Virtual HR - The Irresistible Force?

Among the many difficulties facing the HR community today, perhaps none is proving as intractable nor as profound in its ramifications than the question of how to respond to the rapid automation of the discipline. The rise of "virtual HR" challenges the very nature of human resources; with more and more companies opting for increasingly hi-tech solutions devolving growing portions of the core HR burden to the end-users themselves, what is the nature of the role to be played by the remaining human participants within the process? What are the new organizational structures emerging from the interplay with the technology and how do these behave when put under the stress of, say, a financial crisis, or a ‘flu pandemic?