The Tech to Change

Tim Ringo, Director at LACE Partners considers HR technology and why organisational change is required to support the digital workforce of the future.

Increasingly, CEOs and senior leaders are asking the question “Why are we digital at home but not so digital at work?” When you think about it, people have various consumer-grade technology devices at home that make them more productive in their social and home lives. People talk to Amazon’s Alexa and ask her to do and buy things for them. They use tablets to dim the lights or make the house warmer or colder – and now there’s a smart fridge that notifies us when food is outdated. With the help of an app, it also allows looking inside the refrigerator when shopping to spot what we might have forgotten to add to the shopping list.

As a result, senior leaders are pushing their organisations to create more end-to-end digital experiences to eliminate costs, reduce errors and improve performance while making their workplaces more attractive to increasingly digital-savvy workers. In addition, they want to put in place more human-centric technologies to make people better at their jobs.

Unfortunately, there is still too much implementation of technology for technology’s sake. Systems focused on process and compliance are rolled out continuously with poor communication to the workforce on how and why it is necessary, and what it should be used for. The result? Workers become overwhelmed. Yet, despite recent progress, there is still a substantial divide in understanding between IT, HR, and Operations teams on creating the best workplace that effectively uses digital technology to communicate, innovate and drive improved performance. Bridging this divide is exactly where the opportunity lies.

Leaders can ask themselves what the world of work would be like if they helped people harness technology to improve their jobs rather than making them redundant. They could go a step further, putting in place a digitally integrated workforce lifecycle that allows the organisation to match the perfect person to the perfect job – a job that gives purpose, the opportunity to master new things, drive innovation and improve performance. This involves getting the right people with the right skills and motivation in the right place at the right time. As a result, machines can work for and with people to make work more effective and fulfilling.

Mindset Change

Leaders, however, must first change a few things, such as mindset, skills, organisational structure and operating models.

Organisations can start with a change in mindset around what technology does and how it does it. The experiences need to change too. For example, software and apps should be designed solely for the workforce’s benefit, not the software developer’s convenience. They should also be intuitive and require virtually no training – similar to the apps people use on their mobile phones or tablets at home.

Secondly, a digital workplace requires new skills and capabilities. For example, holding a meeting on Zoom is very different from doing the same conference in person. Lifting the old analogue meetings and dropping them into the digital space is ineffective. Participants must learn new interaction skills and behaviours, while the meetings need new rules and parameters.

Change your workplace

Thirdly, organisational structures in the 21st century still mirror the hierarchical structures of the 19th and 20th centuries. Creating a digital workforce lifecycle inside a 200-year-old organisational structure simply codifies the old ways of doing things. As a result, nothing changes. Instead, we need more empowered, team-oriented structures to make the best use of the democratisation and collaboration that a digital workplace brings. Doing so frees up the organisation to be nimble and innovative, coming up with new operational policies, products and services.

Lastly, organisations need to retire the traditional operating models. This includes the belief that HR managers should be most responsible for talent management and talent development in the organisation. The centre of gravity for people management and development should be pushed out from HR and into the hands of the manager and the employee. Intuitive and intelligent workforce lifecycle technology provides them with the tools and empowerment to do recruitment, performance management, learning, succession and workforce deployment within their teams.

As a result, the job of HR becomes more “people performance advisor” than a process administrator. While, with HR, IT and operations working together – with investment from finance – the organisation can bridge the divide and create the digital workforce of the future.

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