Article: People Matters TechHR 18: From the intangibles to the tangibles

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People Matters TechHR 18: From the intangibles to the tangibles

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People Matters TechHR 18: From the intangibles to the tangibles

People Matters TechHR’18 was all about possibilities, mindset shifts, think tanks, learning, realizations, epiphanies, and what not! It was about the presence of real people, real stories, and real personalization – and there’s something truly different about learning in the presence of your peers. That’s the TechHR experience for you.

But if I were to point out the one thing that TechHR has managed to do every single year, it is that it has motivated talent leaders to “act” and look at their context in a different way and accelerate— move forward, take charge of their own business challenges, find solutions, and most importantly, collaborate and build networks for a better future of work, people, and the workplace.

This is a shout-out to all the leaders who attended TechHR’18 and made it into a stellar success!

But I personally believe that attending a conference is the easy part. You can always tell yourself that “this is how we need to strategize,” or “I will definitely master a skill such as mind-mapping” or “perhaps, this is the vendor who will solve my talent challenges.” The real deal is when it comes to ensuring strategy implementation or actually integrating tech solutions to take on a business challenge. This is the hardest part; and change doesn’t come easy! 

Here are some of the takeaways from the conference this year:

Reinvention of HR Technology

Josh Bersin states that “an entirely new world of HR technology taking place before our eyes…. one focused on HR In The Flow of Work™.” As the business ecosystem changes, the world of work changes too – and amidst all this, the HR technology market is also evolving. AI, Intelligence Systems, and cognitive user interfaces are all disrupting and reinventing the technology categories, and the focus now is to bring HR technology into the flow of work. Bersin shared that employees do not have time for HR systems that interrupt their time to fill out forms or find the information they need. Everyone wants meaning, purpose, and a sense of progress every day. Organizations need systems that are intelligent, useful, and accessible in the flow of work. This means no longer logging into the “talent management” or “learning system” but using these systems in our everyday lives, accessing information on a mobile app, getting messages from Slack or another messaging system, or even communicating with the HR systems through a conversation on our phone. “Innovative new tools and solutions for performance management, learning, career exploration, candidate assessment, diversity, pay equity, and well-being are now hitting the market, and these groundbreaking systems are productive, enjoyable, and valuable.”  A lot more to watch out for, Bersin predicts. 

Need to keep up with technological changes

Chris Havrilla, President, Havrilla LLC shared how technology is not about automation, it is about augmenting work and how one can leverage the power of data to increase efficiency, grow business dynamics and create an agile operative system. Using the power of social media and other technological influences to obtain the right data will provide the required boost to focus on human needs, experiment and infiltrate to simplify organizational vision to achieve greater success. A lot of study and research has been done for customizing and implementing new technologies. However, it is important we understand that this will drive revenue and growth only if the workforce is ready to adapt and is well versed with the technological advances. The core of the matter lies in delivering the experience and inculcating a sense of knowledge that includes constant learning and evolving to achieve success. Havrilla invites leaders to keeping an innovative mindset and a critical approach that is parallel with technological changes. 

Right Product, Right People, Right Moment, Right Channel 

Jason Averbook shared the four things that organizations and the HR function in particular needs to focus on — for a frictionless workforce experience. These are: Right Product, Right People, Right Moment, and Right Channel. Technology deployment is going to be 1000% more successful if organizations start with the mindset and the people and the process. Averbook goes on to say that “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is near.” It is time to keep up with the changes that are going outside of the organization. It is time to act the way the world lives outside the walls of an organization if the expectation is to drive an engaged workforce. “Nothing will change unless we change. People are ready. Processes can be ready. Technology is ready. Are you ready?” 

Tech for measuring abilities

Employers make hiring decisions based on educational background of candidate, GPA scores, and relevant experience. HR tech needs to be leveraged for measuring candidates on cognitive abilities, social intelligence, computational thinking, teamwork, leadership behavior, etc.  This can be possible through gamified screening approach. The conference hosted many HR leadersh sharing their best practices in Recruitment, Performance Management, Learning. For example, Accenture leveraged technology to eliminate bias and hire quality candidates. Technology was used to focus on the three key aspects of recruitment: Immerse: Providing an immersive experience to prospective candidates to make them apply for jobs; Elevate: Assessment Centre aligned to Accenture’s consulting and innovation framework that evaluated 21 competencies in a robust manner. The assessment offered candidates to experience a day the life of a consultant; and Thrive: Re-imagining the new joiner orientation experience through a facilitated learning and engaging approach. Access the complete list of case studies in #TechHR18.

As we get ready to #TechHR19, we invite you to share your talent transformation challenges as we curate our agenda for February 2019 in Singapore and August 2019 in India. 

Here are the highlights for you:

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Topics: Others, #TechHR2018

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