Conducted among more than 7,000 HR and business leaders in 130 countries, Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends 2016 survey is one of the largest ever global studies of workforce, leadership and HR challenges. In the first three years of the study, companies placed a high priority on increasing employee engagement and retention, improving leadership, and building a meaningful culture. The 2016 study found, for the first time, nearly half of respondent companies (45 percent) are either in the middle of a restructuring (39 percent) or planning one (6 percent).

Effective organizations today are built around highly empowered teams, driven by a new model of management, and led by a breed of globally diverse leaders. They are “different by design." More than 7,000 HR and business leaders from 130 countries responded to this year’s survey. From this research emerged 10 trends in organization design and culture; in learning, leadership, and workforce management; and within the HR function itself.

Technology and business disruption are fueling the demand for a “new organization”

This year’s research clearly indicates that companies are overhauling their organizational structure and shifting away from hierarchical, functional business models toward cross-functional “networks of teams,” in an effort to become more agile, collaborative and customer-focused. Despite the enormous interest in this shift, however, only 21 percent of business and HR executives feel expert at building cross-functional teams, and only 12 percent understand the way their people currently work together.

In addition, generational diversity is increasing as millennials with high expectations for personal growth, work side-by-side with baby boomers, many of whom are delaying their retirement. A new social contract, driven by demands for rapid career growth, flexible work arrangements and an increase in the number of contract and part-time workers, is dramatically changing the employer-employee relationship.

The new digital world of work is further fueling these changes. Almost three-quarters of executives (74 percent) have identified digital HR – the complete redesign of HR tools and services around digital technology – as a top priority. Forty-two percent of companies are redesigning their HR systems to support mobile, just-in-time learning and 59 percent are shifting their back-office HR systems to mobile in an effort to make them easier to use by employees.

Design thinking, a developing new discipline focused on employee-centric strategies, has emerged as a major new trend that is transforming companies' approach to managing, supporting and training their workforce. Looking beyond the focus on transactions and processes, companies are studying employees' behaviors to help develop interventions, applications and tools that are intuitive and easy to use, mitigate stress and boost their productivity. In fact, 79 percent of executives rank design thinking as a top priority for 2016.

Catering to the employee experience is a top priority for business and HR leaders

The balance of power continues to shift in favor of the employee, causing business and HR leaders to focus on enhancing the employee experience to help attract and retain top talent. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents (86 percent) rate challenges with corporate culture as “important” or “very important.” In addition, 85 percent rate challenges with employee engagement as “important” or “very important.”

To address these issues, new roles are emerging within the HR function such as “chief experience officer” and “chief listening officer," and companies are working on improving learning opportunities for all employees and closing the skills gap within the HR function. Four in 10 executives report their companies are ready to address the skills gap in HR – an increase of 25 percent since 2015. Moreover, people analytics is gaining speed to help improve this culture and engagement crisis. This year, the percentage of executives that believe they are fully capable of developing predictive models doubled from 4 percent in 2015 to 8 percent in 2016, indicating rapid growth in analytics as a core discipline within HR.

Leadership models are changing – companies are dismantling the classic management pyramid

Deloitte's report reveals the traditional leadership pyramid is not producing leaders fast enough. Fifty-six percent of respondents report their companies are not ready to meet their leadership needs, and more than 1 in 5 respondents (22 percent) report having no leadership programs for millennials. To address this issue, the large majority of executives (89 percent) cite strengthening, reengineering and improving organizational leadership as an important priority in the year ahead.

Read the full report here: http://www2.deloitte.com/lu/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends-2016.html