HRD Pulse Survey 2019

Although the majority of HR leaders are confident about their organisations' growth prospects, they believe attracting and retaining talent will be their biggest challenge this year. The lack of availability of key skills is a growing threat, particularly in the areas of technology and data analytics. Having the right people and capability is integral to the future success of organisations.

Data-led insights are transforming the way organisations make better decisions and harness the power of their people. Business leaders are continuing to put pressure on HR to get better data about their people to deliver actionable information and insights. Without clean, relevant, and labelled data, with the skills to analyse and interpret results, organisations will struggle to have the information they need to grow their business effectively.

The future of work isn’t just about technology. It is also about trust and culture. Creating a compelling work experience for employees through active engagement is an ever-increasing priority for businesses. By defining your organisation's culture aspirations, and identifying and prioritising the critical behaviours to evolve your culture, you can drive performance and advance key business needs.

Strategic workforce planning gives organisations the ability to evaluate their current workforce and assess their future requirements. Digital tools can be deployed enabling robust data modelling on both ‘current state’ workforce analysis and predictive modelling, based on strategy led scenarios. Such planning ensures that you shape the workforce capability and capacity for the future.

Creating the right reward strategy is essential to attracting and retaining key staff. Organisations should utilise their full EVP (employee value proposition) taking into account what the workforce want and creating an enticing value proposition around this.

Respondents were asked to identify factors which may inhibit leadership or specialists from relocating to Ireland. The survey results indicate that we still face some challenges which many other successful inward investment locations face, with accommodation, income tax levels and the cost of living all being cited. In Ireland’s case, however, it is striking to note that there has been a decline in the extent to which each of these main factors is perceived as being a barrier. The single exception here is accommodation.