The human resources sphere is no stranger to the galvanizing effect tech innovation is having on many of the world's industries. Technological disruption is high on the agenda, and
HR is going through a transformative period, according to Forbes. However, whereas you might expect supercomputers and futuristic digital devices to be the focus and face of change, technology is actually bringing about a somewhat unexpected focus: people. Technology is helping to automate and improve HR processes meaning that innovation and improvement is enabling time and money to be spent focusing on the ‘H’.
Helping to cut the chaff,
technology removes wasteful processes in project management and HR oversight, enabling more quality time to be spent with staff. Here’s how.
Automated reporting systems
Across the world, offices and businesses often operate on poorly organized and decentralized systems. Management information such as work hours, performance data and productivity are often held on large numbers of disparate databases and spreadsheets. What this results in is wasted time as professionals are forced to navigate a wide range of business-critical, but wasteful systems. As CNN found,
15 high profile professions are overworked with bureaucracy a clear point of focus as to where time is being lost. Workforce management consultancy,
Advance Systems Inc., advocates the use of transformative technology to move towards eliminating this wastage. Modern digital technology can be utilized to provide a centralized system into which timecards, periods of leave, productivity and their ilk will feed. The result is a fair and open record of staff actions and increased time to generate response to value demand.
Automated systems can also make dismissal, performance management and disciplinary actions far easier. This irons issues out relating to comparative performance, and offers a view to every member of staff of comparative performance.
Real-time, applied learning
Learning and development in the workplace often carries with it burdensome stereotypes as being wasteful and, at times, boring. This is a major challenge for HR functions that need to deliver mandatory training to their staff within timescales. In recent years, employees have clocked on to the fact that learning can be aided by incentives; cross-skilling into other roles and industries is a sure fire way to make your training effective and engaging, as are little perks to make training days superior.
Technology is helping to assist this virtue by providing augmented and virtual reality teaching systems. NASA have pioneered augmented learning, using students to develop training. This again helps the human experience; improving a learning experience is all the more likely to generate a positive, productive member of staff. It improves enthusiasm towards learning. Crucially, it helps to build on one of the most talked about HR trends emerging in 2018; employee experience.
The employee experience
Technology is conducive to a much wider theme in HR, and a massive culture shift; ‘employee experience’. Replacing employee engagement, Deloitte report that this new term encompasses all aspects of the workforce; happiness, productivity and diversity. The result is a holistic view of employee wellbeing that replaces older, please the boss oriented models. Technology clearly assists in all aspects, providing the foundations on which an employee experience philosophy can be built.
Technology has always proved disruptive in all industries. In HR, it is providing the administrative backdrop on which to build a proper experience for employees, in which they feel valued, supported, and can provide consummate productivity to the business.