What is HR 4.0?
Why are we here talking about the topic of HR 4.0 and what is it? Well, to put it quite simply, we believe that our profession has become stagnant and business leaders and employees alike are frustrated with us. Many HR departments see themselves as the “corporate police” focused on pushing antiquated agendas regarding performance review completion rates, stack ranking talent and keeping employees in line. Now, understandably that is part of our work, of course, but it is not and should not be our main mission. Our profession has evolved and it is time for us to recognize the paradigm shifts happening in our world and to move with those shifts.
A History Lesson*
HR as a profession can be traced back to ancient China where certain workers were assigned to track laborers by skill set. Moving into the 19th century Robert Owen and Charles Babbage began to focus on the well-being of employees during the Industrial Revolution where industrial accidents, child labor and working until exhaustion was the norm. I call this beginning of the profession HR 1.0. This evolved into the Personnel Department, further enhanced by Frederick Winslow Taylor who explored “scientific management” (aka Taylorism) and workplace productivity.
HR 2.0 evolved in the mid 20th century as further studies showed that treating workers as human beings and understanding their needs could lead to greater productivity. This, combined with further focus (at least in the U.S.) on civil rights and equality in the workplace helped us evolve to the Human Resources Department.
HR 3.0, in my opinion, started to take shape in the late 1990s with a full explosion in the early 2000s with the advent of the People Team. The older Millennials especially helped us see that HR could be a much more strategic function helping employees find meaning in their work and connection to the corporate mission. We saw movements towards flatter organizations, more career development focus and a move towards the “gig economy”.
Now we are on the cusp of HR 4.0 which is the direct influence of 3 key paradigm shifts, in our opinion. The first being the 4th Industrial Revolution with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence, smart everything and a technological evolution that is unprecedented. Second, the Millennial and Gen Z generations are overtaking the workforce and these Digital Natives are forcing us to look differently at technology and its impact on our work life. Lastly, the Covid factor cannot be ignored. We have spent 2+ years working from home and now we have a new “norm” which leads us to ask the question – what is the workplace?
Now here we are! Let’s explore some of these topics in more detail….
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