This article is the first in a ten-part series by professional services firm Deloitte which will explore the new world of work, the top talent challenges, and how leaders can begin to address them.

Global organisations today must navigate a “new world of work” — one that requires a dramatic change in strategies for leadership, talent, and human resources. In this new world of work, the barriers between work and life have been all but eliminated. Employees are “always on” — hyperconnected to their jobs through pervasive mobile technology.

Networking tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Glassdoor enable people to easily monitor the market for new job opportunities. Details about an organisation’s culture are available at the tap of a screen, providing insights about companies to employees and potential employees alike. The balance of power in the employer-employee relationship has shifted — making today’s employees more like customers or partners than subordinates.

Many of today’s employees work in global teams that operate on a 24/7 basis. An increasing number of skilled workers in this new world work on a contingent, part-time, or contract basis, so organisations must now work to integrate them into talent programmes.

New cognitive technologies are displacing workers and re-engineering work, forcing companies to redesign jobs to incorporate new technology solutions. Demographic changes are also in play. Millennials, who now make up more than half the workforce, are taking centre stage. Their expectations are vastly different from those of previous generations. They expect accelerated responsibility and paths to leadership. They seek greater purpose in their work. And they want greater flexibility in how that work is done.

For human resources (HR) organisations, this new world requires bold and innovative thinking. It challenges our existing people practices: how we evaluate and manage people and how we engage and develop teams; how we select leaders and how they operate.

HR organisations now face increasing demands to measure and monitor the larger organizational culture, simplify the work environment, and redesign work to help people adapt. For HR and talent teams, 2015 will be a critical year. As these forces gather momentum, we see 2015 as a time for creativity, bold leadership, and a fundamental re-imagining of the practices HR leaders have used for years.

For more information about Human Capital Services at Deloitte, contact Jessica Mello, Director of Consulting at Deloitte, on 295-1500 or at jessica.mello@deloitte.bm

Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends report is one of the largest longitudinal studies of talent, leadership, and HR challenges and readiness around the world. The research involved surveys and interviews with more than 3,300 business and HR leaders from 106 countries. All the data from this research can be viewed by geography, company size, and industry using an interactive tool, the Human Capital Trends Dashboard, available at www.deloitte.com/hcdashboard.