Our lives are hovering around technology. Children use Google and YouTube for their studies, we order food through Zomato and Swiggy or go through Facebook and Twitter to find out what is happening in the world around us. People’s lives are changing because of technology.  We should look at the whole process sophisticatedly and we should also examine the other constituents of this change.  

From an HR point of view, it has added another dimension. Consumers of any organization are consuming products or services very differently.  Hence, the role of HR has gone for a full toss.  An HR Professional needs to be at the forefront of these changes in technology, while dealing with Employment Appraisals and more.  The semantics of delivering this will of course vary.  

Artificial Intelligence and Digital Assistance like Chat Box, Siri and Whatsapp is definitely assisting in improving the performance and drastically improving the productivity of the system.  

Various HR processes have been influenced by technology like Learning and Development and Digital Communication and it would not be possible for me to just pick one.  

What is the biggest technology change?

Shopping through Amazon, entertainment etc. has of course changed.  The change and pace hasn’t been so much on the professional front as it has been on the personal.  But that is what we are trying to do – change things.

The way information is processed has changed, it has become real-time and now.  It has affected the way children lead their lives today.  

Technology is helping us to connect with colleagues, not necessarily with those who are sitting next to us.  Everything is happening at a faster pace.  It is enabling connections, accessibility and fundamentally co-creation – sharing and collaboration.  Technology is like fire, it helps me to cook.  It is in our hands what we want to do with it.  

Things are happening at a fast place – helping the consumer, identifying the right skills etc.  It is enhancing the compliance standards, especially in larger organizations.  

Technology is fine, but it can never replace human aspects or interactions.  To give an example, the conversations and interactions between a manager and an employee have to be in real-time and technology cannot replace these human interactions.  

How is technology impacting change in HR?

The challenge for HR to deal with today’s technology is extremely interesting.  They should have a shared understand of the power of technology and then find out how they can use this to enhance their deliverables to their employees.  

It is finding out the purpose of technology first and all other things will follow later.  

For sure, people.  Technology is helping to hire the right people.  Secondly, employees need to understand that they should be embracing the right kind of technology.  For example, we helped to create a business plan for the next 3 years and we created a platform where employees could put in their inputs there.  This was available through multiple platforms and the probability for us, as HR, going through errors has come down.  

Technology has helped us to get diverse talent from different platforms.  Along with recruitment tools, the digital tools are helping us to get top talent.  We have started using certain tools in recruitment.  

The threshold of confidence has increased with the use of technology in the areas of talent management, performance management, salary management etc.  

Are you using graphics and tools such as psychometrics etc.?

Since the ecosystem is very diverse and vast, it would be no.  But there is a buffet of technology for employees and they pick up whatever makes sense to them.

It depends on the culture of the organization. Technology is used to identify the right talent.  Understanding the learning ability of the organization through technology is the way to go.

The changes that are happening through technology is largely available and it goes out to all the 10 companies that are under us.  The sharing of technology does not happen through hand-holding, the content is all there.  But there is some training that happens on how to really use technology.  

How do you use technology in your organization?

The use of technology, as in Chat Box, around an event, has immensely beneficial.  Otherwise, answering a whole lot of questions from various employees is a difficult proposition.  Now all the information is available at one place and is easily accessible.  And the use of Twitter and following the right hashtags have immensely helped, which is better than networking even. 

(This article is curated from the Session: Rapid Fire: Eat, Sleep and Walk Tech – Changing Mindset by Amit Das, Director HR and CHRO at Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd., Sonali Roychowdhury, HR Director – P&G and Mahalakshmi R., Head HR India at Mondelez at the Cornerstone OnDemand Converge India 2017. The session was moderated by Holger Mueller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research Inc.)