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With technologies evolving every day, human resources professionals are realizing that the fast-paced, ever-changing digital world impacts their jobs and workplaces — not only today, but in the future.Bersin & Associates, a global research and consulting firm focused on learning, talent and human resources strategies, recently published a report on the Top Best Practices for the High-Impact HR Organizations. The report noted that overall budgets, organizational structure and department size have less impact on business performance than the skills of HR professionals themselves. The research also outlined the key competencies driving results today — familiarity with integrated talent management, understanding of workforce planning and comfort with social networking and HR technology.
As organizations and business leaders position themselves for the future, the following five workplace challenges will continue to change human resources.
1. Evaluating Early Adoption
Truth be told, HR is traditionally not known for early adoption. Case in point: the slow adoption of social media. Bill Kutik, technology columnist for Human Resource Executive magazine, explains, “HR loves talking about social media, but so far has done very little with it. Fears emanating from the legal department have stuck HR in its tracks.”
While some people will try all of the latest and greatest options, others will want to wait until platforms have been proven. Being on either extreme could be detrimental. It’s important to evaluate each and sometimes take a chance.
Kutik says, “Just like the introduction of all new technology — from the telephone, to e-mail, to the Internet — which have all scared HR to death, it will eventually come around.”
One early trend Kutik believes is gaining traction is mobile. “Every vendor has either released or is about to release a mobile application for smartphones and soon for the iPad. While much of it is a ‘nice to have,’ mobile apps will get most traction in workforce management — the nuts and bolts of time and attendance and absence management — where they perfectly meet the needs of a distributed, mobile workforce.”
2. Balancing High Tech and High Touch
Being able to recognize the need for a technology solution will be a significant business advantage. HR will have to evaluate what functions can be automated and still provide desired levels of service.
Naomi Bloom, managing partner at Bloom & Wallace, a consulting firm specializing in the application of HR technology, shares how companies are evaluating digital solutions. “Increasingly, HR leaders are starting with the desired business outcome and working backwards from there to answer questions, rather than starting with the question of what to automate.”
Bloom cited the investment that Kronos has made in going mobile as an example of meeting a growing need by both the business and its employees. “If your business results are driven by optimized workforce scheduling, as is absolutely the case in most retail businesses, then you must focus some of your automation investments right there. And since the retail workforce may be young and used to communicating via their smartphones, you’d better consider delivering most of the transactions and analytics that your employees and even those first line managers use, directly to their smartphones.”
With increasing technologically advanced options, human resources professionals will be tasked to figure out when processes should be automated, versus when a human face or voice is the best route.
3. Information Curation
Kutik says it best, “We are all desperately in need of a good editor.”
HR is experiencing a flood of information. It will be critical to have an effective means of filtering necessary and relevant information. The new term in the digital space is curation.
While Kutik labels curation an “awfully fancy word” he does acknowledge the necessity for picking and choosing among various information sources. “Few people remember that Yahoo began by having human editors read and evaluate sites for their quality and determining how they would appear in searches. No more. Relying on what our friends link to on Twitter is not going to solve the problem. Happily, people are working on technologies to solve the problem.”
For recruiters, the ability to sort through loads of information — including applications from various platforms and employment data — will be a skill worth honing.
4. Training for Accountability
Many of these challenges come down to being better communicators in order to effectively leverage the digital space. As such, HR needs to place a priority on management and leadership training to ensure line managers are able to effectively convey expectations and outcomes.
Stacey Harris, principal analyst at Bersin & Associates, says development of line-manager capabilities should be a top priority. “Our research found there was a one-to-one correlation between the effectiveness of an organization’s line managers and the overall effectiveness of its HR function. In simplest terms, as a company’s line managers increased their management capabilities, the effectiveness of the HR function paralleled that upward progression.”
Harris explained that, on the digital front, companies need to partner with providers who deliver excellent support and service and deep understanding of its audience’s needs. “Organizations that offer completely integrated support for line managers are still difficult to find, but suppliers are making dramatic headway. Companies like Saba have spent considerable resources integrating social networking that can be used for development and knowledge transfer, with learning curriculums, performance management tools and competency maps.
“Organizations such as Triple Creek provide competency-driven mentoring programs over the web,” continued Harris. “Plateau has built on an integrated architecture introducing integrated and highly-scalable solutions for career development, compensation, pay for performance, and employee profile management — all which are used in line manager support.”
5. Metrics and Measurement
Bloom says, “When it comes to metrics, the easiest to do are very rarely the most valuable!”
There’s no question that HR needs to create data structures that will deliver information on business goals not only to help the company understand their workforce, but also to optimize their talent-related processes.
Bloom notes, “The most important metrics for any business investment, including those in HR technology, are the business outcomes that the investment is intended to achieve. If we’re trying to speed up and improve the selection of quality hires, then we’d better be looking at elapsed time to productivity and quality of hire.”
Then the challenge, as Harris points out, is most companies don’t have a single, accurate database for storing and accessing relevant HR information. “Data that is scattered among multiple systems and acquired in varied formats can make it difficult for most organizations to provide a clear picture of their current workforce. Many organizations capture only limited employee details in master data systems.”
Harris noted that SAP has made substantive progress in this area, pulling together data from the HR and talent management systems then analyzing data with the same analytic tools used in their other business intelligence platforms. Additionally, SuccessFactors has similar analytics and planning tools.
While many advances have been made in the human resources digital space, there are still new developments to look forward to. These advancements will bring greater opportunities to align human resources with business goals. HR professionals will need to remain aware of these challenges and develop their own strategies to stay within the path of progress.
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