Article: Demand for social, cloud technologies rises

Technology

Demand for social, cloud technologies rises

Changing demographics drive adoption of social,cloud and mobile technologies among HR firms
Demand for social, cloud technologies rises
 

HR leaders are seeking serviceproviders who combine technology anddomain expertise seamlessly

 

Changing demographics drive adoption of social, cloud and mobile technologies among HR firms

Globalisation, people mobility, multi-generational workforce and a renewed focus on company cultureare creating many new challenges for HR leaders. These challenges demand a need for policy homogeneity so that employees, no matter where they are located, have the same experience.

Besides learning to communicate to such a diverse workforce, one of the core areas that HR Leaders are relying on is Employee Recognition to overcome some of these new challenges.

There has been a sudden spurt of service providers catering to the rise in demand for outsourcing employee rewards and recognition (R&R) programmes. Until recently, employee recognition as a strategic component under total rewards was an under-invested area.

Now, there is a greater realisation among the HR leaders to have an evolved system that gives employee recognition a more structured, uniform and centralised approach whilst addressing challenges posed by the developments mentioned here earlier.

Globally, HR leaders are increasingly seeking service providers who combine technology with domain expertise and the ability to implement such initiatives seamlessly across the globe. Indian service companies are catching up to the trends in the technology features but have a long way to go in building global capabilities and the required thought leadership. The following trends are driving technology enhancements leading to development of new features:

Social recognition: Social apps like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. have become an integral part of our personal lives and employees are looking for social recognition and familiarity of such platforms in their work lives too. Hence, organisations are seeking platforms with Facebook/Twitter like functionalities.

Gamification: It is the new and exciting way that corporates are engaging employees to drive people and business strategy.

Health & Wellness: Technologies that allow organisations to give incentives to employees for keeping fit and healthy (and reduce healthcare costs of the company) are rapidly picking up.

Cloud Computing and SaaS: Many HRMS, CRM/ERP etc. have already moved to a SaaS model. For example, in the employee recognition space, the default expectation is a cloud-based solution. Very few companies are still stuck on the on-premise model but will find very few service providers catering to those requirements.

Mobile: For organisations with large field forces, it is important that a collaboration platform is available across all devices, especially mobile.

Cost savings, scalability and continuity are the common benefits of technology and outsourcing. To stay abreast with latest trends, companies are employing service providers that are capable of embracing the cloud and building scalable systems coupled with a strong domain expertise.

Rupak Ray is CRM, Loyalty and Head Recognition, BI WORLDWIDE 

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Topics: Technology, Strategic HR, #HRMetrics

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