The New Frontiers of HR Technology - More Opportunities, More Impact: TweetChat

Asinvestments in HR technology continue to increase the HR Tech market is expected to be a $34 billion dollar industry by the year 2021, with $3.6 billion worth of the business expected tobe based out of the APAC region, especially India.

Clearlythen, the new era of HR technology is upon us. It is no longer about digitizingstandard HR processes, but enabling tangible business outcomes like, productivity,innovation and collaboration. Organizations need to look at addressing these challengeswith the use of latest as well as emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence(AI), Machine Learning (ML), robotics and blockchain throughout the employeelifecycle and pave the way for newer opportunities, which call for new skills,new strategies and new possibilities.

So, it isnow up to organizations to pay close attention to their human capital anddeveloping innovative and disruptive HR strategies with the help of HR-tech to drivefuture growth.

To shedmore light on the topic, I participated in People Matters’ latest tweetchat,titled “The next frontier of HR technology: More Opportunities, More Impact”scheduled on 11th July from 7.00 - 7.30 PM IST, along with global thoughtleaders, HR Technology partners, and innovators, where we discussed the keypriorities for shaping the workplace of tomorrow amidst a slew of newtechnologies, changing environments and shifting business models.

Here are someof the more pressing issues that we explored, and tried to answer few of the mostimportant questions facing worldwide organizations today-

1.What are the most criticalbusiness challenges that HR & Work technology can help organizations solvetoday?

Employee engagement continues to be a major painpoint for global organizations. According to Gallup, the employee engagement crisis is rising by the day, with the State of the Global Workplace report suggesting that 85% global employees areactively disengaged. I believe HR-tech can be a great enabler of employeeengagement, especially those solutions that leverage innovative AI technology.

With poorengagement comes poor performance, and HR-tech has the potential to offer intelligentperformance supportto further boostproductivity and performance. Organizations can do this by using AI-enabledsolutions to know and understand their employees better, and offer instant andtangible solutions to their problems, including one of the major issues of‘human biases’ in the performance review process.

2.What will help accelerate HR& Work technology adoption, change management, and business impact? (Sharetwo, three tips from your own journey)

Gleaningfrom my own personal experience, embedding systems in the flow of work paysgreater dividends in terms of accelerating technology adoption.

Let’s faceit, purchasing and implementing any new HR-tech solutiontakes lots of time, effort and money, and if the employees don’t use that new solution,it is a huge setback in terms of ROI. Regardless of its innovative features, ifthe new solution doesn’t make the employees’ work simpler and more efficient, they’rejust not going to go for it.

Thesolution really needs to be easy and effortless to drive adoption, and has tobe highly efficientand augment intelligence and smartness in order to make real difference. In addition, HR-tech solutions providers need to develop techsolutions not only to automate the processes but also to enhance performance.

3.How can leaders ensure a betteralignment of HR & Work technology investment and business goals?

It is crucialfor business leaders to know that all technology solutions must have a clear,solid and tangible business goal and (if possible) a measurable metric.

To ensure abetter alignment of HR and work-tech investment and business goals, businessleaders must ensure that the solution is being considered as a ‘businesssolution’ and not an ‘IT solution’. Timelyanalysis and review of the HR-tech solutions is also warranted to gauge theoutput and desired results.

4.Among the new-gen technologies(AI, ML, robotics, blockchain), which one are you most excited to use and why?Share examples of used cases too.

I am certainly most excited about Artificial Intelligence as it has real potential to enhance productivity, performance and remove human biases to a large extent. For example, an AI-enabled solution can map SWOTs for employees without the human bias and give meritorious reviews; whereas Machine Learning (ML) technology can make the systems and the solution smarter and feed into AI.

AI truly has the potential to bringabout a positive shift in the approaches organizations take towards managingtheir workforce, helping them incorporate agile processes across their HR,L&D and other functions to provide a wholesome workplace experience.

5.What is the one thing you wouldsuggest to enable a digital mindset among HR teams?

HR, with the help of HR-tech, has amajor role to play in shapingthe future workforce. Organizations are increasingly turning to AI-powered platformsthat will be intrinsic to our workplaces in the near future. Likewise, thefuture workforce will require the right skill-set and the expertise to collaboratewith such advanced AI systems, and this can only be achieved through increasedawareness and adoption from and by the HR function. And, as Imentioned earlier, the number one lookout should be on technology as a businesssolution and not strictly as an IT solution.

Although,the fear of job-loss and unemployment is quite understandable, especially forthose working in software development, data science, manufacturing andengineering, who view digitization and automation and AI as a threat, it willbe quite counterproductive for organizations to invest in new andemerging technologies and not invest in their human workforce, which will essentiallyfurther empower the HR and L&D functions.

You canalso view my full TweetChat here.