2015 is going to be a big year for the world of corporate talent. The economy has improved, the job market for technical and professional skills is surging and technology is radically changing the nature of work.

Today, we are able to work from home, coffee shops, on airplanes and often late at night. We interact with people all over the world easily – and possess the tools and technologies to seek information, as well as write, communicate and analyse data like never before.

Thanks to the growth of cognitive computing technologies, we will soon have access to artificially intelligent agents in our phones, machines that monitor where we are, what work to do, what customer problems to solve and even the specific HR problems to address.

Much of this transition has been positive, but much has also been difficult. Many of us are “overwhelmed employees”, and some researches show that employee engagement and retention is at an all-time low.

While many people are still looking for work, more and more people are getting fed up with the 24/7 work environment around us. Thus, they go to social websites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor, seeking available jobs with employers that offer them the best prospects.

The concepts of “integrated talent management” are rapidly changing, with most HR practices being reinvented. The ten predictions for 2015 cover topics from employee engagement to new technologies for HR, a whole new focus on corporate culture, renewed leadership development strategies and the need to revitalise HR and invest more heavily in analytics.

Overall, the major trend re-engineering the traditional approach to HR. The younger, more mobile, more agile workforce and workplace we now live in demands new approaches: flexible work policies, more focus on empowerment and skills development, a more humane work environment, and both financial and workplace benefits which are locally relevant.

As we look at 2015, we see five fundamental shifts which are dramatically impacting corporate talent, leadership, and HR strategies.

1. Technology has removed the barrier between work and life.

Companies have to focus on culture, environment and simplification.We are working all the time, emails and messages are streaming in 24/7, and information, conversations, and content is literally streaming at us wherever we go. The work “environment” we live in today is radically different: people work wherever they want, leading to a huge wave of open offices; over-work is a tremendous challenge, and people are not sure how to deal with the overwhelming amount of information they receive each day. Design thinking, simplification, and ease of use are the new mantras for corporate talent programs.

2. Employee engagement, culture, and leadership are lifeline issues.

Glassdoor data shows a split in companies. There are huge segment of companies who are “highly engaged”, and a similarly large number of companies whose employees are “actively disengaged.”

The highly engaged companies are attracting the best people, delivering better customer service and innovating better. These companies are focused on mission, culture, and leadership. They understand that people are not “talent,” they are people – with their own personal needs and aspirations.

This focus on engagement has impacted everything we do, because ultimately employee engagement is all a business has. Companies have to rethink their coaching and development strategies, their career mobility strategies, and how they develop and select leaders. Today’s leader focuses on “building a highly engaged team” not just “delivering on business results.”

Unfortunately, a research shows that the gaps in corporate leadership are wider than ever. Research by Deloitte and others will show you how leadership development, assessment, and coaching has to be a top focus for 2015.

3. Learning, capabilities, and skills are the currency of success.

From both an individual and organisational standpoint, technical and professional capabilities are now the currency of success. If we can attract or develop better scientists, engineers, sales people, or functional experts, we will beat the competitors.

Once we attract these people, we must provide a compelling learning environment to stay current, as technology advances at an accelerating rate. L&D organisations and strategies have not kept up, and we are in an era where corporate learning is going through.

4.  HR as a function is at a crossroads and must reinvent itself.

Underlying most of these issues is the need to re-skill and re-energise HR. The problem is redefining what HR professionals do. Most companies are going through a restructure of their HR team, moving HR closer to the business, and reskilling generalists into finely tuned business consultants. This is a decade-long transition taking place within the HR function.

5.  Data is now integral to all decisions HR must make.

Finally, we are entering a talent world where people data is now central to every decision we make. Organisations that are investing in analytics teams, analytics tools, and analytics expertise are going to outperform their peers.

Who to hire, who to promote, how much to pay, how to develop, what next job to take – all these decisions are now “data enabled” and we expect HR technology, which is becoming more integrated, to become more and more like “instrumentation of your organisation”- giving you data to improve organisational performance every single day.

See: The Role & Scope of HR Positions

The original article first appeared on Bersin.