to change and influence how we all interact with each other and our perceptions of reality. The good news for all those folks who text while driving is that they'll likely be doing so in self-driving cars which should prove safer for all of us.

The increasing use of robots, Big Data, wearable (and surgically implanted) technology, health care, environmental concerns, and changing corporate cultures  all made the list of things to watch for over the next 70+ years. The article's author of course has no way to know if the world he envisions will become reality. I always get a kick out of watching Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (filmed in 1968 - just a few short 46 years ago...) to compare how much of what they thought the future would look like has actually transpired. One thing that will likely not change is that we cannot lose our focus on the "H" in HR. The ability to interact effectively with those around us will continue to be a critical aspect of life at work. That's my prognostication. While I won't be around 75 years from now to see if this comes true I do know that a world without the Human in human resources
would be a sadder place. So good luck little comic baby and may you reach your full potential!