Who needs a Human Resources department? Isn't talent management an outdated concept? These were among the provocative opening gambits designed to stimulate debate at the HR in Financial Services Innovation Forum held on 16th November 2009. And they certainly worked.

The event was part of the annual Innovation Forum series that takes place in our Accelerated Solutions Environment (ASE). Senior HR directors joined in a lively breakfast discussion assessing "What's hot and what's not in Financial Services HR". The debate centred on three key areas and saw some clear opinions being expressed about where HR should be going:

• HR operating model
• Talent Management
• Smart Working

Advances in technology in the past three years, particularly the proliferation of "cloud solutions", allow a future to be envisioned where there is no need for an in-house HR department. Delegates debated this controversial statement and wondered whether Financial Services organisations and their HR departments were mature enough yet to cope with a "cloud" solution. They did agree, however, that whilst there were still questions to be answered, there was enough emerging evidence to suggest that this question bore serious scrutiny - the new Financial Services market place entrants would certainly be giving it some thought.

And what of talent, or more accurately talent management? The Forum heard how, given the serial lack of success of talent management programmes, they should stop trying to identify "top talent" and instead create organisational structures and programmes that would enable a culture where talent flourished. There was a strong feeling that the classic "top-slice" talent management programmes were an expensive waste of time and potentially counter-productive. Post credit crisis, delegates agreed that there was a pressing need to rethink financial services organisations' approach to this topic.

And finally, is the Financial Services sector "too square" for smart working? Understandably this question provoked a passionate response, with one delegate suggesting it was the customers, not the industry, who were square. Another observation was that the sector needed to be aware of how new entrants to market, such as Tesco unencumbered by traditional FS thinking, would be better equipped to implement smart working.

For more details please contact Rick Freeman at
rick.freeman@capgemini.com

To download a presentation of the Forum outcomes click here.

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