The HR Odyssey; Navigating the Evolving Skills Landscape

In the face of automation, Artificial Intelligence, and a corporate environment that is evolving faster than ever, life-span of a business depends greatly on a workforce that is adaptable. However this alone is insufficient. To successfully complete a voyage, crew members and the captain both must be skilful! In today's Article, The HR Odyssey intends to venture deep in to the question of "how to train a leader who is imaginative, flexible, and adept at handling uncertainties?" The Changing role of the Leader in the automated work environment Emergence of AI demands a change in the priorities of leadership. While AI is excellent at automation and data analysis, human leaders are still required to sail the ship by using AI's skills, encouraging innovation, and assembling capable teams (Manyika et al., 2017). Additionally, leaders must negotiate a dynamic external environment. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic required the use of crisis management techniques, remote...

Job Dissatisfaction and how it leads to Burnout Ever looked at an extravagant convenience provided by your company and thought they could have done something better with all that money?! It could be a high cost high budget upgrade in interior or an outing at a seven star luxury hotel that none of your teammates wanted. The reason for your dissatisfaction with the management’s decision to do the above does not stem from your dislike towards what they have done, rather it stems from the dissatisfaction with the management’s decision to prioritize such decisions over looking into the mundane problems of the employees that arise when they perform their day to day activities. In terms of frederick herzberg’s dual-factor, motivation-hygiene theory what motivates us versus what basic needs must be met in order to maintain job satisfaction. Herzberg found that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one increasing as the other diminishes but are instead independent of each...

In today’s the fast-paced corporate environment, change is inevitable. What is in demand on Today’s market would not be in demand tomorrow. In reaction to changes in the market, organisations construct and renovate their current strategies. These changes frequently yield poor outcomes. One the other hand, more technology than ever before is available to the world today. Technical advancements are happening more quickly than before. The combination of connectivity, data processing, and software advancements allows companies to increase performance, obtain a competitive edge, and create new ventures from diverse industries. Information technology use in businesses is currently changing from a supporting to a more strategically focused function (ResearchGate, n.d.). Businesses that are adept at adjusting to these changes not only endure but also prosper! Change management is a methodical technique that minimizes disturbance and maximises adaption when guiding teams through organizational...

The need for Diversity Training In today’s corporate context most companies look for talent beyond the boundaries of countries. Therefore it is not surprising that modern day teams consists of employees belonging to different ethnicities, cultures, generations, languages, religions, and sexual orientations. These people who come from very diverse and different backgrounds must cohabit in the same workplace either physically or remotely. This need has lead to increased scholarly discussions on managing diversity within workplaces. (Georgiadou, Gonzalez-Perez, & Olivas-Lujan 2019). During the early stages of globalization and technological advancement, diversity within the workplace was evident through the unfair treatment towards the certain minorities within the team. For instance, if there is a Non-Christian employee in a company based on a mostly Christian country, he would be granted a paid holiday on Christmas day along with the other employees. However any important Holidays ...

Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, machine learning, geotagging and virtual reality are being used more often throughout the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The implementation of these cutting-edge technologies has a significant impact on how business is conducted locally and internationally both. In these circumstances therefore, it is essential that managers and employers make use of these technological advancement to create a competitive advantage. In the following article the HR-Odyssey will sail through the unchartered territory of AI and how to use AI for employee reskilling and upskilling! What is AI? ‘AI is a broad category of technologies that enable a computer to carry out activities, such as adaptive decision-making, that typically require human cognition’ (Tambe et al., 2019.). Academic study on the many AI digital tools and methodologies and whether businesses can profit from them is becoming more and more common. Scholars contend, for in...

Upskilling and Reskilling - learning for adult learners As discussed in our previous Article, agility and adaptability of it's workforce is the ultimate competitive advantage a company may hold over its competitors. And upskilling and reskilling act as the means to achieve this advantage (Chakma & Chaijinda, 2020). When designing training programmes for the purpose of upskilling and reskilling employees, it is important to bear in mind that the adult learners - as opposed to children - have different learning needs and preferences. For instance, the memory span or the attention span of an adult human is significantly shorter compared to that of a child. Further, a survey (Gausby, 2015) conducted by Microsoft indicates that the average attention span of an adult human has dropped to eight seconds, which is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish. Microlearning offers a solution to this challenge by breaking down complex information into bitesized, easily digestible chunks....