Due to multiple interrelated forces, Human Resource Management (HRM) is facing existential and strategic challenges reshaping its role and value within organizations. Unless it adapts and transforms, its survival is threatened.
HRM has been described as at a crossroads for decades. In the 1990s, the label was applied as it tried to add performance value by shifting from a primarily administrative role to strategic business partner; in the post-2008 financial crisis, the phrase returned as HR tried to balance cost-cutting with talent retention and engagement; in the 2020-2022 global pandemic’s “great resignation” and shift to remote work, “at the crossroads” was applied; and it is being repeated now due to the impact of AI, political shifts of DEI, and the hybrid workforce.
But this time it is different. What makes the situation more critical now is that the source of the problem facing HRM is not from the outside; it is from within and concerns how HRM thinks, formulates problems and opportunities, and how decisions are made to solve them.
HRM is trapped in a conventional mode of thinking that does not offer effective pathways to solve the kinds of problems organizations are experiencing. These are volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and hyper-connected (VUCAH) which require a change in HRM worldview and mindsets. Unless HRM applies new methods of problem-solving, the HR function will become extinct. For example, in many organizations, talent acquisition is outsourced, while strategy formulation, change management, leadership development, and organization restructuring are assigned to external consultants.
SHRM Online staff reported that, in a 2013 survey conducted by Lumesse, a talent management firm, across 11 countries, involving 1,293 HRM leader respondents, 61% reported feeling overwhelmed by complexity while 52% claimed they did not have the ability to fully cope with it.[1]
The World Health Organization, SHRM, and other organizations are calling the complex environment in which we now work, the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). The World Economic Forum has suggested we are on the edge of the 5th Industrial Revolution (5IR) in which “we can look forward to a future where smart machines with cognitive intelligence perform tasks that match human ability while delivering machine-level efficiency.[2]
How should HRM think about and address situations in this kind of environment? Cornell University researchers[3] contend that the prevailing approach to thinking about problems is linear, anthropocentric, mechanistic, and ordered (LAMO). Linear means HR challenges are framed using direct cause-and-effect relations. Anthropocentric means the HR perspective is human centered with assumptions that people are responsible for successes, failures and productivity. Mechanistic means the underlying HR models are like machines with parts that can be blamed or replaced as needed. Ordered means HR presumes a fundamental organizational hierarchy and reporting structure.
Unfortunately, a LAMO mode of thinking cannot adequately address the wicked and messy problems that emerge in a VUCAH environment. Workplace problems are increasingly non-linear, co-produced and suddenly emerging from our interactions with technology rather than people. They are better understood using social-network models rather than mechanical or biological models; and these problems are unordered, complex and sometimes chaotic, with unpredicted outcomes requiring novel, one-time, solutions to be generated. Too often, we say, “we have never seen something like this before.”
Another Way to Think and Practice
What is needed within HR is a new – a second – mode of cognition. Indeed, a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely appropriate; so, HR must learn to think a second way and learn to shift thinking and practices when the context and problems shift.
The Cynefin framework, created by Snowden and Boone,[4] offer a model that may be useful. The framework posits that problem contexts vary from ordered to unordered. Within the ordered context, where clear or complicated problems exist, conventional HRM using well-established analytic, evidence-based methods should continue to be applied and HRM should continue to expect effective outcomes. Within unordered environments, however, are complex and chaotic problems. For these situations, HRM must change their mindset, mental models and problem-solving methods to those informed by systems thinking. The differences between confronting a complicated vs a complex problem should not be understated. This is because,
Until recently the differences between complicated and complex were not well understood; as a result, they have often been treated in the same way, as if the same process should be used to “deal with” situations (or concepts) that are complicated or complex. Business schools justified this by treating organizations as if they were machines that could be analyzed, dissected, and broken down into parts. According to that myth, if you fix the parts, then reassemble and lubricate, you’ll get the whole system up and running. But this is exactly the wrong way to approach a complex problem.[5]
Our repeated HR challenge to the changed context and need to change thinking and practices led us to write, Systemic Human Resource Management[6] in which we describe in detail the nature of these changes, how to reframe HRM through the lens of systems and complexity, how to navigate and solve complex HR problems, and what a new learning curriculum to enable these shifts would look like.
Two Examples
One example of a needed change is how HR identifies a problem’s cause. In an ordered context with a complicated problem, HRM can benefit from applying root cause analysis in which the problem is clearly defined, simplified, reduced to its primary causes then best- practices are applied. For a complex problem, however, there are no experts or best practices. A different approach must be applied.
Consider the problem of disengaged employees that may be defined as complex and for which the Iceberg Model can be used. At the surface, the organization experiences employee attendance issues, and report general disgruntlement with leadership. Like an iceberg, by probing below the surface, HRM can establish expanded patterns of employee complaints over time. Below this level, structures may be discerned showing repeated groups of behaviors that promote destructive actions attributable to perceptions of poor remuneration. At the deepest level of this problem are mental models that influence and inform the behaviors, such as perceptions of boring repetitive work. To address this kind of problem requires a systems-informed design-thinking problem solving methodology.
A second example is HRM’s overreliance on structural models that were designed for stable contexts with linear relationships. A comparison of how reporting relationships and chains of command among departments and divisions are commonly described versus how they function in the VUCAH and often turbulent context shows the linear to non-linear shift. Operational and functional reality requires people to use multiple network relationships to make decisions and solve problems.
A Call for HRM
It is time to change the mindset of HRM which may require redesigning HRM curricula taught by academic institutions and HRM professional organizations. This is important to address the gap in HRM approaches when confronted by a VUCAH context. We believe that systems thinking is the pathway by which the HR function will be recognized as an essential voice that enables business sustainability against a chaotic and complex context.
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Regina Tendayi is an experienced executive human resource manager and internal consultant with more than 25 years of experience in leading human resources management, organization development, and talent development programs in global organizations. Certified as a Senior Professional by SHRM (SCP-SHRM), she holds an Honors Degree, a Master of Business Leadership Degree, as well as Diploma in Personnel Management, and a Doctor of Management in Strategic Leadership. Contact: Regina.Tendayi@gmail.com. Larry M. Starr is Director of Applied Research in the Iacocca Institute of Lehigh University and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Systems Science in the Department of Medical Education at the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. He holds a PhD in social and industrial psychology. Contact: larrymstarr@gmail.com
[1] SHRM (2013) Organizational Complexity Overwhelms Many HR Leaders. SHRM Online Staff.
[2] Anil, A. M. (2015). Technology convergence is leading the way for the Fifth Industrial Revolution. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, Switzerland, January 13. https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/
[3] Cabrera, D. and Cabrera, L. (2020): Systems Thinking in Seven (7) Images. https://blog.cabreraresearch.org/systems-thinking-in-a-7-images
[4] Snowden, D.J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making.
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 85 Issue 11
[5] Goldstein, J., Hazy, J.K., & Lichtenstein, B.B. (2010). Complexity and the nexus of leadership: leveraging nonlinear science to create ecologies of innovation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan., p. 3.
[6] Tendayi, R. & Starr, L. M. (2025). Systemic human resource management (Sys HRM): A holistic approach to navigate complexity. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031899201