Article: Cracking the code of HR technology buying

HR Technology

Cracking the code of HR technology buying

One way of seeking alignment could be to defining a problem statement and meeting each of the key stakeholders to understand their perspective on the problem statement.

In one of its kind occasion, we had the leaders of key HR technology partners coming together to crack the code of HR Technology Buying on Day 2 of Tech HR 17. Aadil Bandukwala from Belong.co, Arun Dhaka from Cornerstone OnDemand, Arun Rajamani from Pluralsight, Premlesh Machama from CareerBuilder.com and Vinay Pradhan from Skillsoft shared their insights with HR fraternity on how to address some of the key challenges they face while buying HR Technology. 

The first important challenge they spoke about was around building a business case. The leaders talked about how strong business cases emphasize saving or growth. They also spoke about building business cases around potential loss in case something is not done. Quantification of the impact on top-line/bottom-line would aid in creating a compelling case. 

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The second challenge which CHRO’s face is to align CEO, CFO and other key team members to buying the right system. HR needs to be a storyteller here. For this, it is important for HR to understand the language of business. Any CHRO who understands business and can talk to his CEO about his business looking at him in the eye exhibits that confidence. One way of seeking alignment could be to defining a problem statement and meeting each of the key stakeholders to understand their perspective on the problem statement. 

HR can then put together all the expectations and perspectives together to build a story which could be presented to everyone. This is also the first step to building a business case. At the same time, HR should focus on establishing the measures of success with each of the key stakeholders. Sometimes we do have skeptics who make it a difficult job to seek alignment. In such cases, HR should focus on looking for supporters. As long as there is a condition where there are strong supporters and others ready to toe the line in the larger interest, it should be okay. 

At the end of the day, CHRO should realize that it is his decision which he should make in partnership with the CIO. 

Another challenge which the organization faces in such case is the adoption of new technology. The journey here begins with key people giving up their fascination with ‘My Process’. Establishing clear ownership of the adoption process would pre-empt a lot of issues. Executive sponsorship, line managers’ ownership of change leads to high adoption. Providing the right incentives for increasing adoption is something which has worked well in the past. Tracking usage year over year helps drive continuous engagement. 

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Topics: HR Technology, #TechHR2017

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