A couple of weeks ago, I met the CEO of a large Indian retail brand in his office in Mumbai. He talked about how the preferences of the consumers are changing so radically that the organization was finding it difficult to keep up with the shifts in demand. Though shifts in demand are inimical for the retail industry, the change in behavior of the consumer is nothing new. The same is the case with talent; organizations are lagging behind in being able to respond to the change swiftly enough.

With new generations joining the workplace, the workforce aspirations and expectations are also changing rapidly just like the consumers. By end of this year, more than 50 per cent of the working age population would have been born post 1980s. Clearly, our traditional HR structures neither support the needs of this generation nor the pace of change that they bring along. In many cases, our structures create a clash with the changing needs of our employees.

The questions that we need to answer to business as HR professionals have not changed – How do we hire faster and cheaper? How do we identify the right talent pools? How do we attract them? And once we attract them, how do we make them productive and engaged earlier? How do we build a multi-skilled workforce and how do we identify those that will take the company to the next level? How do we increase the odds of right people decisions? What is really different today are the answers we need to give for those questions. Old HR answers will not solve new business problems.

Our cover story this issue, Disruptions for Growth, brings you a deep analysis of how the Industry of HR is evolving and how it is faring when it comes to supporting the increasing HR needs of the business. The answers of sustainable agility lies in collaboration and understanding what is core and what is best left to the experts.

HR’s core competence will be a deep understanding of the business, the context of the organization and the culture and values imbibed in the internal ecosystem. The expertise, access to innovative solutions, new thinking and execution support will come from a maturing external ecosystem of experts. This shift will enable transforming the current organizations and also keeping up with change and bringing agility as a constant feature in the new human resources structure.

As we speak to many CEOs, HR Professionals and entrepreneurs in the HR domain, the solution emerges as the need to develop, mature and evangelize the HR Industry so our product and service providers are the source of innovation, scale and business impact that we need at any point of time.

We have other interesting stories this issue as well. For the Big Interview section, we have featured Deepinder Goyal, the CEO of Zomato, the growing online food portal, which serves as a restaurant discovery guide. He talked about the company’s no-nonsense culture and how hiring the right people is the foundation of his business. Abhijit Bhaduri has touched a nerve point when he wrote on ‘Who will disrupt the HR function?’ Elango has written a witty and timely column on appraisals!

As always, we look forward to hearing from you as we continue to innovate. Email us your suggestions, constructive ideas and criticisms as they help us become more relevant to the community.

Happy reading!

Esther Martinez Hernandez, Editor-in-Chief