Josh Bersin lit up the stage at HR Innovation & Tech Fest 2017 where he shared his insights and revered thought-leadership on work, talent, learning, leadership and HR tech. Those who were lucky enough to catch his session scored him a whopping 4.8 out of 5 (If you missed his 2017 keynote, you can read a summary of it here).

Here’s what some of our HR tech community had to say about his session:

“Outstanding presentation, fantastic insight and very thought provoking – I need to rethink how to approach my new system implementation!”

“True influencer”

“Absolute wealth of knowledge! Brilliant speaker!”

“I could have kept on listening”

“Just awesome!!! Hope josh comes every year!!!”

“Fabulous insights. Very illuminating for a business currently trying to catch up with the future!”

Josh is the founder of Bersin Partners, a leading provider of research-based membership programs in HR, talent and learning. He is a global research analyst, top LinkedIn influencer and prolific writer on the topics of corporate human resources, talent management, recruiting, leadership, technology, and the intersection between work and life.

Put simply: Josh is one of the world’s top thought-leaders in the new world of work – inspiring us and showing us how, in this hyper-connected work environment, HR should be leading and helping people adapt to the way work gets done.

According to Josh, the future is looking bright for innovative HR teams, “We, as HR professionals, are now becoming the disruptors. It used to be we waited for tech companies to invent things – then we figured out how to use them and bought them. Now HR departments are experimenting with new performance management models, new learning strategies, new ways to reduce bias, and new techniques to recruit and coach people. Then they go into the market and see if vendors are available. This shift to me is a disruption itself – forcing the HR technology community to move even faster than ever,” he said.

Josh is a prolific thought leader and has contributed a tonne of insights. It would be impossible to read everything he’s written. So we’ve done the hard yards for you and hand-picked some of the most relevant articles for the HR Innovation & Tech Fest community.

• The need for Intelligent Self-Service Tools is becoming more urgent as we race towards productivity. “In today’s HR technology environment perhaps the most important new market is the fast-growing need for self-service, employee experience platforms,” Josh said. He also believes AI is coming fast and the opportunity for value in HR is massive.­
• The recruiting market is thriving with innovation. “Skilled job recruitment is being revolutionized by open sourcing tools, more automated applicant tracking systems (now called recruitment management systems), and better assessments.” Google may be the latest disruptor to the $200 billion recruiting market with its new offering.
• People analytics was one of the hottest themes identified in our latest HR Innovation Report. According to Josh “employee-related data (and all the aspects it includes) is just as important or more important than customer data, because it tells you the secrets of how to manage your business better… There’s now a tremendous shift from companies “playing with models” to companies “seriously investing in infrastructure” to bring all their people data together”, he said. Read here why Josh believes People Analytics Should Be Top Of Your To Do List in 2018.
• Digital Learning is hot hot hot. “The learning market is on fire. It has suddenly just exploded with new tools for curation, for sharing, for micro learning. We’ve really come a long way in the learning industry, and I think in 2018 if you haven’t really investigated updating or replacing or reengineering what you do in learning, you really should, because this stuff is really exciting,” Josh said. Here he outlines three big trends that will shape your L&D strategy in 2018.
• The wellbeing market is exploding. Before his appearance at HR Innovation & Tech Fest 2017 Josh was singing the praises of the Australian market when it comes to pioneering the wellbeing movement, “Australia was one of the first to mandate transparency and inclusion programs before anyone else, and much of our research and leading-practices on Inclusion started in Australia.” Read his full interview here. He believes the next phase of the wellbeing initiative is about productivity, with wellbeing moving from a focus on “reducing burnout” to a new focus on “human performance. Listen to this fascinating interview where Josh shares his thoughts on where Australia is at with what he calls “the human side of business”.
• There’s no doubt that in 2018 the world of work is changing faster than ever before. Josh summarises ten big changes going on in this article HR Technology in 2018: Ten Disruptions Ahead.