delhi - National HRD Network

Smarter HR : Deploying Technology to
Deliver Results
Many will recollect the vintage Personnel
Departments where stacks of files and
reams of forms were stock in trade. The
Personnel Officers were busy processing
forms and maintaining records, submitting
one report or the other almost all day long,
intercepted by meeting with union
representatives or few employees then
again going back to those stack of papers.
Senior managers too were doing nothing
very different, except they had Assistants
to get the reports. Personnel Department
was considered a support function by
business leaders who called the
organisational direction. And those in the
erstwhile Personnel department took pride
in calling their function "grease that oiled
the organisation's wheels". One day folded
into another, predominantly doing
transaction work. How times have changed.
HR function today stands out as a major
strategic partner to business and HR
professionals are shaping organisation's
destiny.
But has HR become smarter? Has it
leveraged technology to make a bigger
impact? And have the HR professionals kept
pace with the times and become technology
savvy? And in doing so, have they freed
themselves from service delivery mode and
become partners to business?
HR service delivery will continue to assume
a greater importance as businesses combat
challenges of spiraling cost, demands of
global workforce and processes, need for
instant and round the clock information,
flexible and changing organisational
boundaries and of course rising customer
expectations.
Transaction work or, as it is now esoterically
called, service delivery component, still
continues to remain as critical component
of HR function and it would be mistake to
ignore it as such even though many HR
professionals are striving to evolve their
President's Message
function to a strategic partner to business.
The moot question is whether HR has
adapted to technological advances sufficient
enough and thereby managed to eke out
extra time that could be spent partnering
with business.
HR function has been a late entrant into the
area of making technology work to its
benefit. Technology can provide HR
professionals scope to dramatically improve
and automate processes and at the same
time, streamline delivery services, besides
reducing cost of such activities. Decision
making process and employee satisfaction
can improve substantially as the workplace
embraces higher level of technology. In
many organisations, HR services delivery
has been adversely impacted due to
ineffective use of technology.
David Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank of
Michigan Business School have highlighted
mastery of HR technology as one of the five
competency domains for HR, along with
strategic contribution, personal credibility,
HR delivery and business knowledge.
According to them, HR professionals must
learn to leverage HR technology to "provide
faster services to their internal clients on a
global scale, reduce the costs per
transaction, provide centralised services and
information that will make it easier to
manage and leverage the total workforce,
and spend more time focusing on making
strategic contributions."
As per Forrester Research, HR
professionals spend nearly 50% of time on
administrative activities. Much of this can
be saved with implementation of HR
Management Systems which would
eliminate routine paper work besides
reducing costs by automating basic HR
activities. It would also facilitate better
decision through accurate and timely
reporting and analysis.
Hackett Group study found that highperforming
world-class companies operated
with 16% fewer HR staff than the others
mainly by more efficient use of IT. Selfservice
technology contributed to higher
levels of efficiency and productivity and
simultaneous reduction in costs. The study
also established that HR leaders in these
companies had a deep understanding of
technology and made a strong effort to
derive as much value as possible from the
technologies they had deployed.
One area in which technology has made
quick stride is Recruitment. According to a
recent study, three out of five job seekers
use the Internet for job hunting. 88% of job
seekers read help-wanted advertisement
posted on line, 61% of them have submitted
their resume or applied on line, 42% use on
line job boards to post their resumes. Over
90% of job seekers view an organisation's
website to obtain information and post
resumes. Similarly organisations too are
using the Internet in new and creative ways
to attract the talent they need. They are also
using on line application and assessment
tests and reducing hiring cycle time.
Use of Second-Life concept to onboard new
employees and inducting them into
company culture has received favourable
response from tech-savvy generation.
Besides using technology for basic activities
like disseminating information on company
policy, benefit enrollment; organisations are
now using it extensively for talent
Management, skill development, self paced
learning and simulations. It has made
significant stride in improving
communication with employees through
simple yet highly effective techniques like
e-notice boards, interactive chat forums,
sharenets, virtual town hall meetings etc.
Even use of Podcast as means of
disseminating knowledge or information is
fast gaining popularity for its simplicity and
acceptance by younger generation.
Technology is being leveraged to build
employees' skills though 'Touch Point' calls,
or short e-meetings which enables
employees to discuss business and
technical topics with experts in a small group
setting. Use of 'Mail Cast', a five-minute,
flash based tutorials is a creative way of
spreading knowledge, convey policies and
processes and also provide an interactive
learning platform, it provides good pointers
in those few minutes.
Despite current economic challenges,
progressive organisations are continuing to
invest and find value in HR technology
systems. According to a Towers Perrin's
study of HR service delivery and technology,
close to a third of the respondents have
increased their investment in HR-related
technologies, and 55% are maintaining their
technology budgets at 2007 levels. For
organisations to sustain or even increase
their HR-related technology spend in a year
of such economic uncertainty and costcutting
is a testament to the importance
companies are placing on managing their
talent and having the right systems and
capabilities in place to do that well.
The human resources function in its journey
of evolution is migrating from an isolated
back office and occasionally bureaucratic
function to one that is viewed as a
competitive advantage helping
organisations achieve strategic business
objectives. A little help from technology is
going a long way …
Aquil Busrai
National President
| HRD News Letter | March 2009, Vol.24, Issue:12 6