'HR isn't the most popular person in the room, or the back of a taxi'

HR isn't the most popular person in the room... Or in the back of a taxi. 

The statement, made by Perry Timms, Founder and Chief Energy Officer at People & Transformational HR, at CoreHR's Corehorizon 2016 event, provoked laughter from the audience.  

He was talking about the future of work, and that includes nurses, builders, and baristas; not just someone parking up their Tesla, sipping a skinny latte, and waltzing into a multifunctional office that caters for their every personal and professional need. 

This, the former Director of People & Learning at Media Zoo and Head of HR at a Big Lottery Fund continued, is often forgotten when the future of work, or the fact that, according to Oxford University, 47% of jobs could be done by robots or machines, is discussed.  

A number dominated Timms' next slide: 2029. He explained that this is the year that, according to author, inventor, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, technology will outpace our ability to outstrip it. 

For example, in Kurzweil's 1999 book 'The Age of Spiritual Machines', he predicts that by 2029 a $1,000 personal computer will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain.

Timms joked: "We've all seen The Terminator, right?"  

Other norms of 2029 will be; Robotics, AI, 3D printing, and blockchain amongst others. 

But, more seriously, he asked if we had we hit "peak work". With technology getting cheaper - a GPS system cost tens, even hundreds, of thousands a couple of decades ago, but only costs $1 now - people may be able to choose when they work. 

The rising gig economy implies a workforce on demand, he said, but, similarly, modern workers "don't want an umbilical cord to an employer," and HR will have to take this into account when managing this "workforce on demand". 

One of the tipping points, he mused, was the BlackBerry, or "CrackBerry" as it was called by some. Work and life began seeping into each other, becoming near indistinguishable for some as the concept of constant contact was seized upon by certain employers.    

Timms posed the following question to the gathered audience: "What is your Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP)?" - it is the higher, aspirational purpose of the organisation, capturing the hearts and minds of those both inside and, especially, outside of the organisation.