What has changed an HR’s role

I often keep hearing people talk about how the dynamic environment has changed the role that HR plays in today’s organization. Thus I think it is worth exploring what has really changed a HR’s role.
The first that comes to my mind is the Glocalization of the world economy. Today there are various companies that employs a global workforce. An organization functions in different countries and cultures where the quality of life and attitude towards employees differs. But an organization, in a quest to develop its brand wants to treat all employees equitably. The responsibility of making this happen rests on the shoulder of the HR. Thus with a diverse workforce, today the HR functions at different levels. At the international level they develop a framework for the policies they need to follow for all the employees and at the local level they frame policies that keep in mind the quality of life, business practices, labor laws, cultural sensitivities etc. In fact with companies looking to employ transnational employees, they need to understand the difference between the cultures in which they operate and help employees adapt to different scenarios.
To employ teams operating out of diverse locations the organizations to expect the HR folks to be in know of what possibilities the new technology has to offer. With a diverse workforce the companies are faced with the employees demanding much more freedom at workplace. With this becoming more and more commonplace and advanced technology providing new tools, the companies today have developed a dynamic workforce that is more adaptive to remote collaboration and demands much more flexibility in work timings. This has also led to more creative employment contracts and greater incentives to attract and retain talent. The employees today has matured and better understands what the organization’s expectations are.  As a result there has been a gradual movement towards judging the performance on predefined outputs and deliverables.
Of course, with this the organizations have not let themselves be far behind in gradually setting the bar higher for the employees. This has lead to employee struggling to strike work-life balance. Once again the employees have only the HR to look up to to help them out. Engaging employees at workplace has turned out to be a popular practice these days and organizations look for better resources to communicate and reach out to the employees. They try to address all the different needs and expectations of the employees and even reach out to connect to community and portray itself as socially responsible. In the world of social networking website employees are increasingly web savvy. Intranet based tools have been developed by HR for communication, training and benefit administration. These tools have developed more transparency in processes and developed more trust between the organization and its employees.
With the change in the way business functions, the drivers of the business i.e. the employees have also developed more maturity. With the development of the knowledge economy the workforce with which organizations deals have a better understanding of what they are contributing to the organization. Now organizations are faced with free-lancers and contract workers making commitment not stretching beyond results and deliverables. Family and life interests plays a more prevalent role in people's lives and a greater factor in people's choices about work- there is more of a "work to live" than a "live to work" mentality. In the DINK culture, today couples give equal importance to their spouse’s career as well, thereby showing a greater level of personal commitment which they expect their employers to help them keep.
HR folks are slowly moving into a coaching role to help business managers deal with people issues and optimize team performance. As the business keeps growing the jobs are being redesigned to become more and more complex with a broader scope. In such situations it might be difficult for line managers to manage teams with equal if not more work pressures. Thus, HR can be the ones to whom they can look for assistance when in doubt.