After a 25-year study by HR associations, it is clear that HR will evolve from an inside-out to an outside-in perspective. Instead of focusing on internal processes, HR will prioritize business performance drivers like strategy, stakeholder expectations, and the business environment. There are six key future HR domains. A good HR professional will need to be a strategic positioner, credible activist, capability builder, change champion, innovator and integrator, and technology proponent. Outside-in HR is premised on HR being the business itself, not just connecting strategy and HR. HR must create and deliver real business value.
HR professionals must understand the global business context to be successful and translate underlying trends into concrete business implications. This understanding goes beyond knowing the intricacies of their own industry; it requires a grasp of the competitive dynamics of the market to develop an insightful vision for their company's future. High-performing HR professionals think and act from the outside in, a concept that has evolved over the past 25 years from knowing finances to adapting strategy to serving stakeholders to responding to external conditions. To serve as a strategic positioner, one must genuinely understand the business. Strategic positioning involves anticipating and matching external implications. To become a strategic positioner, HR professionals must overcome any discomfort with finance and math to learn business concepts, which allows them to move beyond their specialty and add value by participating in all management conversations. HR professionals acting as strategic positioners position their organization within its context, referring to products, services, and reputation. Positioning means recognizing, anticipating, and leveraging trends. It requires flexibility to find and seize opportunities, fitting and shaping future opportunities more than transforming the organization. Becoming a strategic positioner is demanding, but without the ability to interpret finances, contribute to strategy, serve stakeholders, and react to trends, one cannot participate at the senior level. Three factors are involved in this process: interpreting the global context, decoding customer expectations, and co-developing the strategic agenda. To add value, HR professionals must be aware of the complex global environment, be business literate, master business language and logic, connect with stakeholders to align with their priorities, and anticipate events by understanding the context, including social trends, technology implications, demographics, and more. Understanding customers' real buying criteria adds value and partnering with sales and marketing unifies the approach. Consistently helping to position the company for the future and understanding customers and expectations allows for closer involvement in meeting them. Traditionally, HR's only strategy involvement was in the implementation discussion. To add more value, HR professionals must be prepared to shape the agenda using their knowledge to spot opportunities, frame complex ideas simply, identify risks, provide insights on issues, translate strategy into workforce initiatives, and shape culture. HR plays three roles in strategic agendas: as a storyteller simplifying strategy through stories that make memorable points leading to action, as a strategy interpreter turning strategy into talent, culture, and leadership, and as a strategic facilitator being clear on decisions needed, who makes them, and the timing. Ensuring the right people are present, the customer voice is heard, and choices are made adds value through follow-up and delivery. Like a GPS shows your location, HR helps organizations fit business trends and stakeholders, identify customer expectations, and facilitate strategy creation as strategic positioners. Mastering these builds credibility. In good and bad times, HR issues are central to sustainable success, and research confirms that aligned, innovative, integrated HR dramatically impacts performance. Focusing on the business enables HR professionals to add meaningful, sustainable value, grounding their work in the business by thinking and behaving from the outside in.
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