HR consulting

By Zoë Stumpf.

I’m a big fan of Germany. That’s probably just as it should be: My surname is German, as are (perhaps more importantly) some members of my family. It’s also hard not to have huge admiration for a country that keeps all its best wines purely for domestic consumption. However, my respect for German attitudes has grown even further on the back of research that we conducted recently for our DACH report on trends and growth in the German, Austrian, and Swiss consulting market.

The reason for my ever-growing enthusiasm for all things German is that it turns out that quite a number of senior German consultants feel that they need to lead the debate about the impact of robotics and AI on the future workforce. I know that this is the topic of many news stories the world over, with widespread concern about the potential disappearance of a number of white-collar jobs, and those of us with children trying to steer them towards future-proofed careers (apparently hairdressing is a safe bet).

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Some will say they had it coming.

As a group, chief HR officers and HR directors have never had a particularly comfortable seat at the corporate table. Outgunned by COOs, CFOs, and CIOs, most have found it difficult to make their voices heard; usually unable to measure the impact of what they do, they’ve often been consigned to the margins of decision-making. Now, to make that worse, much of what the HR function does is being swallowed up by shared services centres—and that’s just a prelude to complete digitisation. Employees can do increasing amounts of admin themselves, and they have a greater incentive to ensure personal information is accurate and up-to-date. Sifting through candidates for recruitment can be done by algorithms. Who needs HR anymore?