HRmagazine september-septembre 2022 - HRTECH.be special

HRTECH .be

Special 2022 By HRmagazine

The first edition of this special and already the second of HRTECH. Wow! Besides the fact that such an event comes with a cer tain sense of pride, I am convinced we need initiatives like this.

As a former consultant in employer mar keting and HR, I have had the enormous privilege of working with many HRDs in the past. Every single one of them had sin cere intentions and was concerned with talent development, training, welfare, re muneration, and so much more. If it’s a challenge, you ask me? You bet!

I could see these topics were being tackled in a variety of ways. This was often the re sult of a lack of awareness, not only of the trends and tools, but also of the organisa tions that provide assistance with HR-related topics. That's where we come in!

The six themes in this special will inspire, inform and activate you and your organ isation. Because really, the market has so much to offer today: from quick wins to processes that require a deep dive. Each step has an impact and can make the jobs of HR teams more efficient ánd exciting. However, there are also many questions. If you rely on data to recruit someone, how does that increase your confidence as an employer? Finding the right match becomes easier, but how far can you go in such a data-driven process?

Another thing I often wonder is whether opportunities for advancement still de pend too often on an employee’s report ing manager? A delicate matter, but data combined with AI can be a valuable resource too in this respect. The result is objectification and, let's face it, fewer un happy colleagues.

Training, upskilling, reskilling. Things that are becoming more important every day. It is important to keep innovating and to be aware that the technological possi bilities are countless. Lifelong learning is gradually becoming an intricate part of our daily lives.

And, of course, the metaverse also has a role to play. This parallel world is a big question mark for me. It makes me realise what it must have been like for my parents when the internet became popular.

I sincerely hope that you will gain more insight in these topics while reading this magazine. Insights that you will enjoy transforming into actions that are part of your future HR policy.

Time to connect the dots and make HR and Tech come together. The future looks bright!

Enjoy this special edition.

Time to connect the dots and make HR and Tech come together. The future looks bright!

Evelyne Ferange Managing Director NMG, HRmagazine en FDmagazine

Data driven careers

Mrs Rahaf Harfoush was part of the epic campaign team that got Barack Obama in The White House. She’s been named as Global Young Shaper by the World Economic Forum. Emmanuel Macron asked her to participate in a presidential commission on Enlightenment in a Digital Age. Her dog Pixel has his own Instapage. But this digital anthropologist is above all an authority on transformations in our workplace culture.

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Rahaf was part of the epic campaign team that got Barack Obama in The White House.

Mrs. Harfoush, what is a ‘digital anthropologist’?

RAHAF HARFOUSH: “Anthropology studies cul ture, so digital anthropologists like me look at how technology and all our tools and plat forms impact our culture, and vice versa. We look at humans and tech as an ecosys tem. Do the blue check marks underneath a WhatsApp message create social pressure to respond? How does 24/7 exposure to social feeds link with anxiety? And so on.”

Your book ‘Hustle and Float’, published in 2019, is as much a product of the researcher as the person and knowledge worker Rahaf Harfoush, right?

RAHAF: “A couple of years ago, I had a severe burn-out. My health was at stake. My doctor gave me some sound advice. No rocket sci ence though: take breaks; don’t cling to your mailbox all the time; don’t pull all-nighters… Things that should be common sense, things you’ve read in every personal development book out there. The problem is: even if we know what to do to protect our wellbeing, we just don’t do it. Why? That’s the central question of the book.”

The book is indeed atypical. It doesn’t go on to offer life hacks. On the contrary. It zooms out,

to investigate our Systems, Stories and Self.

RAHAF: “Many books offer takeaway solutions: get up early; meditate; use Inbox Zero. Be more productive, they whisper. We are ob sessed with the concept of productivity. It inhabits all our belief systems. It’s at the core of the Industrial Revolution and it’s the foun tainhead of the American Dream. The thing is: it’s just not compatible with how knowl edge work really gets done. It’s a relic of our religious past: we actually believe that success is always a product of struggle and sacrifice. You work hard and you suffer? You must be a good person then. Until we face that hidden narrative, we can’t tackle our problems.”

Is the relationship between productivity and creativity toxic?

RAHAF: “As creative professionals, we have come to believe that we can be simultane ously highly productive and highly creative in equal measures. We idolise people like Steve Jobs and Beyoncé, we want to be like them. But in the meantime, we keep worshipping productivity. The conclusion of the system is: it’s never enough, do more. Data revealed that knowledge workers who stayed aboard during the financial crisis of 2008, saw their workload expand to 1.5 or even 1.7 times the normal volume. They be

came ‘superjobs’ to compensate for all those colleagues who were laid off. We are always triggered to hustle.”

ON THE CLOCK

If I am a CEO, CHRO or a leader in more general terms, how could I reconcile your message with the cold fact that I am responsible for business goals?

RAHAF: “There are actually two parts to the equation. First is about asking a question: do all my company rules, technologies and tools support and prioritise undistract ed deep work? Do they create the highest quality of mental conditions for people to perform? I would argue that most compa nies don’t. Meetings, MS Teams, Slack, Yam mer, etc. And everytime you get distracted, it takes you a little bit longer to get back in the zone. But changing this is in fact rather easy: create meeting-free days, don’t disturb policies, clear rules about allocating large chunks of time for people to work with, etc.”

And the second part?

RAHAF: “I just talked about the inflation of job workload after the financial crisis. Some thing similar happened during the pandem ic. People worked more and longer hours.

To understand what is going on, you need to do a job audit. Which member of my team is responsible for what? Get the data. Once you have a clear view on that, you can set realistic performance and deadline goals. Otherwise, it makes no sense tracking anything at all.”

This is where we come on the terrain of data driven, human centric HR innovation. You were a pioneer in that field and wrote about the potential of data for talent retention as early as 2014 in your book ‘The Decoded Company’.

RAHAF: “Yes, data is a piece of the puzzle. But the most important question is not: ‘Which tool am I going to use?’ but ’What will I meas ure?’. You can measure every keystroke, every mail sent and unread. What’s the point? What you should be measuring is for instance: Is this person taking the 15% of recovery time prescribed into the project she’s responsible

2 We idolise people like Steve Jobs and Beyoncé, we want to be like them.

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Rahaf writes about transformations in our workplace culture.

Rahaf Harfoush

Times

Author

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In China, there’s a ‘lying flat’ movement revolting against the 9-9-6 doctrine (working from 9 to 9, 6 days a week).

for? In The Decoded Company, there’s this story about a company with a time clock. Not to track time, as it used to be in the factories. But to see if you don’t work too much. Be cause when the system registrates it, it sets an alert for the manager, who plans a dialogue. That’s how it should be done.”

CHANGE OR PERISH

How do you look at phenomena like the Great Resignation in the US?

RAHAF: “To me, the Great Resignation is about workers taking matters in their own hands and recalibrating the system. It’s their way of saying: The system I am supposed to work in, doesn’t work for me anymore. There are lots of flashing lights: union membership for knowledge workers is spiking in the US. Or read, for instance, the open letter of Ap ple employees to their management. In Chi na, there’s a ‘lying flat’ movement revolting against the 9-9-6 doctrine (working from 9 to 9, 6 days a week).”

But at the same time, governments are saying we need to have longer careers, to finance retirements and social welfare schemes. And many companies are resist ing change, too. What is your advice to them?

RAHAF: “I think the system will correct itself. As for governments, the biggest threat to their revenues are exactly phenomena like burn-out epidemics and anti-ambition move ments. Policymakers resist facts and data: all of the experiments, from New-Zealand over the UK to Canada, say the same: innovative work formats for knowledge workers don’t lower output! As for companies: they will be at risk of perishing, because talent will flow to the competition embracing change: forty workweek years, four-day workweeks, hybrid working, etc. Those companies and their knowledge workers will reclaim their creativity and thrive.”

Word’s up that the metaverse is coming. Will it change work for the good?

RAHAF: “I think the metaverse will change the way people think about gathering, about communal spaces and working spaces. That being said, I also believe that without the proper cultural foundations and if not imple mented well, things like virtual spaces could just continue to promote the wrong type of behaviour. If we just duplicate our office cul ture to virtual space, we’re still getting burnt out and we’re still clinging on to systems that don’t actually work for people.” ¶

Meetings, MS Teams, Slack, Yammer, … And everytime you get distracted, it takes you a little bit longer to get back in the zone.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3…

When Glowi wanted to accelerate its recruitment of housekeeping staff, their partner Indeed knew where to look and how to act. Or how smart data analysis, A/B testing and behavioural monitoring help to find precious needles in a haystack.

The war for talent? Employer Glowi knows all about it: a tight labour market for household helpers, (window) cleaners and temporary workers; fierce competi tion for the few candidates out there; and a pandemic complicating matters even more. But with the help of Indeed, Glo wi has progressively been able to unveil where potential candidates are hiding, what they are looking for in a job and how to connect with them.

Renate Nelis, Communication & Market ing Director at Glowi, has a lot on her plate these days. Exciting days though, as the company has just launched its very own line of eco-friendly cleaning prod ucts and materials and is reorganising its growing services portfolio under an um brella brand.

Employer branding is very important to Glowi and one of the founding pillars of the company, says Renate. “The owners started a service voucher company be cause they wanted to raise esteem for the job which had a bad reputation. We want ed to show it could be done differently –better. We were the first to give household helpers a company car. We offer them a comprehensive salary package, pay atten tion to wellbeing and offer a warm envi ronment. And with success. But even still, today the demand for household helpers way outweighs the supply. It’s difficult to find candidates out there, even as a hu man-centred employer. So you need to keep innovating.”

SHOW ME THE MONEY

So something had to be done. “We turned to Indeed to help us find a facts-based approach to improve our campaigns.

Vincent Dams, Indeed

Renate Nelis,

We‘d been doing a lot of data collection on our own platforms of course, but the scale isn’t comparable. And it’s a cost and time-effective effort.”

Enter Vincent Dams, National Account Manager at Indeed: “Each month, we record over 3 million visits on our plat form. This produces a vast amount of data. Where do all these candidates live? Who are they? What are they looking for? It al lows us to continuously optimise the platform. Because we want candidates to get the best possible job, fast.”

But data needs to be analysed in order to develop hypotheses. And then these as sumptions, in turn, need to be tested. “In deed is first and foremost a tech company, so we go to work with that data. This is why we continuously measure action and tinker with our platform. We give clients like Glowi sound advice, based on what search strings people use when they are looking for a job, what makes them click or anything else that can help build better funnels and campaigns,” says Vincent. Renate explains how Indeed helped Glo wi to adopt the candidate’s perspective on his or her job search. Data convinced them to try new things and see where it got them. “I appreciate how Indeed proactively engages with the challenges we present to them. It enables us to launch campaigns and adapt them quickly, based on test results.” Vincent provides an ex ample: “The Belgian tradition avoids com municating about salaries in job offerings early on in a recruitment process. But in every poll candidates say it is an important driver to engage with a vacancy. We saw at Indeed that communicating the salary increases the click-through rate by some 50%. So we pass on that knowledge, without of course obliging the client to follow through on the advice.”

As Vincent proceeds, he points to the importance of continuous adjustments: “Tests are so important. Together with Glowi we look at different regions, at the

keywords people use in that area – dia lects can play a role for instance, just like cultural differences – and several other aspects. And then we use that data to test how we can make the campaigns more relevant to the target group. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But knowing what doesn’t work is also of value. And we communicate very openly with Glowi.”

A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED

Renate underscores the importance of mutual trust: “OK, Indeed is a tech company and has a data-driven methodology. But they are also warm and thoughtful and this matches well with our human-centred DNA. We also have monthly meetings, so Indeed always stays in touch with our or ganisation andwith the context in which we have to make decisions. And when the pandemic led to a sudden sector standstill in the spring of 2020, they were very flex

“Indeed is a tech company. That means we collect and analyse a lot of data. We never suggest things based on gut feeling.”

ible. Indeed immediately understood that we wouldn’t be activating our campaign budget like we normally would. So it feels like a true partnership, more than a for mal client-supplier relationship. But that doesn’t surprise me. After all we share the same mission: help people get jobs with out having too many hurdles in the way.”

It reminds Vincent of a recent joint ini tiative: “We cleared an extra budget for Glowi to create a campaign aimed at Ukrainian refugees. Sometimes a job is the best way to help you make a brand new start in a foreign environment. It gives you access to a lot of things. So we decided to support each company that took an initiative to help, worldwide”.

Adds Renate: “We already had people with us who spoke the language, who could help create messages but who could also help to give more information on how to settle in Belgium. And with the help of Indeed, we could move fast. Indeed’s pro active mindset combined with our short decision lines enable these actions. It helps to share the unburden-the-custom er mindset.”

THE FUTURE: SHOP A JOB

The Ukraine-Russia war or covid: both are examples of unpredictable and sud den shocks that may permanently impact labour markets. So we asked Vincent and Renate how they see the futures of tech and HR intertwining a couple of years down the road.

Vincent: “I see HR communication tak ing over more and more characteristics

of e-commerce. The data-driven aspect to begin with, the efforts to segment and tai lor offerings, but also the speed at which you complete the funnel. When you book a holiday, you don’t want to wait two weeks for a confir mation... you want it now. And we choose it based on reviews, preferably even a 3D tour of the room. The same will go for job markets. Candidates will expect much faster experienc es, they will want to check other sources than the employer. They won’t want to fill in 90 questions anymore. The war for talent will help employers reshape those journeys. We can help point out which way to go, by spotting the evolution of candidate needs and expectations.”

Renate: “We are very focused on our own identity, on what we can offer candidates. And such a value-driven story must re main authentic, and it is up to Glowi to shape the story. But Indeed offers the mirror, the insights into what the market thinks and wants. Technology provides the interaction between the two. And it also enables us to accelerate when we see opportunities and play fastballs. Refining the funnel, speeding up processes while finetuning the relevance of our employer branding messages to different audiences is the way to go. Tech offers speed, the opportunity to take a personal approach and it is of course cost-effective.” ¶

“When you look through the tech part, the real match between us is the mission to give people opportunities on the labour market.”

Brussels-Capital’s Got Talent

With the help of Cornerstone, talent.brussels accelerated its efforts to attract talent for public institutions based in Brussels. Digitisation paved the way for more person-oriented recruitment methods and skills development. With considerable success.

Talent.brussels was founded less than five years ago to help Brussels’ regional public administrations join forces and take on their collective HR challenges. Cédric Ver schooten, deputy director general: “Right from the start it became clear that our pri ority was to position the Brussels-Capital Region as the attractive employer we know it is. We knew digitisation and innovation would play a crucial role in hitting that strategic target. That’s why we decided to part ner with Cornerstone.” Michael Neefs, Country Sales Manager Belgium and Luxembourg at Cornerstone, has seen internet-based services evolve significantly: “HR used to be the depart ment that companies invested the least in. Their activities were transactional. That has changed. With Cornerstone, we now help organisations push unified talent manage ment to the core of HR. And the public sec tor is leading the pack. The talent.brussels project is the living proof of this evolution.”

BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER

“A major challenge was to improve, speed up and simplify our recruitment process es,” Cédric says. “With the MyTalent_Recruitment tool we reduced lead times by as much as 40%, allowing us to compete with corporate employers. Tech and re forms went hand in hand. We dropped the standard resume and tailored tests to the position at hand, triggering candidates to think their application through. As a re sult, 8 out of 10 candidates now pass the first screening. Before we worked with MyTalent_Recruitment, typically 2 out of

From left to right: Cédric Verschooten, talent.brussels & Michael Neefs, Cornerstone

10 did. An evolution with impact. Better candidate pools, less red tape and a better user experience – 86% of candidates say our online procedures are easy and fast.”

Michael points out the shift in perception that results from these kinds of innova tions. “With the right tools and process es, the public sector not only modernis es recruitment but also the career paths that follow in its slipstream. Candidates realise that a civil service career can lead to professional growth and more diverse roles. Many learning, coaching and devel opment opportunities open up. Flatlining careers belong to the past.”

Cédric: “That’s one of the reasons why more and more partners implement our solution. They see the benefits of a job ecosystem that stim ulates mobility with in and between insti tutions.”

2200 TRAINING MODULES

HR partners constantly add training modules to the second component of the tal ent.brussels Cornerstone platform, MyTal ent_Learning. At this point the platform offers about 2200 modules, including the smart language tool BruLingua, built by the Brussels job agency Actiris.

Cédric: “We make sure to convey the learning and development opportunities to our candidates, emphasising them in our vacancies. They are part of a broader employer branding package that also offers a framework for working remotely and in cludes ergonomic office supplies, the right to disconnect, and so on.”

Remote working has boomed since the pandemic. “Location-time independence is here to stay,” says Michael. “We notice a huge shift in how people perceive their

jobs. It’s no longer about hours, but about working moments. I use the platform to jot down my ideas, and my boss can discuss them with me on a Teams call later on. But he can also keep track of my development, of my skills passport, as I like to call it.”

200 MORE VACANCIES THIS YEAR

We’re intrigued by this ‘skills passport’ Mi chael talks about. So we asked both guests how they see the near and the more dis tant future of tech-driven HR.

“We need to remain ambitious and for ward-looking, for sev eral reasons,” Cédric says determinedly.

“First and foremost, we’re not there yet.

Before the end of 2022 we have 200 more vacancies to fill.

We have to keep im proving our recruit ment and selection processes, and we must keep nurturing our partnership pool. That will eventu ally create advantages of scale. Secondly, I would like to explore how AI could help support our processes. We are already thinking about the roles and learning con tent of the future.”

Michael: “We work on platforms the entire day. All this activity could be stored and combined to continuously advise you on your next career move. People Experience will move to the centre. At each stage of your career, you will be assisted in deter mining which skills to train. At the other side of the table, companies will be able to anticipate shocks that hit labour markets. They’ll be able to monitor when the avail able talent pool runs the risk of becoming outdated. They can see who can be quickly upskilled to add value in creating the next product life cycle, and so on. HR forecast ing will become possible.” ¶

Digital First in the Search for Employees

We have all heard of the Flemish public employment service VDAB, but do you really know what the organisation can mean to you? A lot, that is for sure. VDAB helps you and employers find the right match, offers courses when you want to (re)train your skills and inspires you with job opportunities in other sectors. They do so by using all things digital. Not only for you, but for no less than 4 million citizens. However, due to the current labour shortage it’s not always that easy. Time for a chat!

Bert Schelfaut is Head of Digital at VDAB, a job title that, according to him, is often confused with the I&T department. On LinkedIn, he regularly receives questions intended for his colleague. That colleague is Jan Dobbenie who is CIO of VDAB and leads the Information & Technology di vision. Things they have in common? A passion for digital, a touch of humour in the workplace and the fact that they both have a team of 450 people to lead.

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

VDAB helps employers find the right can didate for the right job. But today, finding that candidate is harder than ever before, even for VDAB. “As an employer itself, VDAB also suffers from the current labour market tension. The government offering of the past has been diluted and we are no longer competitive because we don’t have company cars or bonuses,” says Bert. There is also pressure on VDAB from stakeholders, such as politicians and so cial partners. They all look to VDAB to fill vacancies. Job matching is more diffi cult than ever and that is a problem they do not always have a suitable solution for. Jan: “As indicated before, it is one of VDAB’s missions to work with jobseek ers. Simplistically, you can argue there are two categories of unemployed peo ple. First, those who find a new job rather quickly because they have sufficient skills and competencies or are adaptable to the market environment. Second, there is a group of unemployed people who strug gle to find a new job. In the latter case, it

Bert Schelfaut, Head of Digital at VDAB

Jan Dobbenie, CIO of VDAB

is VDAB’s mission to activate these peo ple. Lifelong learning is often the key to success.”

Jan: “We try to make it clear to employers that the perfect candidate does not exist. You must look for a sufficient match. Fit and culture is often more important than hard skills or competencies. Providing on-the-job training (optionally funded by government), is a great way to attract top talent that really fits in the organisation. It takes two to tango,” adds Bert.

TOOLS THAT MATCH YOUR NEEDS

On-the-job training can be done with the tools provided by VDAB, but there is more. Bert explains: “As an organisation, we have decided to gradually become digital first. This means that we try to offer our custom ers, jobseekers and citizens who have a job a wide variety of self-service tools. The quality and per formance of these tools must be top notch, otherwise nobody will return.”

the labour market.” Today, vacancies are matched using AI. Training will follow but there is an opportunity to develop this. It is a way to expand your skillset and find suitable candidates for specific jobs.

The target group has grown quickly, and in addition to courses, free tools on the website come in handy. Bert explains: “Orient is a self-test that anyone can do on our website. You get a series of questions and finally the tool provides insight into which sector is most suitable for you to look for work.”

“We have a whole range of other digital tools,” adds Jan. “The most widely used tool is Jobmatching, which matches pro files with vacancies.

There is also Skills Cloud, which uses machine learning to capture market data to distil which skills are in demand or decline. Based on that, we can predict which skills are or will be needed. And it doesn’t stop there, because Jan also mentions a third

The digital first concept needs some clarification: VDAB is a digital first organi sation, but not digital only. As a publicly funded organisation, part of its mission is to provide services to citizens who are not able to interact digitally with VDAB. Therefore, live contact with VDAB advi sors remains possible at all times, includ ing physical counselling sessions. Digital courses are accessible to every one. Bert: “The number of online courses has increased significantly, and the pan demic has played a big part in that. We received extra resources, and a team is actively working on enriching the train ing offer by responding to the needs of Want to read the full article? Then visit hrtech.be/special

tool: “With Job Reach we provide the option to all citizens to upload their CV. This CV is converted from text to struc tured data. Based on that data, the citi zen’s profile is mapped to a competence framework in order to determine the cit izen’s job reach. In a second step, you can tick or untick additional competen cies. By doing so, the citizen’s job reach expands by increasing his/her skills or competencies.”

In the end, the objective is always the same: to advance the citizen’s career and find the required skills and competencies.

Talent marketplace

Nurturing Dialogues, Fostering Talent. How Data & Tech Help Humans Grow

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” “Do you feel less at ease lately? Why?” If you find it hard to answer these questions, you’re not alone. Looking in the mirror is difficult. And your boss? She also struggles to pick up on signals. Luckily, Randstad RiseSmart and TalentLogiQs partnered up to empower both employees and managers when reflecting on careers. The entire organization benefits, as talent thrives and becomes the strategic asset it should be.

The Talent Marketplace requires much more than a tech platform. But tech could make human interactions more valuable for both employees and employers. That’s how Randstad RiseSmart and partner Talent LogiQs look at HR challenges companies face today. Keeping talent close, healthy, happy and in the right role at all times, to name a few.

A generous sun towers the sky when we meet up with Gretel Vlogaert, National Manager Career and Talent Development with Randstad RiseSmart and Lesley Van leke, co-founder and partner with Talent LogiQs, a UAntwerpen spin-off and devel oper of talent management tooling.

THE CHASE SHOULDN’T BE BETTER THAN THE CATCH

On the labor market, things look a bit more cloudy, as a fierce battle for talent rages on. But Gretel also sees a sunny side: “The war on talent helps putting the issue of reten tion management high up on the agenda, where it belongs. Without that sense of ur gency, the focus on talent fades after the hiring process. This comes at a cost: dwin dling motivation, suboptimal performance and, ultimately, untapped talent leaving the company. Which triggers a panic reaction and a vicious circle: ‘help, we need to hire new talent’! What we advocate is to break

Gretel Vlogaert, Randstad RiseSmart & Lesley Vanleke, TalentLogiQs

that cycle and switch to proactive internal talent management.”

Lesley: “You even see it in the numbers. 81% of HR budgets spent on tooling, is for recruitment purposes. Organizations do tremendous efforts to reel in talent, but af terwards they miss out on the opportunity to actively manage it. While those are the people who already said ‘yes’ to your com pany. The question is: how do you get a clear overview of the actual talent situation? This is where our com bined services and tools provide added value.”

“It’s actually very odd when you look at it from a distance”, adds Gretel: “Vast budg ets go to employer branding, in order to develop a promise. But once you’re on board, there’s little investment in deliver ing that promise. But it’s exactly then and there that you need to start building sustainable careers.”

TO TALK, YOU NEED A LANGUAGE

How do you go about creating an environ ment in which both employees and em ployers reap the benefits of a talent-focused culture? It all boils down to an ancient human craft: sitting down for a good talk.

Lesley: “Sustainable careers rest on the corners of a triangle: happy - productive - healthy. To keep the balance between those three, meaningful dialogues are key. It’s the only way to create that win-win: ca reer ownership for the employee, and max imization of potential for the employer. But both parties often lack the proper vocabu lary. Employees struggle finding words to

clarify their aspirations or disappointments, just as managers seek the right questions to ask. Or to analyze the answers, for that mat ter. Because they are partly signal, partly noise. With our Talent Review Profiler, we aid both partners in lifting the veil. It gives clear insights into the type of potential an employee harbors. You get to understand aspirations as well as talent risks - before they turn into prob lems, that is.”

Gretel: “We teach executives to con duct different types of conversations. We all know the classical evaluation. But this is hardly the right framework for a 360° talk on career oppor tunities or talent de velopment. Besides, employees them selves must be chal lenged and trained: first, to pauze and overthink what they actually want out of their career and sec ond, to express those goals in a way their manager can understand.”

Lesley: “The tool is multi-rater. It propos es statements to different stakeholders, amongst whom the employee and the coach. It also corrects for well-known biases in sci entific literature and then combines scales to generate metrics. At the output side, it generates dashboards for management and reports for employees. The tool objectifies a process that is prone to human flaws. This has a huge impact on the way the career coach or manager is perceived: he or she is no longer a biased judge who drops a hy pothesis. Because the data is already there. And it has been objectified. The analysis has been done.”

Gretel: “These kinds of talks used to be a snapshot, highly influenced by the context

“81% of HR budgets spent on tooling, is for recruitment purposes. Organizations invest a lot in attracting new talent, but a lot less in actively managing or fostering existing talent.”

and by unspoken assumptions on both sides. With this approach, we remove flaws. Time and mental space is created for a genuine conversation. We also notice the method creates more willingness to engage with red flags or warning signs about per formance or wellbeing. Precisely because the message emerges from a solid review process.”

CHANGING MINDSETS, SWITCHING ROLES

The impact of this new an gle to human decision mak ing can hardly be underes timated, stresses Gretel: “We are still very much used to the idea of someone else making career choices for us. With our method and tool, the employee gets to sit in the cockpit too. They become a partner in their own career management - a combination of empow erment and responsibility.” Lesley agrees: “And because of that objectified process which shares ownership and responsibility, they feel that the talent review process be comes more transparent and objective. They build more trust towards their organization and its management.”

The Randstad RiseSmart approach aims at fostering a broader, more holistic stance on talent assessment. They coach team leaders and executives across the entire organiza tion to conduct talent meetings on a regular basis. Gretel points to the long term effects of acquiring this good habit: “Management develops a broader perspective on the meaning of ‘potential’. They can take a peek over the walls of departments, and less ev ident opportunities suddenly become visible. Like ‘Oh, maybe Dean from Account

ing could become that great new sales rep we’ve been looking for. Well, let’s have a look at the data and talk to him.””

Lesley: “It’s a way to avoid jumping to con clusions based on biased assumptions. Will a mother of three really refuse that pro motion? Is a 55-year old really not flexible enough to take on a new role? Instead of just guessing, you can now look into it with a data driven, talent-focused mindset. In the end, the decision is still up to humans, even more so than before because the employee too is involved; it’s the pro cess behind it that is au tomated.”

ALWAYS IN FUNCTION OF BUSINESS NEEDS

With the sun still bright above us, we ask Les ley and Gretel how they perceive the entrance of technology into the HR field. Where will HR tech lead us next? What is a desired destiny?

“I think we’re in the early days of a major leap forward”, says Gretel. “Up till now, coaching is largely seen as giving the right feedback, making sure people learn from mistakes. But we have to teach managers the art of feedfor ward, of HR as a proactive and strategic branch of the organization. I think tech will speed up that evolution. Still, it will always have to be embedded in a holistic process with an intrinsically human approach of coaching, facilitating, … .”

Lesley: “You wouldn’t want a CFO who can’t give you a budget forecast.”

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“A fool with a tool remains a fool. You always need to know first: which business need am I trying to solve?”

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Belgium’s Talent League

How to find talent these days? We all know that the traditional way of recruiting is passé composé. This is why STIB and Stepstone joined forces and also started working with gamification and storytelling. One thing is certain: as a company you have to play all the cards nowadays. Christelle Habimana from StepStone and Johan Claes from STIB give us the lowdown.

Johan Claes has been an employer brand ing manager at STIB for almost 12 years. Previously, he worked in an HR commu nication agency. Johan doesn’t have a typ ical HR background "Employer branding is more than a nice image or a good slogan. It comes down to a strategic approach in which people are the starting point, not products.”

Christelle Habimana is content marketeer at StepStone. She keeps her finger firmly on the pulse of all developments in the world of work, for example, by joining forces with industry experts and customers like STIB to create content. STIB has 10,277 employees. As is the case with large companies, they are not always as agile as they would like to be. They have a variety of profiles, professions and per sonalities, and this doesn't make things easier. "Our mission characterises us: we work for the community. What we do is not just for you and the company, but for the people around you. When you work together to improve public transport, you know that it helps people move forward – literally and figuratively," Johan summa rises in short.

THE ART OF ATTRACTING YOUNG GRAD UATES

In this bitter war for talent, it is a struggle to get technical profiles on board. Playing the right trump cards is key, and STIB has them: Johan: “We have long-term projects. You can start with us as a graduate, work in different departments and grow into an important management function. There is enormous internal mobility and a lot of room for promotion, both horizontally and

Johan Claes, STIB

Christelle Habimana, StepStone

vertically. Communication about internal mobility is very open and transparent be cause we see each employee’s knowledge and expertise as an important part of the company.”

But applicants are becoming more and more demanding. Johan: "The war for tal ent has now also reached all media and employees know that it is more difficult for companies to hire. If, as an employee, you are called three times a week and offered a job, you get the chance to make certain de mands. Thus, we see that salary has again become an important condition. A nuance that the employee can make is that sal ary is not everything. Above all, you have to ensure a fit with the corporate culture and the mission of the company."

Christelle makes a critical remark: “The war for talent certain ly does not apply to every job. But when it comes to technical professions, it is strik ing. Willingness to apply is much higher among those who experience their career as unsustainable. In fact, 63% of employees responded to at least one job vacancy in the past six months.”

And then there is that one hard-to-reach target group of young graduates. The dig ital generation thinks differently about work and says "no" more quickly. That's why STIB is responding to them in cooperation with StepStone.

Christelle: "Throughout the year, we’re reaching young French and Dutch speak ing talent from all over Belgium with our dedicated Salary Planner Campaign and our other hot topic campaigns. We’re meet ing young grads where they are the most active, with educative and fun content on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, and also in our brand new StepStone monthly vid

eo series. To kick off their career, we have created an application guide, which will be distributed at key student locations and on our social media.”

STRENGHTEN YOUR BRAND, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY

Johan summarises what they regularly play out in recruitment campaigns: "As a company, we want to strengthen our brand by letting our employees talk openly in campaigns and showing the human aspect.

If you work at least 8 hours a day it's im portant you do some thing you like, in an environment where you feel good. Next to that, education works motivational. Today, for example, tech nology is evolving at a rapid pace and schools find it diffi cult to keep up. That is why we offer technicians training and give them the opportunity to learn with us." says Johan.

IT’S IN THE GAME

It

one thing to play the trump card, but how do you do that effectively? This is where storytelling and gamification come in.

Finding a Needle in a Haystack

Delphine Decoen has been working at Profile Group for 16 years. She started off as a junior recruitment consultant and today she manages the Talent finder team. Jean-Marc Van Steenkiste worked in Japan for a while and is now based in Braine-L’Alleud at Aisin Europe where he oversees training.

Delphine Decoen and Jean-Marc Van Steenkiste share a passion for HR, and languages! As this pleasant interview was taken in Dutch, French and English. The pleasantness might also have something to do with the relaxing atmosphere at Xavier in Destelbergen, our venue for the day.

How did Aisin Europe start working with Profile Group?

JEAN-MARC: At Aisin we were looking for a tool to optimise recruitment. When Profile Group launched Talent finder, we finally found the system we had been looking for. Before, we were doing everything manual ly, using Excel which means it took a lot of time to collect all the information and find the right info when we needed a report. One of the main reasons we chose Talent finder was because it is user-friendly and included an extra recruitment marketing solution called Talent boost. This way, we no longer have to contact job boards for re cruiting people. It took a lot of time to sign contracts, discuss terms, etc. Right now, we are able to just buy credits and publish a job ad on all the different platforms very easily.

I’m very curious, Delphine. In your own words: what is Talent finder exactly?

DELPHINE: Talent finder is recruitment software that helps companies manage their recruitment. It was initially launched as a useful system for Profile Group’s own recruiters and over the years we decided to offer it to businesses for their recruit ing process. The tool is unique as it is the

Jean-Marc Van Steenkiste, Aisin Europe

Delphine Decoen, Profile

only ATS designed by recruiters. It adapts to any company needs, processes and any recruitment volume. But the key is that we designed it to help companies be cho sen by more candidates.

Recruitment has become very complex. What does the process look like at Aisin?

JEAN-MARC: I It's important to make a good analysis of the needs you are looking for. Step one is to send the announcement to our own employees to see if anyone in our own company is in terested. If not, we spread out the announcement to other candidates by using Talent boost.

What is the task of Profile Group?

DELPHINE: We help Aisin Euorpe at 2 levels. When it comes to the Talent finder software, we are here to ensure the tool is used opti mally by everyone at Aisin. We are in regular contact with webinars and training, and we share best practices. As recruiters, we are here to ensure the tool helps improve the recruitment processes and the recruitment success rate. When recruiting for Aisin, first of all we explain the market, share our experience and try to find the success criteria for the specific recruitment. When we receive the job offer we optimise it before it is pub lished. We make sure important keywords are included to ensure the job ad is seen and liked by a maximum of potential can didates.

After the vacancy is published it is mostly online for 15 - 60 days. During this period,

Profile Group watches the numbers and analyses everything. If we see no return, we propose to change the job title for example or other elements of the announcement.

Did corona make it harder to find the right people for the job?

JEAN-MARC: There are a lot more factors, some linked to corona and other long-term trends. Nowadays young, talented people are chased by employers offering them worldwide opportunities.

Nowadays people go online and search for information about your company before even applying. But what they find is nothing more than an image. Potential co-workers don’t know what’s inside. That is why you need a con sistent employer image that aligns with reality.

Moreover, due to corona, some young people quit or postponed their education which increased the lack of candidates we observe. These are all factors you don’t control.

Finding suitable people who have both the technical and human skills required in a company, is not easy.

How do you try to make Aisin Europe attractive?

“Technology and jobs are evolving rapidly which makes it hard to find someone who fits. That is why human values and continuous learning will become even more decisive”

Learning in the flow of life

The Roadmap to Future-proof Talent Management

One size fits all is no longer a reality when it comes to HR. Today, employers must be aware of their company’s reality, maturity, and culture. For example, there’s no point in giving your employees a lot of autonomy if they are not ready for it. Put yourself in the position of the employee, look for the right opportunities and embrace them. Telenet found this opportunity in the talent platform huapii.

We continue surfing the wave of hybrid working in our interview and enter a hybrid discussion with Tim De Troch, CEO of Huapii, Jan Laurijssen, Senior Researcher at SD Worx and Joke van Gestel, People Partner Expert Talent and Leadership at Telenet who joins digital. We're sure of at least one thing they have in common: the mission to make HR fu ture-proof.

What’s in a name: huapii sounds pretty exotic. Why this name?

TIM: We get that question quite often. Huapii is a combination of human and happy. On top of that, Huapi is a lake in Patagonia. It is an ecosystem where everything interacts and it is a very ox ygen-rich area. That resonates with our mission.

I can imagine that at Telenet you al ready had all kinds of tools in house to maximize talent management. Why did you switch to huapii?

JOKE: We had too many tools that were not very user-friendly. People only logged in when they really had to and that didn’t give you any qualitative data. Huapii is much more intuitive and does not require much effort from employees, which makes them more likely to use it.

TIM: We also notice this in other organ isations. The available tools have an ad ministrative focus, even for talent pro cesses. Telenet wants data and you only

From left to right: Tim De Troch, Huapii; Jan Laurijssen, SD Worx; Joke Van Gestel, Telenet

get that when people use your platform frequently. Huapii is a user-friendly plat form and you immediately see a return. As an employee, you get immediate ben efits from using the system: for instance you know what your colleagues are good at and you know what their priorities are. It’s not a tool for HR, it’s a tool for the business. That’s because originally it was tailor-made for Solvay and employees from all echelons were involved in the cocreation of the platform.

Jan, day in and day out you are busy studying the labour market and its shifts. The working landscape has changed a lot in recent years...

JAN: It is important to recognize that there is talent scarcity and immobility in the la bour market. That has put a lot of pres sure on organisations like Telenet to meet the talent demand in their organisations and to support sus tainable growth. Consequently, the need for internal mobility grows because there is not enough talent supply. Additional ly, the need for and development of the so-called ‘kills for the future’ presents an equally big challenge. Keeping up with changing talent needs was a nuisance for many talent managers even before corona because tools were no longer keeping up with the changing demand for skills.

And thirdly, lets’ not forget that next to the need for flexibility at the employer level, employees are taking their careers into their own hands as the job-for-life does no longer exists. Huapii remarkably manages to bring together the employer and employee perspective on talent management. That is what huapii does in an interesting way.

Joke, how do you respond to those needs at Telenet?

JOKE: Telenet focusses a lot on trust and encourages autonomy. We support our employees in finding their own way. With a skills marketplace like huapii, you can make that happen. The tool combines all necessary information in one platform and makes it more intuitive to look at your own growth.

People plan their own careers and ask themselves whether their next job will be that of people leader, the great ex pert , something completely different or just doing what they are doing. It allows them to think about how to focus on their strengths. This is not to say that the entire organisation will become mobile, but it does mean that those with am bition will be able to achieve it more easily. As an organi sation, with this kind of data, you can help them take action.

To what extent is it the task of the employer to steer the employee and how far do you go in giving autonomy to the employee? After all, you also have to sense whether the employee is proactive and assertive enough to handle these data correctly.

JOKE: This takes time because it is a cul tural change. You cannot just implement a tool, you have to create a mindset that makes them talk openly about their am bitions.

We started with a small pilot where we found that people found it difficult to be explicit about their own strengths and ambitions. Some because they were too modest and others because they kept focusing on gaps and weaknesses. Our company culture is very open compared

“We support our employees in finding their own way. With a skills marketplace like huapii, you can make that happen.”

to other companies and yet we still got those kinds of questions.

JAN: Sensibilization is certainly needed. A marketplace is the tool that you can use to work on career policy and practic es to support talent mobility like career coaching, development centres, etc. It is worthwhile to reflect on some key ques tions of the career coach: “Who are you? What gives you energy? Where do you want to go?”.

Does that mean the employer’s perspective must also change?

JAN: Certainly. Talent on demand was advocated by Peter Cappelli more than a decade ago as the new talent manage ment paradigm. The employer’s perspec tive did not change for a long time because we could rest on our laurels. There were enough people to be found on the labour market. According to the OECD, 14% of all jobs will simply be digitised within the next two years. We need to evolve. And not the supply and demand of people, but the supply and demand of talent. We need to plan well so that we can find the specific talent we need with in five years. This is where marketplace really helps.

Does huapii respond to this?

TIM: Our labour market is not very mo bile, with people stuck in a golden cage. Some of their jobs are going to disappear. It is important that, as an employer, you do not discard these people but see in time what they are good at. A tool like huapii maps this out and lets people in dicate what they like to do, what they are good at... The manager must see that his own people can grow in this way.

Why is it essential to put the employee at the centre of this and put them in charge of their own career?

JOKE: In the professional context, people might be interested in developing certain

competencies but because of how the organisation is structured they often re frain from taking the initiative. Approval flows and hierarchy inhibit people to take ownership of their own development. If you want to learn something at home, you simply google or ask an experienced person and get to work. This is behaviour based on motivation and passion. This is what we want on the work floor too.

JAN: It is also the only way to look into the minds of the employees. HR can organise and set up all sorts of things, but ulti mately it has to come from the employee. If you don’t know where the talent is to be found, we can set many processes in motion, but the top-down approach will either be partial or wrong.

What can change within companies?

JOKE: It makes us challenge typical HR thinking. Realizing we don’t have all the right answers but trust your people to make the right choices. Maybe not being in control of everything they do but sup porting them in what they say they need to be able to do a good job.

Do you see new trends arise?

TIM: Artificial intelligence will become smarter and smarter, and so will our tools. For example, it will no longer be a surprise when someone resigns. And based on the way you write your feedback, the system will detect that your motivation has changed. There are still many opportunities. ¶

The Frontline Force Awakens

Workers who have the most interaction with customers seldom receive the most training – on the contrary. Guy Van Neck started looking into a way to close the knowledge gap. Enter MobieTrain.

MobieTrain

Spoiler alert: microlearning isn’t a hype. Not anymore. According to the 2022 update of the LearnGeek Hype Cycle it has well passed that post, running at the fore front of learning methods, creating real impact. While many features mentioned on the chart are included in the Mobie Train tool, we focus with cofounder Guy Van Neck on short, fun and bite-sized training content known as microlearning, improving knowledge retention by 50%.

Our story begins about 10 years ago, when Guy Van Neck heads a mystery shopping services sales department in the daytime, and is an MBA-student at nighttime: “Mys tery shopping serves to discover insights that lead to better customer experiences. I noticed that store personnel often lacked basic information such as product info, but also simple techniques on how to start a conversation or close a sale. That triggered me to look for a solution.”

So you started your own company. “I figured frontline staff needed a differ ent approach. Training them face2face goes at the cost of uptime. They needed something less time-consuming, but also more efficient and even fun. I wrote a business plan when I was doing a Chicago boot camp for my MBA. Positive respons es from investors convinced me to take the leap.”

What created the market?

“One investor was really enthusiastic about the idea that you can make people in the field better at sales, that sales is not an innate skill. But there’s also research

Guy Van Neck, MobieTrain

from people like Josh Bersin pointing to the neglect in developing frontline staff. Because it’s not all about sales. It’s about that new company strategy, inno vative products, new collections, safety procedures, new systems or processes, onboarding or even change management, etc. How do you get knowledge to the floor, where the interaction with the cus tomer happens? How do you get your peo ple involved?”

PUSH AND PULL

If you want your frontline workers to pick up on new info, you need to make it relevant to them, explains Guy: “They often don’t have the same horizon of ca reer options as white collar staff. So they don’t look at learning necessarily as a lever or an elevator. You need to offer content that’s easy to digest and embedded in the flow of work: fun, easy, attractive, available, obvious and satisfying – more like creating a good habit.”

And MobieTrain creates this content, together with the client - in effect the employer?

GUY: “Yes, we have our own content teams. But the client delivers assets, too. Our ser vices are tailored to his or her needs. We have an authoring tool full of templates. The client designs a microlearning course in no time. The smart part about it is that important learning enhancing methods, like gamification, are already written into the software. You need to think about the business need to solve by bridging a knowledge gap, and then you work out the microlearning course – with or without the help of our specialised content team.”

Employers also need to make the right choices and avoid pitfalls?

GUY: “Many organisations are tempted to offer everything all at once. That’s over whelming, it backfires. You need to set up a learning culture and system, from where you define goals, e.g. per quarter, and dis tribute the content. And you need to trigger curiosity – don’t show everything at once but show the progression being made. This makes all the difference in terms of completion rates.”

“There’s an extra advantage to both em ployer and employee if you do it right,”

Guy continues. “First you fill the platform with content you want the front of fice staff to know or learn. It’s still push. But if the employee starts to discover that these things are real ly useful, a pull effect emerges and a learn ing habit kicks in. You can then add more soft skill enhancing courses for instance, say how to cope with stress on the job.”

THE FRONT OFFICE FUTURE

Is MobieTrain the tool of the future? “I don’t believe in one tool that suits all,” says Guy. “ You’ll always have a diversity of people and business needs. Companies will always need a mix of face2face learn ing and platforms like MobieTrain to do change management well. I believe in eco systems of tools. But what I also think is that the concept of the front office worker goes beyond retail sectors, especially in a tight labour market. We see the same issues everywhere: the need to know more, but less time to learn through classic channels.”

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“You need to offer content that’s easy to digest and embedded in the flow of work: fun, easy, attractive, available, obvious and satisfying –more like creating a good habit.”

How Delhaize embraced Digital Learning

Vincent Goddeeris is Product Manager of Learning for Talent and Organisation at Delhaize Belgium, and is passionate about all things digital. He speaks with Jonas Maerschand, FLOWSPARKS' Sales

Manager who has a background in food retail. Today, the Ghentbased company is planning an international expansion.

Digital learning is wildly popular, but there are some drawbacks. That is why Delhaize has a standard procedure in place where the learning question is com pared to the target group and content. If a match is found, there will be an integra tion into digital learning.

TYPES OF E-LEARNING

“At Delhaize, we consider the way infor mation is taught because, for example, wine tasting cannot be digitized. When it comes to the target group, we consid er people's digital skills. We must ensure that all colleagues are technologically lit erate at an adequate level, and we must be aware of the resources available to mon itor the learning process,” explains Vin cent. The training classes are utilised for a variety of purposes, including human skills and product knowledge, as well as audits

Vincent gives several examples of digi tal learning at Delhaize: "There are five major zones in a store. E-learning is used to familiarise new personnel with these zones. They are greeted, taken on a virtu al tour of the shelves, and can flag certain items for further explanation through a video or a quiz."

Digital learning is always intertwined with time. When a new employee starts, there are particular training courses that must be completed within six months to a year. This way it’s possible to gradually

Vincent Goddeeris, Delhaize Belgium

Jonas Maerschand, FLOWSPARKS

in the flow of life

learn your work by following the training programme established by Delhaize. Vin cent continues: "Dealing with aggressive consumers is also addressed, and an au dit is particularly appealing to manage ment. We start by making building blocks, which we then combine."

Of course, the number of hours to be spent on each training course must be planned. The time required by the trainee for each digital product is decided in cooperation with the social partners. For example, a one-hour digital classroom requires a to tal of five hours: one hour online and four hours on the job.

The online part is handled by FLOWSPARKS: "FLOW SPARKS is unique because we have been assisting large organisations in the produc tion of e-Learning for over 25 years. Integrating FLOW SPARKS is easy because of the cloud-based SaaS solu tion. It's comparable to a large construction set with several blocks. You can make the box any size you want, add as many blocks as you want, and choose your colour," explains Jonas.

LET’S GET PERSONAL

In-person training is not dead: "We enjoy in-person training and not everything has to be digital. The new trend definitely is blended learning. It is critical to do a thorough examination of both your digital and in-person activities," Jonas says.

Vincent agrees: "We bring both the dig ital and in-person aspects together be cause data shows this is more effective. One significant advantage of digital learn ing is that it is always accessible through the employee's dashboard. Previously, you could schedule an onboarding session once a month; now, we schedule pre-on boarding meetings. These are great for new staff to show them how to apply for

leave or take a virtual tour of the office." Jonas continues: "When several languages are spoken within a company, it is nec essary to remove the language barrier. In FLOWSPARKS, you can easily construct a module and then translate it with the click of a button. We have a DeepL inte gration which helps you convert a module into ten languages in a matter of seconds."

MOTIVATION IS KEY

It is not always easy to entice and motivate co-workers to participate in digital train ing sessions. That is why Delhaize always makes it clear why their employees are required to attend mandatory training classes. Keeping the goal in mind is a wonderful motivator: "For example, you show the trainees how they will be able to work more efficiently. Learning and improving makes sure their job will be executed faster and boosts produc tivity," explains Vincent.

A program like FLOW SPARKS can also be used for team building: “Last year, we had the ‘Goe Mee’ project. We put shops up against each other in cer tain tasks with a scoring system. For ex ample, they were required to create a film showing how to prepare a pancake using store-bought ingredients. The best video generated points. We strive for challenging assignments that are appropriate for each team. This is a perfect team-building activity,” Vincent continues.

GAMIFICATION

Jonas summarizes the popular topic of gamification as follows: “There are numerous aspects to it.

Training Management Platforms: the Highway to Success?

Lifelong learning has become indispensable in these rapidly changing times. Do you want to be a future-proof company? Then you should be constantly investing in the personal development of your people. Today, training and education is a key element in serving your customer to perfection.

Up

Jaime Lopez Peñalver, sales training manager at sustainable energy provider Eneco talks about his experience with Rise Up, a well-known Training Manage ment Platform. Together with Timo Ket, territory manager at Rise Up, he also dis cusses the future of e-learning platforms.

Why did Eneco adopt an LMS system?

JAIME: “Eneco is more than an energy supplier. We are pioneers in the sustain able energy transition. This means we want to abandon the use of traditional large fossil fuel energy sources and only opt for green production sources like solar and wind energy. We want to help our clients with their efforts to become sustainable households and that requires a lot of expertise. Preferably within one contact. This requires continuous train ing of everybody within our organisation. To take the quality of our training courses to an even higher level, Eneco was on the look-out for the right LMS partner.”

Why did Eneco prefer to work with Rise Up?

JAIME: “Several benefits won us over. The simplicity and speed of creating interac tive e-learnings is definitely a plus. Next to that, the user-friendliness of the plat form for trainee and trainer and certifica tion tests and quiz modules are extensive enough to organise fine and interactive tests that also minimise pitfalls.

Timo Ket, Rise Up

Jaime Lopez Peñalver, Eneco

in the flow of life

A big plus was the presence of a trans lation tool which allows us to create training sessions for both Flemish and French-speaking employees who are part of the Belgian Eneco team. It is import ant that both target groups have all the information they need to do their jobs properly.”

Timo is territory manager at Rise Up. What makes Rise Up different from countless other systems?

TIMO: “Rise Up offers a one-stop-shop solu tion: LMS, LXP, LRS, LCMS, mobile and multimodal services.

We aim to improve the experience of the person taking the training. In addition, thanks to the author ing tool, you have the possibility to create your own training courses, harnessing blended learning as an opportunity. In this way companies, such as Eneco, can ensure that employ ees achieve their learning objectives in many different ways, e.g. through video, interactive e-learning, ppts, texts, anima tions, exercises, etc.”

How can blended learning be an opportunity?

TIMO: “Especially in current times when we are switching between working at the office and at home, the combination of online and offline is a logical step to give your employees more flexibility.”

JAIME: “Flexibility is exactly what train ing at Eneco is all about. In the first stage we want to provide the basic knowledge online via the platform. This gives each

employee the opportunity to process the information at their own time and pace. In this way the course remains useful for both new and experienced employees. Afterwards, more difficult matters are further clarified by one of our profes sionals during training in real life.”

How did Eneco experience the implementation of Rise Up?

JAIME: “Rise Up is a very intuitive plat form. Furthermore, several clear modules are provided through Rise Up Academy that explain step by step how you can set up your own live train ing. During the first year we also received monthly personal coaching in which all our questions were answered. Besides, if we didn’t know how to solve something afterwards, we could always count on the helpdesk.

Are the Rise Up training courses well received by Eneco employees?

JAIME: “Last year, we conducted a survey among our employees. The results were very positive. On average, the system was rated 4.5 out of 5. So we are very satisfied with Rise Up. They are always ready to help us and they handle feedback very well.”

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The immersive workplace

When Mark Curtis started his first digital marketing agency as early as 1993, he quickly understood that technology would have an even more profound influence on how we live and work. Today, Mark is a thought leader, working on the intersection of design, technology and humans. He coleads the metaverse & Business group at consultancy firm Accenture. Clients knock on his door a lot these days: “I’ve never seen so much interest in one single word.”

1

Metaverse runs from physical, but augmented reality up to virtual reality

What is the metaverse? And should my company cherish any ambitions there? In a nutshell, those are the two phases of aware ness Mark’s clients pass through. Even if the metaverse is not just one thing – as this in terview will tell you – it’s good to start with a vital question:

Mark, will I be able to buy shoes in the metaverse?

MARK: “I’m sure you will. But the better question to ask is: how will the metaverse affect shopping? Everytime a new medium emerges, companies start out by copying processes used on more mature media, and then discover what the new medium could actually be used for. But I do think that the Apparel and Fashion industries will be very active in the metaverse. They quickly un derstood that it could be a place where peo ple want to go to express themselves and that identity will play a major role.”

What other industries are probable pioneers?

MARK: “Banks for one. The metaverse will challenge our current way of valuing and paying for products and services. Crypto, WEB3 and metaverse could be seen as a joint movement. Banks should at least con sider being present in the metaverse. Then

there’s retail of course. Definitely hospitality too. Life Sciences and Automotive are also moving ahead with use-cases.”

But it would be a mistake to only think of the metaverse as one virtual mall?

MARK: “Yes, for two reasons. First, the metaverse isn’t just one thing or space. It’s a continuum. It runs from physical, but aug mented reality up to virtual reality at the other end of the spectrum and anything in between. Second, we see at least as much potential for enterprise applications as for consumer applications. The way a product design process is shaped, supply chain man agement, manufacturing, and so on. Many systems will be disrupted and shaped anew. Also, in the metaverse, you can break the laws of chemistry, physics and biology. Im agine what that can mean for new product or service development.”

A PROFOUND CHANGE IN HOW TO LEAD COMPANIES

Will we be working in the metaverse? And will it influence how we work?

MARK: “I absolutely believe we will be work ing in the metaverse. But at Accenture, we don’t believe that the future involves work ing for 8 hours every day in the metaverse

Mark Curtis

• Head of Innovation and Thought Leadership at Accenture Song

• Studied Medieval History

• Designed the first marketing use of virtual reality in 1993

2

with a headset on. This wouldn’t be much fun, would it. Again, we should think of it as a continuum. The metaverse could be just you looking at 3D models in an augmented reali ty setting, while you’re in a remote workshop with people at the other end of the world. And there will definitely be new kinds of jobs, anything related to digital product or service development for instance.”

What opportunities arise for HR leaders?

MARK: “Meet-ups and events in the metaverse will become a powerful instrument to create a sense of community and to interact without travelling. Business travel will continue to decline unless we create a carbon-free aeroplane tomorrow. One step further, for globally organised companies, is onboarding. At Accenture, we’ve created a virtual campus called One Accenture Park. We use it to welcome and onboard around 150,000 people in their first week with us. In One Accenture Park, they get to work and play together, discover the company and so on. This is a project our clients are very in terested in as well.”

“Collaboration is a third promising field. We did a major project for the World Economic Forum, developing a vision of how people working all over the globe could collabo

rate to solve world problems. We called it the Global Collaboration Village. We gave a demo to 300 world leaders. They all intui tively understood the potential. For anoth er project in Brazil, we illustrated in virtual reality what it’s like to live in favelas. Bet ter-off kids could easily grasp what inequali ty means. But with the same technology, the social entrepreneur with whom we worked could show how easy it can be to transform these favelas into decent housing.”

“And last but not least and this has been around for a while now: training. Engineers for instance can study remotely with a digi tal twin. But this brings me to an important consideration in the longer term: when the concept of digital twins meets the potential of the metaverse, company leaders will dis cover profound new ways of looking at their organisation and how to manage it.”

What should HR professionals focus on today to be prepared for the disruptive force of the metaverse?

MARK: “I think all of our systems will change profoundly. Especially the way people form and engage with networks. Combined with the effect of crypto, it will have an impact on how our participation in work, projects and organisations is measured and paid for. But also because of the places we imagine

2 The metaverse enables us to follow a remote workshop with people at the other end of the world.

3 The fashion industry quickly understood the metaverse could be a place where people want to go to express themselves.

4 Meet-ups and events in the metaverse will become a powerful instrument to create a sense of community.

ourselves to be, and the identities we wish to hold when we go there. So if I were in HR, I would be looking at how networks across the organisation are formed. Informal net works matter a great deal.”

You curate the world famous annual Fjord Trends report. Can you give our readers a scoop of the 2023 edition?

MARK: “Forgive me, but I can’t. Not because I don’t want to or am not allowed to, but simply because we haven’t started putting it together yet. But one of the items will cer tainly be the intertwining of AI and creativ ity. I’ll keep you posted!”

“We won’t be working for 8 hours every day in the metaverse, with a headset on. This wouldn’t be much fun, would it.”

For almost 40 years, we have been helping people and organizations to surpass themselves. We build and develop the human capital of your organization together.

We find the right talent in any context and guide your candidates and employees through their path of growth and development. Our experts advise you in the field of Reward Management. And our R&D department has achieved worldwide recognition by constantly developing new evidence-based HR tools, enabling you to make wellinformed HR decisions.

The pandemic has impacted Accenture, the same way it impacted most organisations: we shifted completely to hybrid ways of working. One can say that working remotely is in the consultant’s DNA. For decades we have been adapting where and when to work. Nevertheless, our employees’ needs for flexibility increased drastically and pushed Accenture to rethink our way of doing things. Today, in addition to giving our people full flexibility, we want them to belong and to feel connected and included.

Living in an Omni-connected World

Working remotely or hybrid and enabling human interac tions, formal or informal, at the client’s or our offices, is a tricky balance. So we listened to our people. After mul tiple surveys, interviews, focus group sessions, AI analy sis and test cases, there are 5 key elements we consider when reimagining our future of work:

• Flexible work: 88% of the Accenture colleagues in dicated that increased flexibility and keeping the hy brid way of working is priority n°1 for their well-being and a key driver for their engagement.

• No one-size-fits-all: Our focus goes beyond “spaces and places” – where and when people will work. We trust our people to build the working model that works for them and act in respecting the needs of our clients.

• Decision framework: Consistent guidelines and ex pectations support our people to decide where and when to work. That framework tackles questions around regulations – such as working from exotic lo cations – and addresses client concerns about team collaboration.

• In-person connection time: We provide diverse and multiple opportunities to connect in person and collaborate with colleagues, clients and communities. Being at our office means interacting, exchanging, and innovating, rather than just sitting at a desk.

• Human-led culture and omni-connected experience: Feeling safe to speak up, and having a clear sense of belonging and connectedness is key to our people strategy. We want them to thrive and build purposeful careers.

Bart Auwers

Managing Director, Accenture Belgium

We're Always Connected, but Are We Connected at Work?

The actions Bart Auwers describes are taken locally and were confirmed in global research by Accenture. A lot of insights were gained from no less than 1,100 C-level executives and 5,000 workers in multiple roles and ways – front-line and fully on-site, hybrid and fully remote – across 12 countries.

Accenture

Online until infinity?

Accenture describes omni-connected as “the complete experience of work: feeling connected, being included, and knowing we belong, regardless of our physical lo cation. When we are omni-connected, we use technology and human ingenuity to make sure we are seen, can fully contrib ute, and have equal quality of experience.” In short, it’s a new reality we are living in. Also take in mind that omni-connected experiences do not mean being connect ed 24/7, but quite the opposite! Though our devices are always switched on, only one in six people feel highly connected at work. On the other hand, organisations where people feel highly connected to each other, their leaders and their work, stand to gain a 7.4% revenue growth boost per year. Let that sink in.

Accenture believes that people as well as business both thrive from omni-connect ed experiences in meaningful ways:

Financial Omni-connected companies experi ence a 7.4% revenue growth premium per year. Trust

Where there’s great er trust, people are 35% more likely to deliver high-quality work. Retention Being omni-con nected accounts for 59% of an employ ee’s intention to stay. Productivity Employees who benefit from om ni-connected expe riences: over 90% say they can be productive anywhere.

If you want to create value through om ni-connected experiences, Accenture has got you covered. There are four key actions to apply:

Instill human leadership It’s all about empathy, compassion, trans parency and trustworthiness

Grow a thriving culture Nurture cultural norms that prioritize purpose, authenticity and psychological safety

Enable the agile organisation Take flexibility to another level and scale different ways of working

Empower people through technology a robust foundation and the ability to ex periment are key elements

We need to make the connection and it matters now. Because mental health is more important than ever and next to that there are significant economic challenges to tackle. Also, talent pools are shrinking, and people are fundamentally re-thinking their relationship with work. A strong work environment full of support for its employees is an accelerator for the future. That’s where omni-connection can make you scale your business. How will you make your organisation a great place to work for the next decades? Take actions today to better access talent, create and unlock your talent potential, and support your talent with technology. Be omni-connected. ¶

Can students find their way in the metaverse?

name : Alicia age : 19 jaar education : Law

What does metaverse mean to you?

To me, the metaverse is a kind of virtual reality in which people can have all kinds of experiences with a (self-chosen) avatar.

I have heard that there is even talk of people in the future uploading their consciousness before their death in order to ‘live on’.

What do you buy with the proceeds of your student job: a good pair of sunglasses for the festivals or an Oculus for the metaverse?

I haven’t come into contact with the metaverse much myself.

Do you think there are jobs in the metaverse? Which ones?

Presumably so. First, the algorithms will have to be written and then A.I.’s will have to be programmed etc etc. I don’t know much about it, though.

How would you apply for a job in the metaverse?

No idea.

How do you think working in the metaverse feels?

Mentally tiring rather than physically.

You are the boss. What is the first job you hire someone for in the metaverse?

Having someone programme/organise it so that it can be a pleasant experience for human consciousness.

Do you think you really need to work in virtual reality?

Yes, indeed. Mental labour is also labour.

name : Hanne age : 23 jaar education : Business Administration

What does metaverse mean to you?

An online virtual world where you can interact with others. Reminds me mainly of video games and virtual reality.

What do you buy with the proceeds of your student job: a good pair of sunglasses for the festivals or an Oculus for the metaverse?

A good pair of sunglasses for the festivals.

Do you think there are jobs in the metaverse? Which ones?

During the corona pandemic, it was impossible to imagine life without the Internet. Taking classes online and working remotely became the new normal. If the online world can evolve so quickly, I suspect there will definitely be jobs in the metaverse in the future. Possible jobs are, in my opinion, in developing virtual worlds (such as games), IT specialists, cybersecurity,...

How would you apply for a job in the metaverse? Via online vacancies or a virtual job fair.

How do you think working in the metaverse feels?

Working in the metaverse seems to me to be convenient on the one hand because you can work from home and you can meet with your team quickly and easily in the virtual world. On the other hand, you sit in front of a screen all day and I think it is quite lonely.

You are the boss. What is the first job you hire someone for in the metaverse?

An IT employee who is responsible for the development of a virtual world and guarantees the security (privacy, hacking, etc.) of the users.

Do you think you really need to work in virtual reality? It is a different way of working, but certainly does not seem any easier to me.

name : Chiara age : 23 jaar education : Project & Event Management

What does metaverse mean to you?

An online world where people can communicate with each other through various channels. This can be done through VR glasses, but for me personally, endless scrolling on social media is just as much a part of the metaverse.

What do you buy with the proceeds of your student job: a good pair of sunglasses for the festivals or an Oculus for the metaverse?

For me personally, a good pair of sunglasses. I am not a fan of all the new inventions that put our social life -in real life - on hold.

Do you think there are jobs in the metaverse? Which ones?

Of course, this goes without saying. I am thinking of “doctors” who consult patients via the metaverse, etc.

How would you apply for a job in the metaverse?

I wouldn’t, I think I already spend too much time on social media and online in general. In the future, I opt to live even more in the here and now and distance myself a bit more from the online world. If I had no other option, I would do this interview through a VR job interview, I think?

How do you think working in the metaverse feels?

Ireal.

You are the boss. What is the first job you hire someone for in the metaverse?

A kind of online security guy, who should ensure that everything is done in a respectful and legal manner.

Do you think you really need to work in virtual reality?

No.

name : Stella age : 21 jaar education : Speech Language

What does metaverse mean to you?

A kind of virtual world with avatars. Reminds me of games like Fortnite.

What do you buy with the proceeds of your student job: a good pair of sunglasses for the festivals or an Oculus for the metaverse?

Definitely good sunglasses.

Do you think there are jobs in the metaverse? Which ones?

Nowadays, the Internet and the virtual world are often implemented in companies and jobs, but I don’t know if there are really many jobs to offer. Are there any jobs in cybersecurity and helpdesks?

How would you apply for a job in the metaverse?

Personally, I would not apply immediately because I do not want to get the feeling of having to work in a virtual world all the time.

How do you think working in the metaverse feels?

Even though you are ‘supposedly’ connected to more people through the internet, I think it can feel quite lonely. I prefer the physical world with people of flesh and blood.

You are the boss. What is the first job you hire someone for in the metaverse?

Probably cybersecurity.

Do you think you really need to work in virtual reality?

I think so, it is a different way of working, but it requires just as much of your brain. Of course, it is not ‘physical manual labour’ if you consider it ‘real’ work.

“Mental labour is also labour.”

Alicia

Pieter Van Leugenhagen is one of the founders of yondr, an immersive media agency focused on VR content production. They have been in business since 2014, which is an eternity in the VR landscape: “We were pioneers and grew quickly. The service offering has broadened to a more immersive medium, but always with a storytelling-driven approach in mind where brand experience is at the forefront.” Today, yondr is the reference for metaverse and digital experience in general. Hologram, anyone?

1

The metaverse enables you to create your own, customised avatar you can buy clothes for.

Marketing virtual and augmented reality in Belgium is no picnic. But when Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, 360-videos were suddenly everywhere and everything ac celerated. VR video would become the next big thing. The question of whether it mattered to yondr was rhetorical, because it allowed them to really break through and score with big brands. Technological exper iments, trade fairs and inspirational trips to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco followed.

LOOKING FOR THE VIRTUAL GRAIL

Today, the hype around 360-videos has died down: “The technology was not ready for it: overheated devices and dead batter ies were the order of the day. Besides the fact that looking around in a 360-video is fun, the holy grail of VR is the social as pect: the fact that you do things together.” And let that last aspect be just applicable in the metaverse. The term has come to the fore since Mark Zuckerberg of, yes, Facebook, renamed his company Meta. “Since the pandemic broke out in 2020, we have been developing virtual worlds for com panies from America and Canada to Swit zerland and the UK. So for us, the name change from Meta was actually a confirma

tion of what we had been doing for years.” Yondr started metaverse workshops: twoday bootcamps where people are immersed in WEB 3, metaverse and NFT and we also offer tailor-made courses. “The goal? To let people go home with a blueprint of all the possibilities.”

Metaverse is a very broad concept. Pieter summarises it as follows: “To me, it is a virtual world that you can explore and where you are represented by an avatar who can interact with other avatars. You buy virtu al goods that preferably also become your property. In time, you must be able to take these goods with you to another virtual world. For example, you can buy a Gucci jumper via Roblox, but you cannot wear it in Fortnite. At this stage, you have to look at it as the three dimensionalisation of the internet. Looking at a screen and scrolling is no longer reality. Soon you will put on glasses and see everything around you.”

Besides workshops on metaverse, Yondr also creates the virtual world. “When you think about virtual reality, you think about where you want to be but can’t. Travelling, collaborating with colleagues, ... These are all things the metaverse facilitates and the reason that we were allowed to organise the Science Is Wonderful event for the Europe an Commission. We rebuilt the European

• Strategic thinker and born opportunity seeker

• Co-founder of yondr, immersive media agency

• Convinced that VR is more than just a gimmick

Quarter in 3D where people could walk around with their avatar, make video calls in private meeting rooms with +50 manned exhibition stands of companies where you could download leaflets.

WORKING FROM HOME AT THE OFFICE

HR will also have its share of the metaverse: “At the HR level, you have to take a lot of things into account in the metaverse: the older generation is not so tech savvy.”

For companies, there is certainly a great ad vantage in the metaverse in terms of hybrid working. If you move to the other side of the world, it will be easier to stay in touch

because virtual collaboration will be stimu lated even more.

After all, a Teams call is always one way communication and not the best way to work together. “With VR, many-to-many communication becomes a reality. If there are 20 people, I can join every conversation. In group discussions, I can perfectly point at someone and distinguish who is talking thanks to 3D sound. I can also look straight at someone; in Teams that’s a pipe dream.”

Virtual reality is also much more effi cient: it is cheaper because you don’t have to fly, takes less time and is more ecolog ical because you emit less CO2 . “We have a customer with a decentralised workforce

2

Onboarding will also look completely different. New colleagues will be introduced and shown around the digital twin of your office.

Pieter Van Leugenhagen

3 Remote meetings in the office with colleagues from all over the world will become a reality.

4 Soon we will be wearing an Oculus when working from home.

5 Pieter's first book will be released by the end of September.

across Europe who is working on the cir cular economy. They are looking for the best solution to travel less and they meet every Friday afternoon in their metaverse. That way, they have a connection with each other. Coca-Cola even invites its partners to their metaverse. To keep all that organ ised, perhaps we will soon be talking about a metaverse Facility Manager?”

WELCOME TO THE METATEAM

Onboarding will also look completely differ ent. New colleagues will be introduced and shown around the digital twin of your office.

“For Gen Z, a population that grew up in games, it is normal to apply for a job in a game. According to research, they can also be more themselves than in the real world. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you to decide.”

The metaverse offers many opportunities for companies to think out of the box. A compa ny that is stuck in an ugly grey building can think about where to build a meta-office, on the moon, in the jungle, etc. This is how you invest in employer branding. “If you want to be the best in the world, you have to have the best talent. If you want to recruit talent from Brussels, then that talent will not come to Amsterdam.”

When asked if this is going to be the reality for the average SME, Pieter answers confi dently: “Absolutely. Eventually no one will escape the metaverse. It will be affordable because a lot of templates are provided to which we can add a company logo.”

One thing is certain, the metaverse has no limits and the best is yet to come. ¶

“When you think of virtual reality, you have to think where you want to be but cannot be.”

Leading in a tech world

From YouTube to Google and then VP at Twitter, Bruce Daisley has a thing for social media but also for work culture. He’s a true workplace culture enthusiast who talks about hybrid working and resilience. Above all, Bruce is a #1 bestselling author. Not bad! However, that hyped word 'resilience' evokes many questions. What is resilience and how can we be resilient?

Society often associates struggles with un certainty and weakness. In his new book, Bruce Daisley clearly states that he be lieves this is untrue and tells us all about resilience. According to Cambridge Diction ary, we should describe resilience as the ability to be happy or successful again after something difficult or bad has happened.

HYPING RESILIENCE

During our time at school, we probably didn’t hear as much about resilience as we do now. “Where does it come from? And if there is so much training about this subject, why do people report they are feeling less resilient than ever?” Bruce asks himself.

In addition, the word resilience has been politicised to a certain extent. The average working day has increased 3 hours in the last 50 years and no less than 45 minutes since COVID-19. A working day is now 2 hours

longer than 15 years ago. “So anyone who refers to the old days has to understand it was a completely different world when they started working. People would go home at the end of the day and have an uninterrupt ed evening. For some people to say workers aren’t as resilient as they used to be, is a fun damental misinterpretation.” Bruce states.

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH

When it comes to resilience, there are three main topics to keep in mind: control, identi ty and community.

Giving control

There’s nothing better than feeling in control. If you open your calendar on Monday morning and see back-to-back meetings, you might feel like you can’t get everything done. “A sense of power lessness pushes us into burnouts. When you give people small amounts of control it has a massive impact. A meeting-free day is an example.” says Bruce.

Identity

Identity is the second pillar of fortitude. Understanding who we are in the world and understanding what we stand for is a vital part of achieving a balance in our

1 Bruce Daisley talking resilience, fortitude and what companies get wrong about these things.

“Understanding who we are in the world and understanding what we stand for is a vital part of achieving a balance in our lives.”

lives. When you ask people to tell you their story, those whose lives are a ran dom assembly of events prove to have less strength than those who are able to share a coherent, developing narrative of themselves.”

Collective strength Bruce demonstrates how we can draw on those around us to empower our selves and build our inner-strength. And it’s definitely not by just walking up to someone and telling them to be more resilient.

BRUCE: “Having a best friend at work is the best sign of wellbeing and motivation. Amongst hybrid workers, only 17% say they have a best friend at work, and this is the lowest level I can remember.”

For companies, the importance of com munity is one of the main reasons to hire a community manager. In the old days, it might have been an office manager who ar ranged lunch. Now we work in virtual environments and it’s about trying to show col leagues they have an identity connection at work (LGBTIQ+, runners, etc.). They need to believe that what they do or feel like is reflected at the office. Celebrating individ uals is a way of doing this.

In other words, make sure you’ve got space in your life for the richness of other peo ple. Resilience is the strength we get from other people. We need to make sure that we try to create a sense of connectedness, togetherness.

2

Daisley has written several books that talk about work culture. Fortitude is the most recent one.

Bruce Daisley

• Sunday Times #1 bestselling author

VP of Twitter who also ran YouTube

culture enthusiast

“Amongst hybrid workers, only 17% say they have a best friend at work, and this is the lowest level I can remember.”

Empower employees at every level.

From adjusting to video calls to homeschooling their children, your employees have had to adapt to new ways of working. But odds are they’ve also gained new skills that will help them excel in tomorrow’s workplace. With Workday, you can help your people chart their unique

journeys and provide customised

resources so they’ll feel confident

change as it comes – whether they’re working in the office, at the kitchen table, or somewhere in between.

Workday. The finance, HR,

system for a

Defining Successful Teams

Does your organisation keep track of all meetings that take place? Are calendars planned in the most efficient way? Which team of colleagues is the most successful? Efficiency can be gained in many ways. Not only by optimising your own, individual time management but also your team’s. To help your organisation better understand your team’s efficiency, Microsoft Viva can provide the insights you need. Let’s have a chat with Soetkin Vincké from NTT and Patrick Viaene from Microsoft.

Soetkin Vincké is Microsoft Business Manager at NTT. Soetkin explains: “NTT is an integrator of different products and services, and Microsoft is one of our main vendors. We guide companies in dealing correctly with new tools like Viva. We fo cus on how to correctly interpret the data. Complex projects interest us immensely: new ways of working, security, network ing, all the things you need in a modern company.”

Patrick Viaene has seen some transforma tion at Microsoft. In the 22 years he has worked there, he has seen, among others, a shift towards the cloud. That cloud is now reaching HR where Viva can mean a lot. Patrick: “Since companies started working more in the cloud, you can capture very interesting data, make analyses and give insights back to the organisation, where teams can work better together.” And it goes beyond cooperation, says Soetkin. “It’s about retention policy and hybrid working. As an HR employee it is difficult to keep in touch with all employ ees. Viva can help you objectify what you see. Which teams are successful? How big is their network? Do they have many in ternal meetings? Do these colleagues stay in the organisation? This data can gener ate a lot of info, and all of it can be an onymised.”

VIVA INSIGHTS: A MUST-HAVE IN THE TEAMS ECOSYSTE

Many companies implement tool after tool after tool within their organisation, but you don’t have to make it that com

Patrick Viaene, Microsoft

Soetkin Vincké, NTT

in a tech world

plex, says Soetkin. “Actually, you have to see Microsoft Teams as an ecosystem. It is a platform that brings together all Micro soft applications and a lot of applications from other vendors and lets them talk to each other. Within that ecosystem, you have a wealth of data and information that is available free of charge. You just need the right tool to bring this data together, and interpret it. That is exactly what Viva Insights does. It opens up the data within the ecosystem, giving HR a much clearer picture of how their employees are per forming.”

And NTT itself is also a big fan of the tool: “At NTT we did a Viva pilot in Belgium and South Africa,” says Soetkin. “We asked ourselves what makes successful teams successful and how can we make sure no one gets isolated. We linked Viva with an HR and CRM tool to map the network of successful teams: age, gender, people with disabilities, etc. This has enabled us to understand much better whether suc cessful teams are also happier, and what factors contribute to that success. In con crete terms, we can use these correlations to provide the right guidance and share the right insights with all the teams in the organisation. In this way, we make our company a place where everyone feels at home and is supported in the right way.”

IS BIG BROTHER WATCHING US?

Time is money, so you better use it effi ciently. Patrick’s customer in Luxembourg realised this as well. “It was reported that employees felt they were sitting in meet ings too much and were working in the evenings. Viva was used to map the num ber of participants and the duration of meetings. In this way, they were also able to quantify and objectify the meeting cul ture. HR then outlined an improvement plan with the managers in the teams.”

Patrick has a clear answer to the question of whether the employer checks too much:

“If you want to do that, you can analyse the mail server and you don’t need Viva. Moreover, in Viva Insights we anonymise data in groups. A manager cannot identify a single individual in the group data, be cause the individual data is merged into a larger whole.  Soetkin adds: “The intention is never to coach people one on one, but to gener ate major trends for HR, so they can start making more targeted adjustments for the team or even the whole organisation.”

WHAT’S IN IT FOR US

Viva is bursting with tools, not only for HR and executives, but also for the em ployee. “A valuable tool is MyAnalytics,” says Patrick. “The tool sends you a weekly email with a mirror that reflects your activities. It’s not a comparison with an ideal profile to be achieved, but a mirror that shows you how you are behaving now compared to before: who do I email a lot, how many emails did I send after 6 p.m.?” But Viva also protects you as an employee, says Patrick. “During the pandemic, the number of chats after working hours in creased by 42%. The striking thing about this is that people responded to those chats within five minutes, even late after working hours.” Soetkin adds: “That's why, as an employee it's important to be able to protect yourself.”

Viva allows you to set focus time during which no emails or messages come in. If you want to be sure you haven’t forgotten anything, you can start Virtual Commute at the end of the day.

“Viva has enabled us to understand much better whether successful teams are also happier, and what factors contribute to that success.”

When Sumitomo Drive

Technologies wants to shape its HR future, Workday proves to be the platform best fit for the job – and the tight deadlines. PwC is brought in to guide the implementation. A story about how transformative HR tech implementation can get done on target and on time.

All About Chemistry

Eva De Vries is responsible for HR tech with PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) Belgium, overlooking the implementation of Human Capital Management software with PwC’s clients. One of those clients is Joris Blommaerts, CHRO with Sumi tomo Drive Technologies EMEIA, a di vision of Sumitomo Industries, a Japa nese company. For three years straight, Sumitomo Drive Technologies (SDT) has been booming thanks to strong growth and takeovers. The employee base ex ploded from some 600 to nearly 2000. This called for a frog leap of its entire HR framework.

Joris, could you give some examples of things that don’t work anymore when an organization is growing at such a pace?

“When you’re a group of 600, you more or less still know who’s where. This is impos sible in a 2000 person organisation. Even a simple headcount cost me a week. After which the number was already outdated (laughs). Also, you lose track of the talent in an organisation of that scale.”

Did you have a clear view of the kind of solution you were looking for?

“Some of the businesses we integrated had few HR basics in place. So the initial idea was to move the entire organisation from pen and paper to digital and harmonize processes. But once you get talking with suppliers and vendors, your perspective broadens. New doors open. Talent analysis and management emerged to be taken within the project scope.”

Eva De Vries, PwC

Joris Blommaerts, Sumitomo Industries

Eva, a multilayered challenge, a strict budget, and tight deadlines – amidst a pandemic – sounds like a major challenge for every project manager?

“Workday is a smart choice when you’re working within these kinds of constraints. The technology is state of the art, but the implementation process also helps con taining risks. PwC focused not only on the technology but also on the organisa tion, the processes and the change that comes with every HR transformation. PwC acts as a critical partner that guides Sumitomo, offers best practices and dares to question Sumitomo in order to achieve an opti mal end result. To be clear: yes, it still was a major challenge. Sumitomo selected the Workday Launch methodology. This has the advantage of making a head start, because part of the software is precon figured. But it also creates pressure to successfully reach every milestone. Each stage creates workload for an organisation. I was really impressed with the way Joris and his team pulled this off. That was key to this success.”

JORIS: “Tight deadlines created stress. The team put in extra hours for this project. But the structured scenario helps. I think the chemistry within and between the teams added much value. We shared the ‘we get it done’ attitude.”

Fast company growth, newly formed entities and many new faces: did the pile of data to start with make sense?

JORIS: “Data was one of the main chal lenges, yes. It was one of the first things we dived into. We had to locate it, collect it and clean it. We repeated this exercise three times, in data quality cycles.”

EVA: “It’s important to internalize data hygiene. That’s why a hypercare phase is built in after the go-live. Joris also chose to keep PwC aboard for maintenance sup port, so yet another team makes sure the biannual releases of Workday are quickly absorbed.”

Joris, you said new HR needs came to the table after you did market research. Why did you decide to incorporate the Workday talent modules on top of Core HR data?

JORIS: “Because they can help to tackle the challenges we face: finding new talent, keeping the talent we already have onboard and developing it. Throughout my en tire career I’ve never witnessed such a sit uation on the labour market. Especially for Sumitomo, oper ating in a technical environment. I am convinced that the people who perfectly match our wish list are very, very scarce. So it is best that we start training our peo ple ourselves. To do that, you need a way of unveiling the talent potential that hides within.”

EVA: “We often use the metaphor of a house. The Core HR data is important because it’s what everything else is built on. It’s the foundation. Then you start creat ing rooms, like the talent modules: learn ing, recruitment, performance, etc. It’s an integrated suite, and we as dedicated experts help you build it. You can’t reach perfection in 24 weeks, and you don’t have to. You lay down the fundamentals, and take it one step - or one room - at a time.”

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“Throughout my entire career I’ve never witnessed such a situation on the labour market”

You don’t need to have a crush on Brad Pitt to have seen Moneyball, a witty film based on a true story. In the early 2000s, a has-been coach lifts up a baseball team, the Oakland A’s, whose players are noble unknowns and the occasional wash-up. The real team star isn’t out there on the pitch, nor is he on the bench. It’s a data analyst, crunching the numbers and stats behind his desk. Soon, other sports fol lowed in baseball’s first steps. A mindset switch was inevitable. Today, the profes sionalism of individual professional sport speople as well as pro teams is reflected by their commitment to science-based performance optimisation.

In his bestseller ‘Atomic Habits’, author James Clear tells the story behind the socalled ‘marginal gains’, the mantra of the famous British Sky cycling team. When Dave Brailsford became the head of Brit ish Cycling in 2003, cycling across the channel was hardly worth mentioning.

But Brailsford had this strategy of focus ing on tiny improvements adding up to big impact, a bit like compound interest. The team even started rubbing alcohol on tires for a better grip. In 2008, Great-Brit ain would win 60% of all cylcing gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. That same year, Bradley Wiggings won the Tour de France. In a Sky shirt, of course.

MONEYBALL REVISITED

Entire service and product markets have emerged out of this data revolution. For example, the daily jogger casually checks the automatically uploaded data from her Fitbit to the Strava platform. Video-analysis, heat maps, power metres, sensors for ski boots, wrist watches that calcu late the distance to the green – to help you perfect your golf swing – they are all well within reach of everyone who

A touch of genius or the hand of God: a question for those of us old enough to recall the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Isn’t sport all about that thin line between winning and losing? As it turns out, the sports industries have been absolute frontrunners in crunching data to boost performance.

wants to work on personal improvement. Not to mention the piles of data and the growing abilities of machine learning to dig up useful insights out of them.

While the numbers vary from report to report, it is certain that the global sports analytics market has already passed the USD 1 billion post. And all forecasts agree that exponential growth is still to be expected, and some say annual growth rates of more than 20% are re alistic. The future looks bright, as a vi brant startup ecosystem is rising on one hand of the spectrum, while big tech players such as SAP and Oracle are also very present.

Data hasn’t just revolutionised sports on the pitch, but also around it. When Opta became the British Premier League’s, the best viewed soccer league in the world, official data supplier, it also set in motion a whole new range of content. Live content on Twitter and other social media or broadcasts but also an eternal flow of sports articles analysing soccer players on virtually any parameter you can think of. Today many pro leagues have a deal with Opta, since it boosts fan engagement on many levels.

WHO’S THE COACH?

But data rules elsewhere, too. The 2018 World Cup was nicknamed the ‘data tour nament’. The Brazilian squad, starring Neymar and other soccer virtuosos, had live game data from gps-trackers beamed to Rio de Janeiro, analysed in real time and sent back to the coaches on the bench for strategic follow-up. Result: they lost to the Belgian team in the quarter finals. When asked about this in a 2020 interview, Red Devils coach Roberto Martinez had a rath er quirky answer in store: “Maybe we read the data better than they did”.

While everybody is counting down for the next soccer world championships to kick off in November of this year in Qa tar, the battle has already begun, and the game is being played in spreadsheets and visualisation tools. The Belgian Red Dev ils now have a cell of three full-time performance analysts on their staff. They use drones during training sessions. Data and simulations of opponents help select the right footage for a video analysis, which in turn helps compose the tactical game plan and prepare players for their specific role during a game.

But who decides where Eden Hazard plays – centre behind the strikers or coming from the left wing? Is Kevin De Bruyne more dangerous as a false no. 9 or operating from the midfield? When do you bring Batshuayi for Lukaku? The data has some things to say about that. But it’s always the coach who decides. And in desperate need, he could always tap into the wisdom of the crowd, as hundreds of thousands of fans have their opinion ready, watching tv at home or doodling their tactical plan on a beermat in a bar. ¶

Building trust in tech driven HR transformations

HR is not only about white collar-workers, and tech is more than AI. Engineer, researcher and robot expert Bram Vanderborght and his team at the BruBotics lab (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and imec) design robots that are intended to cooperate with human factory workers and make their job easier: “Not everything can or should be automated.”

1 An exoskeleton is a robot you put on and extends your muscular strength.

Bram Vanderborght runs a lab of over 60 researchers and is in the middle of wheel ing in investors for a large exoskeleton pro ject: “Exoskeletons are an extreme version of collaborative robots, or cobots as we call them. An exoskeleton is a robot you put on, and it extends your muscular strength.” Across industries, companies are looking into a way of creating more ergonomic la bour conditions for blue-collar workers, Bram explains. And each type of move ment is different. Painting ceilings with your arm over your head the entire day, placing new windows into cars; hanging beneath a train to fix or check-up on ma chinery, filling shelves in supermarkets or replacing drill heads on a marine platform, it all requires careful design.

CLUMSY ROBOTS

Why do companies look for human-robot combinations? For many reasons it turns out.

“Take the automobile industry. There are regulations on how long a worker is al lowed to perform a certain type of phys ical labour. Exoskeletons can keep these people healthier and reduce the pres sure. When factory workers drop out due to injuries, it can be expensive. Planning

1

schedules and output schemes have to be revised, it sets in motion a whole cascade,” says Bram. Robots assisting humans can also be the more affordable solution sometimes. Bram explains how SMEs often prefer cobots operated by humans, with less complex programming routines. “And believe it or not, despite the spectacular videos you see now and then, robots still very much lack fine motor skills. So you can team them up with humans, to combine consistent prod uct quality and a final artisan touch by a human hand.”

HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US

However, sometimes cobots are installed to keep the factory floor attractive for new generations of workers: “Today’s genera tion wants to be immersed in technology. A mechanical environment doesn’t cut it anymore. On the other hand, these pro files don’t want to sign up for a desk job, where it’s all about the software. So the manufacturing industry is looking for a balance. That’s why I am confident that not everything will be automated. It will be rejected, and there are many examples where it simply is suboptimal to do it. People, for instance, are much better at understanding

Bram Vanderborght

• Professor in Mechanical Engineering at VUB

• Co-leads the Homo Roboticus project

• Member of Brubotics, the mulitdisciplinary research center on Human robot interaction

2

and interpreting the context, at detecting sudden changes in the environment. Or take construction sites, those are very com plex environments for robots to navigate.”

Tech can also make training more effective and more fun. “How to train for a sudden fire break-out in the factory? By watching a short movie, after which you get to answer multiple choice questions? Or in augment ed reality? Or let’s go back to the ergono my challenge on assembly lines. It’s better to build a factory twin in the metaverse, and tinker with assumptions there. Young er workers will be happy to wander in that virtual reality,” according to Bram.

THE GENIUS OF ELON MUSK

Taking a step back, Bram is convinced of a cooperative future for robots and humans. “I feel companies are really rethinking the definition of meaningful work. Automating tough and unhealthy jobs away: yes. But putting the distinctive strength of humans and robots together will often prove to be the best solution, especially in an increas ingly complex manufacturing environment. The economy promises customised prod ucts and it can be difficult to make these on a mass scale without time-consuming errors.”

Bram asks if we have already heard about the Tesla Optimus, the humanoid robot Elon Musk wants to produce in the very near future. “It’s partly an employer brand ing stunt I think. But he can pull it off, al though not so fast as he claims. He has us paying for Tesla cars that feed and train his algorithms for free. That’s quite ingenious. We should ask for a fee (laughs).” ¶

2

Hanging beneath a train to fix or check-up on machinery requires careful design.

“Today’s generation wants to be immersed in technology. A mechanical environment doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Winning Together

What if the employer-employee dialogue became a continuous process? Would it allow companies to both reap opportunities and mitigate risks faster and more efficiently? Would it tighten the bond, improve happiness and enhance performance? As a matter of fact it does all of that. Can any company start with it? Yes, says Yannick Valles of Terumo Europe: “Start small, think big”.

When the pandemic hit the world, a lot of things changed very quickly. At Ter umo Europe, a medical device company producing a variety of products such as needles and syringes, stents, catheters and perfusion systems – part of a critical sector – factory workers kept production going. Sales reps couldn’t access hospitals anymore, so they had to find a remote rhythm. Office staff started working from home overnight. It also resulted in a long hard look at the yearly HR survey about to be sent out. Did it still make sense in this unprecedented context? Would it tell management what it really wanted to know, or allow employees to speak their mind right there and then?

THE EMPLOYEE LIFECYCLE

Out went the one-off survey and in came a more frequent, tailormade polling tool from Qualtrics and SAP. The start of a more continuous take on employer en gagement. But also the seed for Terumo Europe’s EMEA-wide People Experience Team, headed by Yannick Valles: “Even before the pandemic hit, we started think ing about how digitisation could help us gain a deeper understanding of the way our people look at things. Not just today, but from the day they apply until the day they retire, so to speak.”

Inge Van Gils, Sales Manager at Qualtrics, explains how Employee Experience (EX) goes beyond engagement: “EX typical ly includes annual and / or pulse surveys as a valuable source of information. But it doesn’t stop there: it looks at the employee lifecycle and builds in feedback or coaching moments around key moments - like onboarding, changes in personal life or a

From left to right: Yannick Valles, Terumo Europe; Inge Van Gils, Qualtrics; Léon Peeman, SAP

new role after a promotion. When you put that information together with data from core HR platforms such as SuccessFac tors, meaningful insights emerge. This al lows you to make well-founded strategic decisions. But studies also show that these key moments have a demonstrable impact on performance, business results and of course retention. So it’s extremely impor tant to manage them and to manage them well.”

WHY EMPLOYEES ARE (LIKE) CUSTOMERS

Léon Peeman, Senior Customer Engage ment & Success Manager at SAP, speaks of ‘Belonging!’: “Happy people are more pro ductive people and vice versa. If you feel good in your day-to-day job, it will show. This happiness can be linked to a lot of pa rameters such as: your colleagues, custom ers, the work that you do, the way leader ship communicates and much more. It’s as much about the now as it is about the long term. Why do companies want to optimise customer experiences? Because of the long value chains. It’s similar. Good em ployee experiences make for long, healthy and productive careers. This is something boards are sensitive to. Just as much as they want to know their people feel OK.”

Yannick: “Two core values of Terumo are ‘care’ and ‘respect’. And with this approach we give our managers a lever to genuine ly ask our people how they are doing and what they think of certain issues. For in stance, we want to foster debate around diversity and inclusion. I can pull data from SAP SuccessFactors to chart how we are doing on certain parameters, but I can’t get inside the head of employees. Using this technology, we can now create a trajecto ry using frequent check-ins. And then it’s up to our managers to design actions. And they are eager to use it. They also ask us to design surveys for their teams about learn ing habits and ambitions, which growth opportunities they wish for, and so on.”

Inge: “Diversity and inclusion is a very

good example of why employee engage ment also matters for recruitment. Making progress on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) is emerging as a key dif ferentiator, reports show. But these reports also show a significant gap between how sufficient action on DEIB is perceived by senior leaders and by their employees.”

START SMALL, THINK BIG

There’s this famous quote about the law: justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done. It’s a bit like that, adds Léon: “Experience management in itself is not an action. It’s a continuous process, it should lead to decisive and swift action based on relevant informa tion, captured in the moment, when it matters. But the feedback is just as im portant. As it’s a continuous process you need to close the loop. Talk about the action taken in a newsletter, referring to it in public articles or in your next town hall meeting. That’s how you show that you mean business. You have to weave it into the corporate culture and make it everyone’s responsibility.”

Yannick: “We see how the feed back-and-action loop already leads to more openness and better team meetings. But we’re just getting started. We would like to be even more proactive, do even more data analysis to get fact-based info to our team leaders. But we’re doing it one step at a time. That’s the best way for an enterprise with the scale and structure of Terumo Europe. Start small, think big.”

Léon: “AI and machine learning are in deed interesting features. You can analyse answers to open questions automatically surfaced to you by the AI capabilities, and discover hidden correlations from underlying data in for instance SAP Suc cessFactors. You can think of it as landing an aeroplane. With each deeper level, you get a more detailed view of the surface, allowing you to make ever more relevant observations and enabling you to make more impactful decisions.” ¶

“Our reports show a significant gap between how sufficient action on DEIB is perceived by senior leaders and by their employees.”

Supporting Fast Expansion through Competence Management

Umicore and Flexso teamed up to co-create and embed a Competency Matrix in Umicore’s HR software suite. This solution gives a clear overview of current competencies in the organisation and helps us close any gaps. Apart from ensuring a safe working environment, this solution enables Umicore to speed and scale up manufacturing activities.

Flexso

Umicore is the leading circular materials technology group. We met up with Mark Dolfyn, HR Director of Umicore’s Re chargeable Battery Materials (RBM) business unit, Bruno Meganck of their corpo rate HR Department and Bart Van Hove of Flexso, Competence Lead and Solution Designer of the Competence Matrix.

Mark, Umicore is a large company. What triggered the need for a solution that harmonised onboarding and competence management for multiple plants?

MARK: “Our business unit is facing expan sion at incredible speed due to the elec trical vehicles market (EV) boom. To keep up with that pace, we are scaling up our production lines. Our global customers de mand high-quality products that meet the most stringent standards. We must be able to deliver the same qual ity of products in all our plants. So staff skills and production methods must also be the same around the world. If we roll out an effective competence management system for one plant, we can apply it in the other plants at a pace that supports success.”

So such a system is key to future-proof careers within the business unit?

MARK: “The first and utmost priority is making sure everyone can do the job he or

Mark Dolfyn, Umicore & Bruno Meganck, Umicore

Bart Van Hove, Flexso

she does today. Quality of the product and safety on the floor are the most important reasons why you need people with the right qualifications, certificates and train ing. It’s also important to guarantee that you can comply with official industrial standards. Secondly, the tool helps us and our employees see the gap between the competencies they already have and the ones they need if they want to evolve to a new role. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a great way to visualise situations, to keep the overview, connect the dots, to track and document learning.”

BRUNO: “The need for a more holistic way of managing competencies was indeed not new. We’ve been tinkering with it in our own way on SharePoint or with Excel files. But sooner or later you encounter limits. That’s why we explored the market. It was imperative that we found some thing that not only met our requirements but could also be integrated with our SAP SuccessFactors environment. That’s why we chose Flexso.”

TRIPLE WIN PHILOSOPHY

You co-created the solution. What does that mean?

BART: “We had an existing solution, an extension to SuccessFactors that we com mercialise. We created it together with the initial client in 2019 and with the re quirements they had. Each time we en hance or broaden the product to meet new requirements, all the clients benefit because we have the SaaS model and on going releases. We call this our ‘triple-win’ philosophy’.”

BRUNO: “We also had our own require

ments and some ideas we threw at Bart and his team. From day one they helped us refine the requirements to make them more generic while still meeting our needs. The final product fits Umicore, but it remains a solution other customers can benefit from. And at Umicore, it is our goto application for Competence Management in our Umi core  product portfo lio . We are becoming experts in using the tool together with our BUs and starting with the RBM BU.”

OBJECTIVE GROUNDS FOR DIALOGUE

The Competency Matrix allows managers and HR professionals to create overview and analysis dashboards across a range of competencies, roles, training and other data. But it also includes an individual view, where each employee can see his or her own competence portfolio. Does it make them more aware of their career tracks, we wonder?

MARK: “Certainly. It’s a great starting point for the dialogues our supervisors have with team members a couple of times a year. They discuss training priorities and competence evolution together. But for instance in Asia, where hierarchic rela tions may hamper open dialogue, the tool provides the needed objectivation to get the dialogue going. It lowers thresholds.”

Does it also provide a helicopter view to analyse competence mixes on a team or plant scale?

“It’s not rocket science. It’s a good way to visualise an overview, to track and document competences. It allows fast

across plants. That is what we need.”

According to the 2022 IBM Global AI Adoption Index, 35% of companies worldwide are now using AI. 42% is on the verge. It will become ubiquitous. Computer scientist Kriti Sharma warns of the consequences when human biases slip into algorithms that ultimately decide if you get a loan, insurance or that new job. But it’s not Cassandra, the mythical figure who only predicted bad things. As the founder of AI for Good, Kriti is optimistic: “This is our chance to remake a more equal society.”

As a kid, Kriti Sharma was what we would nowadays call a girl geek.

“I used to build useless computers. Then I moved on to candy-fetching robots. I was in the business of automating unhealthy hab its (laughs).” But soon, she saw technology could have a social impact: “I grew up in North-Western India, witnessing a lot of inequality. I saw how access to knowledge, education and technology was limited to a small group of people. That’s the spark for my main idea: use tech to solve problems too important to leave unsolved.”

About 10 years ago, Kriti started to focus on the power of technologists.

“As a designer of technology, you have so much impact. But there was a complete lack of debate in the community. We just talked about solving cases, without taking a step back to see if there could be unintended consequences. What we needed was not

just a code of ethics, but the ethics of code. Doctors have to abide by principles, lawyers have deontological guidelines, but for us technologists, there wasn’t even a class.”

IS YOUR AI TOOL RACIST?

Asked if we need binding regulations on AI, Kriti has a simple answer in store.

“Just apply the rules for humans to technol ogy. When recruiting candidates, it’s illegal to discriminate on gender, race and other traits. It would get exposed. But if an AI tool would be churning out unequal decisions, there is no culture of transparency. Expla nations like ‘can’t tell, secret source’’ are in excusable. We should just ask: “Is your AI racist or sexist? To make it clear that it’s not about technological complexity, but about human biases that have crept in. What we do need more debate on, is on the allowed use cases of AI in general.”

But something is happening.

“You see progress when it comes to data ethics or governance. And cybersecurity is top-of-mind. This hasn’t happened yet for decision ethics. Organisations are still looking for a home for it. But you do see that companies in general are taking their ethi cal commitments more seriously, hence the

maybe technology shouldn’t be created entirely by geeks with mediocre

skills like

2

2 Companies in general are taking their ethical commitments more seriously, hence the rise of ESG.

3 Cybersecurity is top-of-mind but unfortunately robotical ethics are not.

rise of ESG. I hope the conversation will broaden, that leaders will understand that business ethics should also include prod ucts and tech. Buyers of AI solutions have to set their standards.”

WHY YOUR HR DEPARTMENT HOLDS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE

Data could improve human decision making. But the opposite also occurs: AI reproduces and amplifies human biases.

“The most meaningful change comes from bringing in many people with different backgrounds building these tools. Then the problem will solve itself. For instance: I have a traditional educational background as a computer scientist. But maybe technol ogy shouldn’t be created entirely by geeks with mediocre social skills like me (laughs). A message to every talent acquisition man ager reading this: go for the atypical profile once in a while!”

The pace at which AI develops is impressive. Kriti recalls a fascinating anecdote… “I once did a project where AI was intro duced to take over mundane tasks. After one day it had automated some 50% of the work

load. It didn’t take the technology that long to go to 80%. I was so proud. I thought the people at that organisation would love me for getting all that clutter out of their hands. But they hated it. They came up to me and said: “Tough challenges used to make up for 20% of my time. Now it’s the other way round. It’s all I’m doing, every day.”

What does it mean for HR in the long run?

“How do you train someone, how do you think about learning and development, if you already know machines will outpace you sooner or later? How you manage talent and ambition in the long run should be a main issue for CEOs and HR leaders. This is why I am excited to talk to the HR com munity in Antwerp this fall: I am convinced they will have the most profound impact on how tech applies to humans and how we shape the use of human potential and use our talents in the future.” ¶

“AI will become pervasive. And it will outsmart workers. The fundamental question for HR becomes: how to manage human potential and talent in such an environment? That’s key to our future.”

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