SINGAPORE – People Matters, Asia’s fastest growing digital community platform in the space of people and work, has released the year’s most comprehensive research study on the HR industry in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Inspired by expert navigators from the Sherpa community in the Himalayas, People Matters SHRPA 2024 aims to guide stakeholders – who collectively employ 13 million individuals in the region – on key trends, emerging gaps and strategic imperatives that will likely shape business and talent management in the next 12 to 18 months.

Gathering insights from 1,300 responses from two surveys and 25+ interviews, the findings serve as a roadmap for HR leaders, CXOs and HR tech and service providers to help them “navigate business disruptions, improve tech-enabled HR transformation, and drive informed investment decisions,” People Matters said.

How talent challenges impact business performance

With rapid shifts in the global economy, the risk of mismanaging talent could impede businesses, SHRPA 2024 found.

Overall, talent shifts are among the top 3 external factors reportedly influencing outlook in the region. A deep dive into labour market trends shows which challenges leave the highest impact on the business performance of respondents:

• Maintaining high employee productivity (89%)
• Building the right leaders (88%)
• Attracting the right talent (87%)

Meanwhile, in terms of leveraging HR tech, the following hurdles also affect how organisations are planning in the months ahead:

• Adopting newer tech, e.g., AI and automation (84%)
• Identifying and selecting digital platforms (84%)
• Implementing digital platforms (83%)

This “growing clarity” about how talent shifts affect business performance “tests” the preparedness of HR leaders in the face of continuous disruptions, the researchers noted.

The gap between change readiness and change execution

On one hand, HR leaders are “acing change readiness”. On the other, they are “failing at change execution,” the study revealed.

In other words, there is a gap between how most HR leaders understand disruption and how they are responding to it. In fact, 6 in 10 companies that are said to have “low HR tech maturity” are coincidentally “falling behind” in their change execution strategy.

Moreover, 77% of HR leaders believe they are change ready and able to adapt to business and talent disruptions. However, 64% are forecast to miss out on their HR transformation agenda if they fail to focus on their people and tech strategies.

The rise in HR tech investments

While only 1% of respondents believe organisations will invest 100% or more into HR tech, the majority (69%) predict 10% to 50% higher investments into digital solutions.

Overall, the pace of tech innovation runs parallel to HR leaders’ “intent to invest,” particularly in three areas believed to have a greater impact on the business:

• Talent development and upskilling
• Raising productivity through generative AI and automation
• Building a high-performing culture

These priorities translate into the following tech investments:

• Advanced conversational AI in talent acquisition, onboarding and HR support (47%)
• Comprehensive workforce intelligence (43%)
• Career path visualisation (37%)
• Gen AI-enabled learning solutions (37%)
• Continuous feedback and performance management (37%)

Emerging gaps and the need to address them

SHRPA 2024 identified three main gaps amid the influx of changes in the industry:

Change management gap. The gap between change readiness and change execution among HR leaders

Acknowledgment gap. The gap between HR tech performance and effective tech use in HR

Value realisation gap. The gap between HR leaders’ assessment of HR tech solutions and HR tech partners’ assessment of client needs

How should HR leaders navigate these pitfalls? The researchers recommended three “imperatives”:

• HR of the future must execute change with speed.
• HR must develop functional resilience to enhance effectiveness.
• HR must build a sustainable technology infrastructure to maximise business value.

Despite the gaps, however, HR leaders said they are enthusiastic about addressing the challenges by:

• Leveraging AI and analytics to survive and thrive (59%)
• Anchoring investments in responsible and scalable tech with maximised business value (59%)
• Enhancing functional effectiveness and tech skills (57%)

“HR’s ability to manage change efforts and drive transformation effectively is critical to scaling to new heights,” the researchers said.

Download People Matters SHRPA 2024

Wherever you are in your HR industry expedition, People Matters SHRPA stands as your cheerleader and guide. Download the report now.