Recruitment agencies are likely to benefit as businesses’ HR departments increasingly divide their work into ever-more specialised functions and outsource areas such as recruiting, says management guru Kjell Nordström.

“I believe in work specialisation, and I believe it will continue. While HR has usually been done in-house I’m not sure that will be in the case in the future,” Nordström told Recruiter.

“HR is becoming so much of an area to understand, to be updated, in line with the time. HR today in general is a very legalistic thing. It’s all the laws you have to keep track of. Work specialisation based on knowledge will become more of an issue than it is today.”

Nordström was a speaker at Hay Group’s Leadership for a Complex World conference in London. He is best known for the books Karaoke Capitalism and Funky Business he co-wrote with Jonas Ridderstråle.