HRM and the future of Work.
With the rapid technological advancement, the employee expectations regarding their jobs were changed. Apart from technological advancement, due to the global impacts such as COVID-19 pandemic, the nature of work itself is been redefined. In order to ensure the achievement of the organizational goals in a time of crisis, strategic agility is required (Liu, Lee, & Lee, 2020).
In this transformational period, strategic human resource management has played a pivotal role by redesigning how, where and why people work. Rather than applying this to an organization in one time, SHRM established these practices as a continuous strategic process while ensuring to support adaptability, innovation and resilience in a constantly changing world.
Work design refers to how job roles, tasks and responsibilities are structured. When doing a work design in today, the organization should consider about,
- Flexibility.
- Digital Integration.
- Employee-well being.
- Autonomy and creativity.
- Team collaboration across geographies.
Key trends of Reshaping Work.
1. Remote and Hybrid work.
This work practice was mostly used in IT industry before the pandemic period. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the companies have offered remote work option considering the work flexibility and ensuring the continuous growth of the businesses. It kept business functioning during a global pandemic, thanks to advances in technology that allowed remote working on a scale never seen before (Forbes,2023). However, providing permanent remote work option has both advantages as well as disadvantages.
Providing remote or hybrid work option has advantages as well as disadvantages.
Most of the organizations in Sri Lanka has provided these remote work option after the COVID pandemic period which helps to secure many jobs of the employees. This change has make a huge turnover in the educational sector as they have started to provide online classes, e-learning platforms and online examinations.
2. Generational and Social Change.
With the evaluation of generations, the today's workforce has a drastic change compared to the previous generations. Accordingly we can identify several improvements with their practices and talents with the generation gaps. Each generation has a distinct values, behaviors and expectations shaped by the social, technological and economy context they grew up. Strategic HRM must tailor policies, communication, and development opportunities to address the diverse needs of these groups (CIPD, 2021).
For organizations, Strategic human resource management plays a critical role to understand and interact with these employees who are from different generations to build inclusive, agile and future-ready work places. In a recent interview, SHRM Chief knowledge officer Alex Alenso, outlines three major trends which helps to shape the HRM. "Building resilience through talent solutions that work for the evolving labor market, prioritizing employee wellness and experience, and enabling organizational growth through reinvention and disruption"((SHRM Labs,2025).
Strategic HRM Responses to Generational & Social Change.
1. Flexible work design. - creating work policies that meets diverse life style needs across all the generations like hybrid working, flexi hours etc.
2. Tailored and Learning development - Providing training programs and learning opportunities based on generational learning styles.
3. Inclusive talent strategies. - Recreate recruitment processes, onboarding and retention that covers a wide demographic.
4. Intergenerational collaboration - Facilitating knowledge transfer opportunities and create mutual respect between older and younger employees by providing mentoring programs.
These generational gaps are visible in most of the organizations in Sri Lanka. Specially with the culture of Sri Lanka, it is important to respect elders. Hence, the organizations provide mentoring programs which train their employees to respect others and the generational gaps. For example, NDB Bank promotes age diversity through inclusive career development policies and has tailored leadership programs. Their company values emphasize Integrity, dependability, creativity aligning with evolving social expectations and workforce values (NDB,2025).
3. Technological Disruptions.
In the modern world, technology is a strategic force which driving organizational transformation. With the current technological development, Automation and Artificial Intelligence has directly involves in fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate and how HRM delivers value.
Technological disruptions refers to adoption of digital innovations that significantly alter traditional ways of work. Here are some key technological disruptors,
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
- Robotics.
- Cloud computing and remote work platforms.
- People analytics and predictive HR.
- Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality.
These technologies helps to streamline the organizational operation, enhance decision making and enable more agile business models. However, these technologies require Human Resource strategies.
Human resource management helps to shapes digital transformation by focusing on people, performance and adaptability. HR leaders recognize the potential of technology to forge authentic connections and drive business value(Jr, 2025).
How SHRM Responds to Technological Disruptions.
1. Enhancing employee experience with technology. - For example, self service portals, HR Chatbots and AI-driven career development tools.
2. Workforce plan for the digital age. - SHRM ensures that the organization have right people with right skills and mindsets to thrive in tech-driven environment. This includes reskilling and upskilling initiatives to prepare employees for new roles.
3. Leveraging HR Analytics for Strategic Insight. - With people analytics, HR can predict attrition by tracking trends of the people performances, contribution and growth.
Moreover, there are some challenges can be occur with technological disruptions such as,
- Digital inequality.
- Job displacement.
- Critical to maintain privacy & ethics.
Strategic Human Resource Management's Role in Redesigning Work.
SHRM Supports the future of an organizational work by enabling organizations to,
- Conduct job resigning as a response to automation and digital transformation.
- Implementing flexible work policies.
- Fostering agile and cross functional teams to adapt quickly during a change.
- Integrating inclusion and psychological safety in work systems.
- Develop skill based strategies that match employees to evolving business needs.
Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model.
This model is a framework that business use to design that jobs that facilitates employee motivation(Hackman and Oldham, 1976). This is often used in SHRM to guide effective work design in an organization. It identifies 5 core job dimensions that impacts to the employee motivation and performance.
This model used to redesign work by enhancing employee engagement, retention and innovation.
References.
- Shrm.org. (2023). The Evolving Landscape of HR: Embracing Innovation and Change. [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/labs/resources/the-evolving-landscape-of-hr-embracing-innovation-and-change.
- Elad, B. (2025). AI Job Loss Statistics 2025: Who’s Losing, Who’s Hiring, and What Comes Next. [online] SQ Magazine. Available at: https://sqmagazine.co.uk/ai-job-loss-statistics/.
- Jr, L.C. (2025). The HR Leader’s Unique Opportunity To Embrace Technology Disruption. Forbes. [online] 28 May. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/05/28/technology-as-a-connector-the-hr-leaders-unique-opportunity-to-embrace-disruption/.
- Aspen Institute. (2023). Aspen Principles for Latino Digital Success. [online] Available at: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/aspen-principles-for-latino-digital-success/ [Accessed 25 Jul. 2025].
- Raymond, D. (2023). Top 10 Cons & Disadvantages of Working from Home (WFH). [online] Articles for Project Managers - The Project Management Network. Available at: https://projectmanagers.net/top-10-cons-disadvantages-of-working-from-home-wfh/.
- www.ndbbank.com. (n.d.). About - NDB Bank. [online] Available at: https://www.ndbbank.com/about/overview.
- Done, P. (2024). Council Post: Don’t Forget The Downsides Of Remote Work. Forbes. [online] 12 Aug. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/08/31/dont-forget-the-downsides-of-remote-work/.
- IESE Insight. (2023). Work design: What kind of workforce do you need? [online] Available at: https://www.iese.edu/insight/articles/work-design/.
Cuofano, G. (2022). Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model. [online] FourWeekMBA. Available at: https://fourweekmba.com/job-characteristics-model/.
We can see that how SHRM take work to next level by reshaping it according to generational and technological shifts as in SHRM Labs, 2025.
ReplyDeleteSems that flexibility balancing and digital integration are keys!
When adopting to hybrid-work-models, what do you see as the biggest challenge for organizations?
Hi Himasha, thank you for the comment. When adopting to hybrid-work-models,there are several challenges may occur for employers. According to my thought, among them, the biggest challage for an organization is to maintain the organizational culture. Organizational culture is an important factor to maintain the reputation and overall performance of the organization. Also, once the employee feels that he is alone it is difficult to reverse it back. 'It can influence employee attitudes and motivation, and this can have a significant impact on how satisfied employees are with their jobs and ultimately how productive they are'(Kalxoon,n.d).
DeleteHow can organizations effectively balance the push for technological innovation and automation with the need to maintain strong human connections and psychological safety in increasingly digital and remote work environments?
ReplyDeleteThank you for raising such a timely and important question. Balancing technological innovations with the human element is a key challenge for modern organizations. Specially when it comes to remote and hybrid work environment, it can be more difficult. To maintain strong human connections and psychological safety, organizations must adopt, human centered digital transformation approaches. Edmondson (1999), has clearly defined, psychological safety as, where individuals feels safe to take interpersonal risks. It is the foundation for learning and collaboration. As i have explained before, this becomes more difficult in virtual environments where communication is limited. One way to support this is through digitally enabled inclusive leadership. Successful digital leaders invest in both people and technology, recognizing that sustainable innovation stems from emotionally healthy and connected teams (Westerman et al.,2014).
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