The piece cited an increase in the level of outsourcing of traditional HR functions – including payroll, benefits and recruiting – in the preceding 10 years and predicted that the trend would continue to accelerate. The article quoted a number of noted HR professionals regarding trends in the profession and concluded with the notion that, while outsourcing certain tasks made sense in today's economy, companies still needed some competent HR staffers as on-site employees to handle issues pertaining to human capital.

In 2014, things are looking a bit different – last week's volatility in the capital markets notwithstanding. The U.S. economy has been on a definite uptick, with employment and hiring reaching six-year highs, even as the Eurozone struggles to get out of its "stag-flation" condition (much as Japan did during the 1990s). There's always the chance that economic weakness overseas or geopolitical instability could plunge the U.S. back into recession, though it doesn't appear likely at this point. Accordingly, the demand for HR professionals has been on the rise this year among companies from Toys 'R' Us to Amazon – especially for individuals with strong social-media skills – with job openings for HR professionals of all types up this past June about 10% from year-ago levels.

Send in the Cloud

That said, HR service organizations are not only not going anywhere – they're growing as well, and adapting to the 21st-century economy along with the rest of the profession.

Industry stalwarts like ADP and Paychex are facing challenges from a whole new class of up-start HR start-ups like Workday, Success Factors and Namely – all of which are focused on cloud-based services for areas like payroll and benefits management. The ubiquitous "cloud," is the future (and present) of HR services.

Not to be left in the dust, ADP has availed itself of such technology for processing paychecks for some time, while Paychex recently acquired a cloud-based company as well.

And the battle for outsourcing dominance is being waged at organizations of all sizes. While HR services were once thought of as affordable only to Fortune 100 companies, a number of start-ups are pursuing the market for small-to-midsize companies with under 1,000 employees – estimated by Fortune to number some 500 million firms worldwide.

Technology As a Tool, Not an End in Itself

And yet, common wisdom holds that the "human" element in Human Resources is alive and well – it's merely adapting to new technologies and ways of doing business. While cloud-based outsourcing or shared services are riding the technology wave, they are valuable tools that enable HR professionals to do their jobs more efficiently and with more agility.

Yes, outsourcing has eliminated jobs over the years and will continue to do so – as most technological innovations invariably do. That doesn't mean that HR professionals can't continue to be a vibrant, integral component of successful organizations. On the contrary, a recent industry study found that becoming strategic business partners, i.e., improving strategic alignment with their businesses – and not merely adopting cloud-based or other technological innovations – will be the main focus of HR organizations in the next few years.

Granted, the survey concluded that the user experience will benefit from implementing state-of-the-art technology systems; but it also found that equally important will be the visibility and flexibility of the real-time workforce in adapting to changing market conditions, emerging markets and achieving corporate growth.

In other words, it's way too early to write the obituary of the "human" aspect of Human Resources.