HR Tech 4.0: Helping solve the most pressing work challenges
When Covid-19 struck the world two years ago, organisations around the globe had no time to prepare for the new normal. It was a testing time for businesses, leaders, and the HR fraternity. As the dust settles, one thing has become clear: power has shifted from organisations to people, from profit to mutual profit, from me to we, and to a talent economy where talent has more negotiating power than ever had. Several leaders believe HR technology 4.0 came about as a result of the disruption.
Kiran Kumar, Chief Global Markets, PeopleStrong and Marvin Owen Julius Victoriano, Chief People Officer, Inspiro Relia Global Shared Services, shared the stage to discuss the role of HR Tech or HR 4.0 during the TechHR Singapore 2022 event.
In a rapid fireside chat, they re-lived what both their teams achieved in the form of transformation of HR tech, work tech, and employee experience in the last 18 months.
According to Kumar, there are three core areas where technology enables decentralised, autonomous organisations. Giving a hyper-personalised employee experience as employees are no less than customers, bringing agility to people and business operations and data-driven decision-making on talent.
“HR practitioners needed to deal with 10 to 17 different application platforms while making a data-driven decision on talent. To help them make a better-informed decision, they need a comprehensive technology platform that can bring all of the data together,” said Kumar.
So, how can HR Tech 4.0, or the next phase of HR technology, help enterprises meet their most difficult challenges?
Addressing the issue, Marvin said that initially there were many difficulties in capturing the accurate data of our employees due to the manual processes involved. “It was realised to have a digital system in place to capture accurate data of the employees,” said Marvin.
“Creating a seamless, single platform where all the dots are connected was needed soon after the pandemic gripped the world. Thanks to digitalisation and automation, today we have a system in place that accurately captures the data. At the same time, we were looking for a seamless employee experience. Our focus was to have a tool that would empower our employees because it's important that they understand the whole journey of digitalisation and automation,” he added.
Emphasising the importance of big data and analytics in building a workplace culture, Marvin called for the full optimisation of tools. “More customised solutions can be created based on behaviour and feedback of the employees,” explained Marvin.
As we embraced technology, recruiters are now able to do other things, including value addition, rather than just type reports. HR Tech has enabled recruiters to use tools to make things better. The other thing that has been improved due to technological advancement is communication among team members, irrespective of their location.