The Evolution Of Hr Through Technology

SAJJAD PARMAR, HEAD OF REWARD APAC, EBAY

SAJJAD PARMAR, HEAD OF REWARD APAC, EBAY

Digitization on steroids, workplace changed forever, technology utilization, and automation accelerated.
All these phrases reflect the new reality we are living in. Technology to an extent has taken a new meaning in the last few months, especially for employees who have been forced to work from home for months at a time now. Our view of tools, platforms, and ease of access has all been modified to an extent. The impact is tremendous for companies and industries that didn’t have any form of agile working.
What this also means is that many things we took for granted are no longer easily available. Cannot just walk over to a colleague, have a quick discussion, make a quick decision, and move on.

We can either suffer through an endless number of zoom/webinar calls or we can focus on using technology and tools the right way so that it makes our life easier.
We have always had good HR tools to help us. Perhaps not across the entire HR spectrum but we have fantastic HRMS systems, payroll systems, etc.

Technology that drives key processes and analytics gives power to the HR community so they can spend time adding value

This pandemic has put a new focus on the entire value chain. From talent acquisition to talent management, performance management, employee onboarding, and policy information. This is just a partial list. How many of these are you using?

On the other hand, we have the entire spectrum on data management that requires some re-shaping. If I think about the evolution of data management, it forces us to think where on the life cycle of data management we currently are. In particular, I want to focus on HR analytics. Ideally, we want to be at the predictive and prescriptive stage of the evolution curve,but the reality is that most of us are still at benchmarking and correlations.

This pandemic is giving us an opportunity to invest, accelerate our position on the analytics curve. Imagine having the right data, at the right time presented in the right way.

Personally, just the thought of having fewer debates, spending less time on assumptions is exciting. It is hard to argue against numbers. In HR, some of the best practices revolve around using HR analytics to drive decision making. Taking the discussion back to the leaders and humbly showing them a different face to their stubborn assumptions and feelings.

Taking this a step further in a more practical way. In talent acquisition, you should be using an online video platform or an online assessment platform to shortlist candidates. You are looking for skills set, competencies that sometimes are not too obvious to catch during a face to face interview. For big hiring processes like internships or graduate hiring, the use of HR technology is not only going to save HR teams massive amounts of time but also help with by-products like taking our unconscious biases out of the equation. Not to mention, assessment tools can identify candidates who are amazing at other skills which immediately may not be relevant but might help you fulfill other talent needs.

Similarly, if you had an amazing data visualization tool that is intuitive, easy to use and gives you data on the go, imagine the time saved, accelerating people's decision making. You are no longer dependent on collecting, sorting data. Things like attrition, spans of control, manpower movement, pay competitiveness, benefits loss ratio, the cost to company analysis, learning needs analysis are available at your fingertips. You can sort it, manipulate it however you like for any group of employees in so many ways.

You are only limited by your imagination. Not to mention how you elevate your position at the big table. Using technology and analytics, HR can upend the entire value chain. Technology that drives key processes and analytics gives power to the HR community so they can spend time adding value. Speed is everything. Anything that helps you accelerate will give you a competitive edge. Technology and analytics are catalysts to support this lifestyle.

Both pieces are not nice to have anymore, they are must-haves. In an environment where companies are struggling to stay afloat, we must be making the right people decisions in the fastest and most efficient way that’s possible.