Digitally-Powered Human Resource Management: Skills and Roles in the Digital Era

Digitalization in human resource management helps enterprises to modernize HR functions and provides them with a competitive advantage. At the same time, it requires a change in working style and entails a change in the demand for HR competencies. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the phenomenon of digitalization in the literature, explore its current key benefits and risks, and analyse its influence on HR professionals´ competencies and roles. The qualitative research includes an analysis of the secondary data describing the existing level of digital skills based on the reactions of more than 7,000 respondents from six EU member states (Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and Slovakia). The primary data analysis concerning HR social media competencies collected in five European countries which participated in the SHARPEN project is also presented here. The current trends in HR professional competencies are also described in this paper. The results obtained show that HR professionals tend to be slightly reluctant to adopt technology. The results also confirmed the importance of digitalization for human resources and the increasing demand for digital skills in recent years.