DIGITAL TSUNAMI. The roadmap to becoming a digital HR rock star

Technology is forcing organisations to re-imagine their business. Business models, payment systems and even the competitive landscape are getting transformed. To stay in the business, leaders have had to digitally invest in transforming their organisations.

The best place to begin the digital journey is to start re-imagining the employee experience. This time it is HR that has to take the lead. In the analogue world, HR has been the guardian of processes. Processes create silos within the organisation. Experiences often cut across processes.

To compete in the marketplace on speed, firms have to flatten organisation structures and empower cross-functional teams to make decisions. That is the only way in which decision-making can be done in real time. These behaviours need a different organisational culture.

Without transforming the employee experience, it is hard for employees to change the behaviours that have made them successful in the analogue world. The same behaviours will become a barrier as the organisation goes digital. Digital is really not about technology. It is about putting the human being at the centre.

HR in the analogue world is a boundary-keeper. HR defines a process for the organisation and then ensures that everyone follows the process. Digital organisations turn this premise on its head. The individual is at the centre and the organisation aims to craft an experience that is mutually rewarding. The focus is on experience design and not process.

Take learning and development, for instance. In the analogue world the focus is on training people using standardised content. The participants are nominated to attend a training programme once or twice a year. The classroom is a place to transfer content.

It is a one-size-fits-all. In the digital world, the belief is that learning happens when there is a pull from the learner. That means letting the learner decide the pace of learning. It is byte-size and just in time for the learner to apply it to solve a problem. Learning is individualised and cuts across disciplines. Content is free and available in plenty. The learner has to contextualise the learning.

Rewrite the job descriptions: Step one of the journey is to rewrite every job description in the HR team (including the CHROs) to leverage mobile, AI and analytics. Chatbots can do a better job of employees’ query resolutions in real time. Today bots are available off the shelf to help an organisation track employee engagement, run reports, update dashboards and respond to query resolutions. Chatbots can be leveraged to do predictive analytics.

It is a myth to think digital is about giving up the human touch. Technology augments the capability of the HR person. It enables building an individual experience. Facebook tells you ahead of time that your friend’s birthday is coming up. That in no way comes in the way of your creating a personalised greeting for the friend.

Know the customer’s world: Send every member of the HR team to get an immersive view of the employment experience of your organisation. That means letting them do 30-day long projects with the sales team in the field. By working with the sales team, they will understand the challenges the sales team experiences. They will also get a better understanding of what could delight the customer. This is a better approach to building business acumen in the HR team.

When the HR team is back, ask them to re-imagine the experience of what it means to be a salesperson. The immersive experience of being in the shoes of a salesperson (or any other role) can build empathy. Challenge the HR team to come up with AI-powered bots that can help the salesperson become more effective. That could mean analysing competition or creating dashboards that explain customers’ buying patterns.

Run what-if sessions: Run what-if sessions every Friday (or any other day of the week, but fix the day) by inviting a diverse group of employees to team with HR to design policies for employees. I have done it, and believe me the employees behave far more rationally and responsibly than we think. The teams that are working on problems should not be more than 5-7-person teams and they should be able to complete the design and implementation in 30-45 days. If the team comes up with a problem that needs more than 45 days, ask them to break the problem into smaller chunks.

Use what-if triggers to ignite the imagination and help re-frame problems. For example, if a startup were to design this process, what technologies would it leverage? What if you could design a new tech-enabled office space to increase collaboration?

You do not need to send everyone to attend a training programme on how to build a digitally-savvy HR team. Encourage the team to educate themselves for 30 days about the technologies. Encourage them to use their network to talk to various startups in this space. Be prepared to make small investments. The journey will be well worth it.

(Abhijit Bhaduri is a coach and leadership development consultant)