The Human Resource sector hasn’t always been the way it is today. It’s been a long journey that started with operating from conference rooms, devising basic protocols for the staff for the better functioning of their organizations to them now, planning the overall working of companies and driving their strategic growth along with ensuring the empowerment of the personnel. The HR sector has undergone dynamic transitions in its roles, tasks and inthe overarching impact that it has in shaping organizations and the advent of modern technology, has a lot to do with it. 39% ofthe surveyed 1200 global HR executives from 64 countries state that they are harnessing the resources and insights to redefine outdated models, and implement technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, digital labour and analytics and to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in their organizations’ work, reveals a recent report done by KPMG.

Redefining the Recruitment Process

Recruitment has been one of the primary functions of the HR department. And the demand for talent is at an all-time high, with the bar only set to go up which is directly proportional to the scarcity in the talent market. Logically, the best way to stay in the game is by ensuring that the right people are hired, motivated empowered as employees and individuals and retained. And technology has made it easier for this to happen.

With the talent pool being global, technology has made us forget about distance being an issue in interviewing or taking up a new job. Where fifteen years back, an employer couldn’t have thought of interviewing a candidate over a Skype call, today, we aren’t just capable of doing that, but also have the social media platforms function as employee recruitment portals.You never know, one moment you’re scrolling through your Facebook news feed and just in the other, you might land up grabbing a great career opportunity. Furthermore, technologies such as psychometric evaluation at the time of recruitment help in better understanding of the employees’ capabilities, strengths and weaknesses before they are hired and help to measure the time-to-time growth of the employees.

Better Evaluation and Analysis

As mentioned earlier, companies now are equipped with advanced practices which help them choose personnel better suited for jobs. With the help of digital evaluation and analyzing techniques, even employees can easily access their track record and discover any improvement opportunities. Tech. such as Predictive Analytics has become a game changer for the industry. Helping the HR managers with insights, it can take unprocessed data and extract actionable insights which can be applied to everyday processes and operations, smoothening the working environment and ensuring better employer-employee relationships.Technological advances in performance evaluation&analysis and help decentralize hierarchy leaving employees with more decision-making power in their hands. 

Skilling and Upskilling the Personnel

Skilled personnel are never easy to find and with technology advancing at a wild speed, upskilling the staff regularly is needed now more than ever. Since mainstream education doesn’t serve the purpose, it becomes the duty of the Human Resource Management to take this forward and enroll their newly hired employees for skill-based training sessions and workshops. This ensures that employees are ready to further their respective roles as they have been provided with robust training in their respective field. 

This is where technology also needs to come in play, ensuring the integral development of an organization, as well as the growth of an employee individually. We have already discussed some of the uses of AI, but the technology comes with more than one type of benefits. In synergy with technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, which help create digital set-ups of real-world scenarios and problems, AI helps engineer practices such as simulations and mock drills, helping employees to deal with complex tasks before they perform those on the job.

The world is going digital, and so should the HR sector and it becomes the responsibility of the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) to find the perfect balance between the balance of merging of human capability with technology. Where, it’s a given that technology can not completely replace manpower, it can be used well to benefit the working of companies to a great deal. Using technology to upskill the employees and using the benefits of automation across various sectors especially in a high volume of repetitive tasks freeing employee time would the personnel focus on tasks that create higher value and at the same time leveraging the traits  such as creativity, communication, empathy etc. which are unique to humans would add to the  organization’s growth.

2019 is the first time when 5 different generations are working under a roof together. With Gen Z also coming into the picture, the HR policies should so be devised that they help bring the best out of all generations present and keep in line with the changing trends of the industry, all the whilemaintaining a balance with the developing technologies.