IIM ROHTAK HUMANE-R PRESENTS IMPRESSIONS APRIL 2021 HUMANE.R@IIMROHTAK.AC.IN
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE HUMAN RESOURCES DOMAIN
The world as we know, it is in a constant churning for its betterment and advancement. Artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Nano technology are only some of the jargons of technical world that have become the buzzwords of the popular culture. The fourth industrial revolution is here- Industry 4.0 which allows marriage of physical process of manufacturing & operations with smart digital technologies. Before diving into the subject, the title should be explained leaving no room for ambiguity with keywords being the digital transformation. Stolterman and Fors, (2004) defined Digital Transformation [as] the changes that digital technology causes or influences in every aspect of human life. Gassmann et al., (2014) defined it as the ability to turn existing services or products into digital adaptations, and thus offer advantages over tangible product”.
To put it simply, digitalization, in business arena, can be described as the use of digital technologies to enable and improve the processes associated with a business model. It involves increased use of digital or computer technology by an organization. The ideological shift from “Technology Vs Human” to “Technology and Human” should be set into motion. The combination of the two has created wonders. But when the words like digitalization, automation, humanoid come up, generally, images of robots and technology taking over the world as seen in popular science fiction movies like The Terminator Series, The Matrix Series conjures in the mind. Even though who have not conjured up such improbable images, are in the fear of widespread job loss.
As machines can do almost everything faster and better but this allows us to focus on us – Why are we what we are – Human? When the former Russian chess grandmaster, Gary Kasporav was defeated by Deep Blue, an IBM Supercomputer, his take on this question is insightful and guiding. He said, “Machines have the calculation; humans have an understanding. Machines have instructions; we have a purpose. Machines have objectivity; we have passion”. This explains the fascinating reason behind the close interplay of technology which has debunked all the farfetched dystopic images and disrupted the HR space only to make it more efficient and streamlined.
Digitalisation is coming out as a major helping hand for HR managers and professionals by freeing them from long, traditional HR processes and allowing them to invest and work more on activities which have more strategic value. The functions of HR have witnessed major disruptions in the last two decades. Though technological disruptions and innovations were always a norm in companies but when Workday was founded in 2005 to provide technological solutions to financial and human capital related problems, the domain gained much power. Now many companies are coming up with various technological and software interventions related to the field (Darwinbox, EDGE Networks, Mettl, Glassdoor, LinkedIn Jobs, Humaans, Credly, Appraisd, Intrro) to ease down the processes of hiring, appraisal, promotion, work-life balance, health of employees. A report titled A Future That Works: Automation, Employment, and Productivity in 2017 published by Mckinsey and Corporation, revealed that half of all existing work activities could be automated by currently existing technologies, saving around $16 trillion instead of wages.
Major Benefits of digital transformation in the HR domain:
1.Smart Recruitment: The Bersin’s research shows that nearly 40% of companies are using some form of AI in HR. IBM, SAP, Facebook, Hilton, GE are some of the forerunners using AI to screen, interview and recruit new talent. The company gets to screen from a vast pool of talent quickly and efficiently. Moreover, this has majorly shifted the conventional notion of resume from a piece of paper to insights from all the data points. AI allows companies to work smarter without replacing the human element in Human Resource department. Some of the most popular recruitment tools are – IRIS, Mya (My Recruitment Assistant), Arya, Olivia, Pomata, Rai.
2.Smart Screening and Interviewing: With the drastic evolution in the computing power and advent of AI, companies can assess plethora of candidates through their words’ selections, speech patterns and facial expressions. For example, a 15-minute interview is a set of approximately 20,000 data points on facial movements, selection of words to evaluate a candidate. Tools like Amy and Clara Labs have been used by organizations for scheduling interviews, team huddles without wasting any intervention time in a seamless manner. The companies are also using techniques and tools of AI to assess a person’s past record for making a better match of skills required and experience gained. It also helps in analyzing and collating data through machine learning about the behavioural aspects of a candidate gauging his/her cultural fit in the company. HR chatbots like HireVue and Talent Pitch are much more than just typical service bots. They assess and compare a candidate’s skills with that of people who have been a success in the past at same position.
3.Better Onboarding: A BCG study revealed that Onboarding had a strong impact on the employee retention. Thus, first impression is worth the efforts. AI has redefined the whole onboarding process by creating path maps, starting from prehiring assessment and interview process to Onboarding and employee retention. Chatbots are being used by the companies which can easily handle basic queries of many employees and thus, freeing up the professionals for more strategic tasks at hand.
4.Data security and Transparency: The backdoor entries and favours only result to a loss of financial and human asset to a company. Technological advancements have the power to end almost all the wrong doings like corruption, favours, bribery to eliminate in selection and recruitment process. Big Data tools allow organisations to go through a vast amount of unstructured data such as messages, emails, invoices and look for illegal activities – potential as well as present. This allows companies to be transparent in their processes. Ernst and Young (EY) is already using a similar tool.
5.Greater efficiency: Human intellect is incompletely utilized while doing repetitive tasks. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is a that learns how a person does a repetitive work using AI and machine learning technologies. Typical tasks for RPA are collecting data from systems or XLS/XLSX files, data copying, submitting e-mails, entering data in HRMS, pre-populating forms. The flexible the workforce, the happier and productive the employees.
6.Enhanced Workplace Learning: AI tools have enabled HR professionals to make personalized career development programs and learning curves for employees. This boosts their productivity, increase job satisfaction, decrease work induced stress and many other benefits. Tools such as Engazify (for immediate feedback); Obie and Niles (for knowledge sharing); Wade&Wendy (for career advice); Yogi (for health) are seeing an upward trend in their number of current and potential users.
7.Competitive advantage: Change is the only constant. Adapting to digital and technological changes at a fast manner is not an option these days but a need. The digital technologies help your workforce to remain at par with the best industrial practices and remain relevant to the market.
Challenges and Way forward: A technology is only as good its application on the field. In the case of HR, employees perceive any technological shift as an attack or threat to their job security. This situation has increased the importance of HR professionals as now they have two tasks at hand – assuring people of their skills while automation of redundant parts of their jobs. Some of the challenges are: 1. Inertia to change: Technology is only an enabler which will only help us to solve our problems when we change the underlying mindsets. People in businesses or organizations generally don’t change until it becomes an urgency or emergency. This is very evident in recent times of COVID-19 pandemic when businesses, in order to survive did massive technological changes that have been procrastinated for years.
Moreover, less or incomplete knowledge also leads to fear in employees’ minds of getting replaced by technologies or machines. This fear and inertia should be eliminated by open communication, telling people about positive changes that the technology will bring to them in order to reach a company and its employees their full potential. 2. Leadership thrust: The top-level management should have leadership qualities and capabilities to guide and navigate the company through this age of digitalization by being competent and supportive. Good and capable guiding leader/s from the front is a major game changer while adopting any strategy or going for a major shift in company’s functioning style. 3. Interdepartmental collaboration: Don’t let the departments separate you, let the company’s name unite you. Often it is seen that interdepartmental collaboration at all levels is a major game changer while implementing any major strategic reform like digital technology. HR professionals are linked to all the employees of all the departments of an organization. Thus, their role is to develop a cordial bridge for facilitating a communication channel for various departments.
4. Customers’ changing tastes and preferences: Companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, Tesla have changed the expectations of the market forever. Now the customer doesn’t want only a product but a personalized experience which is specific to their unique needs, tastes and preferences. Though the leaders understand this but are still facing issues relating to technology at their hand. A successful digital transformation in the HR domain will only be ensured when each employee in the value chain is ready to participate, innovate and forecast in every step of this process. Some of the suggestions to ease this transformation are: 1. HR leaders should constantly attend latest HR technology events, seminars, webinars etc. This will allow them to create a future ready approach for the company. 2. Develop and adopt only adaptable systems in organizations which could absorb new technologies with minimal changes or tweaks. 3. Discard the old and inefficient processes and embrace the new ones as soon as possible with right attitude and mindset. Some of the major success stories of HR in India are Reliance Jio, People Strong (developed India’s first HR Chatbot “JINIE”), Hero Moto Corp (implemented SAAS), Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) – Performance Management System (PMS), Gyandrishti, JSPL Connect. Conclusion: The domain of HR is all about human touch and this touch will attain more power with the implementation of technology in it. Being at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution- Industry 4.0, the role of HR to facilitate this progression without hindering the human factor in it. Thus, the road of this transformation is amazing ahead.
Anshul Tripathi, IMI Delhi
Digital Transformation in HR domain We are living in the world of rapid transformation, growing socialization, and increasing digitalization which is leading us towards the new era of latest strategies and manifestos. Furthermore, we’ve moved from digital products and infrastructure to digital distribution and web strategy. “Think of digital transformation less as a technology project to be finished than as a state of perpetual agility, always ready to evolve for whatever customers want next, and you’ll be pointed down the right path.” -Amit Zavery, Google Cloud Digitalization is the process of remodelling; transforming our traditional labourintensive or bureaucratic ways to more technologically advanced capital-intensive methods, making the entire process smoother and more efficient. It's always been that one major goal that each industry wants to realize. Though Human Resource has been a little hesitant initially over time it's fixed within the race with other domains and that in my opinion, in upcoming years it'll be the leading one. Defining Digitalization in HR: Digitalization in the HR sector dictates it is a community of HR Professionals aiming for digital transformation and innovation in HR practices. It is a community focused on digital transformation of HR services and processes. Transformed aim of HR: Today, in this era of digital transformation the HR community aims to help HR professionals learn, understand and use digital technologies to drive business objectives in HR. A reliable article published by PwC in 2014 about the HR Professionals of 2022, mentioned three scenarios. To summarize the main crux; firstly, it was where HR are going to become more rigid and employees will be on a tight leash. The second was future employers are going to be just like the paladins of Charlemagne for workers, fulfilling their personal interests with minimizing environmental impact.
Last but not the least, third scenario shows that it will be a clear stage where the world is going to be more integrated and interlinked where independent contractors will provide virtual work environment. When these were forecasted it would have felt that we are going an excessive amount prior to ourselves and it might not be true. Because if it wasn’t for the pandemic our resistance to technological change was too big to beat this fast. Sure, we were moving but the thrust that the pandemic has given to the industry has pushed the professionals out of their shells and encouraged them embrace the change.
Now comparing these three types with present professionals; their survey has indeed come true. We can see that digitalization has touched every branch of HR in one way or another. Let us have a glance at what and how much has changed. 1. Workplace: It's taken a 360-degree turn. From times when people thought work can only be done inside office premises to total work from home setup. Technology has paid a large role in breaking this convention. The digital workplace may be a new trend as well as a necessity. And how can one forget the interactive digital employee dashboards!
2. Talent: The full process of talent acquisition has become way more efficient, smooth, and integrated. Now we use different software and tools to form as well as sort the applicant pool. Almost every step has become digitalized even the orientation of latest employees. 3. Learning and development: With so much quality content available online and for providing the most effective facilitators to the workers the employers are turning towards online platforms. The geographical boundaries have been blurred as we can easily arrange a zoom meeting whenever and wherever we want. This transforming shift is happening not just rapidly but also expeditiously, as India is advocating the wand of digitalization by sprinkling Digital India. Similarly, HR leaders are being pushed to take on a larger role
in helping to drive the
organization from “do digital,” to “think, aim and achieve digitally.” Transformation Timeline: Another name of HR sector is the everchanging or nonstatic sector. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” -Winston Churchill Today, HR’s focus has shifted toward building the organization of the future. Companies are hiring multiskilled employees who are not only young and innovative in thoughts and ideas, but also digitally savvy workers who are comfortable doing things themselves and sharing information in a transparent way. HR field again has something new in its plate to serve best among all, focusing on people, work, and platforms. This emerging and evolving practice in the field of HR is termed as digitalizing HR.
1960’s and 70’s Hope world of HR firm: Digitalizing HR is not a new concept it has its roots, HR
focused on personnel operations, automating transactions, and
maintaining a sound employee system of record. 1980’s Step up to service organization: focusses on expertise began to manage core talent practices, service centres handled individual needs, and HR business partners began to be embedded in the business. 1990’s and 2000s boost to the integrated talent management: HR was accompanied by the
implementation of new systems for recruiting, learning, performance
management, and compensation. Over the last five years, the HR discipline has undergone a rapid evolution. Racing to the cloud: Three years ago, we read about most spotlighted firm of the finance department i.e., HR and about HR’s “race to the cloud,” as companies rushed to replace legacy talent systems with integrated HR platforms. Companies were in the race to put everything on one platform. Rejuvenising HR: Two years ago, we pervade HR as a function “in need of a makeover,” as companies focused on reskilling HR professionals, by the means of fluxioning and integrating the organization, and implementing analytics.
New wave: And now this year, as digital management practices and agile nimble organization design become central to business thinking. Recasting the cast for digital HR: Rules are the base for either if we are talking about any film or any firm. Casting new actors and new rules are always been challenging. In this new wave to flow smoothly in the ocean of business sector we have to hire new cast i.e., new rules for digital HR. New wave’s transparency scheme, following are the new tools which make the system more transparent and serene.
Mechanizing Digital solutions: To explore new vendor solutions and build others, and consider AI solutions to improve service delivery, recruiting, and think out of the box. Networking of expertise: Transforming digitally as well as at organizing level HR into networks of expertise with strong business partners. Rethink to expand expertise spotlighting, high-performing HR teams share leading practices and know what the other teams are doing. Plant a seed of innovation: To reinvent and innovate in every people practice. Organizations are now
using new performance management practices built
around design sessions and hackathons. Innovation is not only in thoughts but also in hands which can investigate new innovations in recruiting, including using data to find people who resemble high performers in the company as well as for the company. Hiring new talent: To set the benchmark one has to think expeditiously. Here in HR regular rotation of people from the business into and out of HR, use innovation teams to reverse-mentor senior leaders, and recruit new MBAs to bring people with analytics skills into the profession. To conclude, HR teams that embrace digital platforms to take up the dual challenge of transforming HR operations on the one hand, and transforming the workforce and the way work is done on the other, will be game changers. HR leaders who “lean into” new technologies, platforms, and ways of working on expeditious results and to gain fruitful experience.
Kanika Saini, DSE