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HR STRATEGY IN AN AGE OF DISRUPTION ‘The future of work for HR – how relevant is your people strategy?’ That was the theme of a recent roundtable discussion chaired by Rachel Chung, Unit4’s HR director, APAC. HRD sat down with Chung to discuss how and why HR must change with the times HRD: What are the key trends in the HR industry that are shaping the future of the workforce? Rachel Chung: HR is facing unprecedented levels of change, and in the last few years the pace has accelerated dramatically – with growth and globalisation, technology advancements, disruptive business models, and changing workforce demographics with evolving expectations and demands. It is important for HR professionals to stay on top of this shifting environment, to be proactive in responding to workforce expectations, not reactive. HR should essentially become a business function that helps to lead the way in delivering bottom-line results.
HRD: How can organisations leverage technology to engage and enable the workforce? RC: For many of us, work is an integral part of our lives; integral to us achieving personal goals, and providing fulfilment. That does not mean we want to spend hours completing unnecessary and tedious tasks or trying to find information that should be readily available. One of the main reasons people put more hours into work than is necessary is that we still haven’t fully embraced the possibilities that digitalisation can provide. Technology has a huge opportunity to deliver positive experiences that will help more people achieve fulfilment in their working lives.
By adopting social collaboration concepts and building engaging environments for sharing relevant information in an easily readable and contextual format, you can avoid people having to scan endless chains of emails or different intranets or file servers to find information. With proper digital solutions to run complex processes like budgeting and forecasting and resource and project management, and deliver online self-service reporting, the need for complex Excel sheets that only a handful of people in the organisation can understand is removed. In addition, looking at how mobile devices are constantly changing the way we conduct work, enabling employees to be able to work and collaborate anywhere, at any given time, is the key towards ensuring employee satisfaction. By mobilising the company’s workforce through self-service and mobile apps, businesses can offer employees a highly
personalised experience along with the flexibility of constantly being engaged.
HRD: What tips can you provide for organisations to increase workforce productivity? RC: The global economy is facing an increasingly serious workforce crisis in both capacity and capabilities. Where maintaining consistent productivity within the organisation was the target of the past, today that’s no longer enough. Productivity across the entire workforce must increase significantly due to the workforce challenges mentioned before, on top of maintaining competitiveness and meeting the evergrowing expectations of customers and stakeholders. Technology will play an important role in addressing the productivity issue. However, many companies are struggling with how to deploy technologies to make the workplace
LACK OF METRICS AND TOOLS IS HOLDING HR BACK
39% have ample data to understand strengths and potential vulnerabilities
38% use quantifiable metrics and benchmarking as part of workforce development strategy
42% know how to extract meaningful insights from the data available to them Source: Unit4
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