HR digital transformation is a hot topic for several HR professionals. A few years back, HR professionals were weighing the benefits and demerits of digital transformation. They even pondered whether it's a buzzword or would help the HR departments move forward.
However, the current scenario shows that successful HR digital transformation is crucial for a successful business. It's how most companies and brands conduct recruitment, talent development, and performance evaluation. It's how organizations are turning HR departments into value-creating centers. Furthermore, it opens up channels for collaboration within and among businesses, improving customer experiences.
Simply speaking, digital transformation in HR entails adopting digital tools, practices, and strategies to boost employee experience and optimize operational performances through data-driven and automated procedures. HR digital transformation switches up HR operations using technology, which in the process will transform the workforce and execution of various activities in the workplace. It includes HR digitization, a shift from manual to digital techniques.
Besides HR process optimization, successful digital transformation of human resources offers a holistic effect and improves the organization. It expands what human resources can do for businesses and vice versa. The tools and technologies designed to revolutionize human resource operations offer interactive online training programs, agility to HR and staff, self-service-based applications for employees, and organizational stability during any disruption.
Companies and organizations can automate most repetitive jobs. Organizations use digital technologies to automate various HR processes, such as employee onboarding and offboarding, tracking and validating timesheets, employee training, leave requests, and managing benefits. In this section, let's explore two examples of HR digitization. These are performance management and AI recruiting analytics.
Employee performance management remained an inefficient HR process. It requires manual collection and review of evaluation forms. Besides removing the hassle of tedious paperwork, automation boosts productivity and talent retention through goal setting, better feedback, and training opportunities.
Effective communication goals with employees are a significant aspect of successful performance management. Automation helps employees, managers, and organizational leaders to keep track of accomplishments in a performance management system. HR departments use tracking performance data to identify bottlenecks in the workforce and send reminders and notifications to managers and employees that help achieve significant milestones.
Often managers require offering feedback. The HR automation system allows managers to deliver more informed and targeted feedback. With access to more data, managers can identify which employees require training. Besides improving productivity, it encourages talent development, which is essential for modern HR departments.
Irrespective of the economic conditions, human resource departments are constantly overwhelmed with recruiting tasks. Even during low employment, employers must pursue and engage suitable candidates; else, they might lose them to their competitors. During a lack of jobs, HR departments get overwhelmed with job applications from candidates desperate for work. In such a scenario, HR process automation, such as artificial intelligence (AI), streamlines the process, allowing organizations to make informed hiring decisions through the collection and analysis of data.
The modern way of recruiting and hiring processes differ from the past, where recruiting consisted of sorting long stacks of resumes and setting up interviews to select the best candidate for the role. Today, the data collected by the HR departments is a precious asset. HR departments are using AI scans through large datasets, allowing them to target their recruiting efforts and make better hiring decisions.
Modern HR processes help analyze an employee's performance in a role and how long the employee would stay with the organization, which allows recruiters to make better decisions and minimize the risk. Automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks helps recruiters save time for conducting proactive hiring, spend more time with the candidate and identify better fits.
Digital transformation in HR is not a switch that one can quickly flip through. Instead, it's a never-ending process of replacing age-old HR solutions with modern systems and processes. Although it's a time taking process, bringing HR into the digital age consists of six stages.
At this stage, businesses and organizations operate following their age-old processes. Since they perceive no value in transformation, the leaders remain uninterested. The organizational leaders, at first, must overcome these roadblocks and the misconceptions of the HR teams before considering the transformation path.
It's the second stage, where organizations and brands recognize the need for transformation and experiments with various technologies. Since all the departments fail to acknowledge the efforts, the departments approach the problems in multiple ways. The leaders must move effectively from chaos to a more organized approach; else, the actions of transformation will likely fall flat.
Once your organization reaches this stage, you start seeing intentional experimentation of new technologies. You find expansion in the scope of projects, and the organization systematically solves specific business difficulties. Often organizations experience roadblocks put forth by company culture and must make changes to the company culture to become successful.
Once your business manages to wade through the roadblocks of entrenched work culture and executive buy-in, you move towards creating a strategic roadmap. Individual groups and departments recognized the power of strength in digital collaboration and invested in technologies that transformed the business.
Your HR transformation journey, at this point, concentrates on forming a robust interdisciplinary approach to support the new strategy and supports the business and its customer-centric objectives. Henceforth, you develop a digital transformation team to manage your organization's management and operations.
Your digital transformation team focuses on inventing and exploring new ideas. The team, collaborating with other departments, implements test initiatives. It becomes a way of life, and your organization continues to pursue new technological paths and easily adapt to the ever-changing business world.
After you determine the objectives of your transformation, it's time to identify how your organization will achieve it. Undoubtedly, it involves identifying the right technology and processes that enable your HR transformation.
Enlisted are the primary steps to roll out HR digital transformation successfully.
Before you embark on your journey of HR digital transformation, it is essential to develop and state clearly defined goals. HR digitalization includes improving how your employees work together towards common goals. However, engaging them outside their traditional roles is a crucial opportunity.
Once you determine your customers' needs, identify the HR issues preventing the business from thriving in the current business environment. Ensure that your transformation addresses the core business challenges your organization experiences. Since your employees are the focus of any HR transformation project, include your staff in trying out any new technology before implementing them.
A successful digital transformation strategy must include all stakeholders, including the C-suite and others. One of the best ways is to ensure that the success of the onboarding process involves integrating standard operation procedures (SOPs). An SOP works more than an employee handbook, assisting you with onboarding, as it defines a standardized set of guidelines that all new employees must follow.
Undoubtedly, a change will result in a long list of ideas, and as a leader, you must prioritize them based on their impact and effort. Consider the business impact of digitalizing the ideas, capital, and time required to get the thoughts to go digital. Start with ideas that have high impact and low effort, and help you build a business case for digital HR.
While you use and experiment with various digital technology, it does not make much sense if your fail to consider its outcome. Therefore, it's essential to evaluate the progress of any digital transformation projects. Do you know an HR digital transformation requires more than digital HR technology? Yes, because when your organization undergoes a digital revolution, it must focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Whether it's a digital transformation or any other change, you cannot overlook your organizational culture and the mindset of your employees and other stakeholders. From the fresh recruits to the existing employees and C-level, a digital perspective is essential for successful transformation.
Whether you agree or disagree, HR digital transformation isn't a choice. Employers and HR departments can't stay behind when you live in a world that's digitalizing at a faster pace. Successful HR transformation requires a long-term investment and a continuous effort to transform an organization and its culture. Your organization's HR department has a vital role in the transformation process and must actively participate to ensure a successful transformation. If you plan to outsource talent in Thailand search with a talent management company in Thailand and talk to the professionals.
HR digital transformation is the conversion in the way HR functions, using data to guide all areas of HR like payroll, benefits, and performance.