In today’s talent-driven economy, maneuvering technology solutions to optimize employee engagement, wellness, retention and inclusion is equally important as enhancing your customer experience.

Business landscapes globally are changing more rapidly than ever. Dynamic Culture, Emerging Technologies, Evolving Practices, and Demanding People, everything is at a crossroads, and HR organizations must balance these and develop new capabilities to stay relevant!

The transformation journey is different for every organization. HR transformation typically entails redesigning HR functions to support strategic business objectives. Until yesterday, HR leaders focused on making HR functions effective, efficient, and compliant; today, the imperative for HR leaders is to not only support the business strategies but also enable them. What does this mean?

This means transforming the HR function that thinks ahead of time and develops standards and capabilities to enable businesses to expand, operate, and thrive in newer environments. From a talent perspective, an important driver of business growth and more so in the post-pandemic era, HR leaders must develop new strategies that support the organization's growth objectives.

Business Drivers that Impact HR Function:

Let us also look at a few drivers which are generic to all organizations and how the HR function can develop capabilities to support and facilitate their business strategies.

1. Fast Expanding Markets (FME): Many companies are exploring new markets and pursuing growth opportunities. For these growth strategies to sustain, they need to improve their ability to build and manage a global workforce. They must create environments in which global and virtual teams can thrive.

A few of the areas where HR leaders need to concentrate are:

(a) Improved mobility programs that makes travel which facilitates employee movement from one location to another.

(b) Standardised HR processes and systems to enter the new market.

(c) New and improved staffing models like outsourcing, contingent workers, and partnerships to increase the talent pool.

2. Talent Management: We are experiencing a gig-economy post covid 19 wherein the talent landscape has completely changed. The job market is flooded with opportunities and there is a shortage of skilled resources or rather skilled resources joining the organizations. Jobs are shifting from a matured market where talent is expensive and demanding to emerging markets where resources are inexpensive and willing to experiment. This change requires HR folks to redesign policies. Some organizations are at an influx, where the seasoned workforce is replaced by millennials or gen Z talent. This new generation requires new talent management capabilities in the areas of leadership development, mentoring and training, diversity and inclusion, etc HR leaders need to be cognizant of these demands and take appropriate measures to develop the same.

3. Innovation: Innovation is a competitive weapon that could give HR leaders breakthrough ideas and continuous improvement inputs. Innovative ideas can come from employees at any level of the growth curve and therefore it is important to provide opportunities and platforms for these people to collaborate, share ideas, and brainstorm on possible outcomes. HR leaders play a significant role in bringing people closer to each other and fostering a culture of continuous innovation. This way the employees feel more valued and helps create a sense of commitment leading to lesser churn and disconnect.

4. Emerging technologies: New talent has access to new technologies like mobile devices, and cloud applications and makes use of platforms like social media to connect and communicate with the organization. These are powerful tools to engage the workforce beyond the formal office setup. Channels like these could be explored to keep employees engaged, create brand advocates, instill a feeling of commitment and value, and also gather conscious feedback. HR can exploit new technologies to satisfy employee demands and deliver new innovations quickly.

5. Risk and Compliance: While HR has all the liberty to explore technology and innovation, they must deliver services that are compliant with local labor laws and workforce regulations. The data privacy and security guidelines also cross over to the HR function and they play an important role in creating a culture where employees understand the full impact of their actions and take smart risks that are consistent with the organization’s policies and objectives.

PEOPLE, PROCESS, and TECHNOLOGY are the three known and important pillars of any organization.

While people can be trained and nurtured to align with organizational goals and processes can be defined and developed to get the desired outcomes, Technology is the medium to achieve the expected results.

A smart Human resource management system that takes care of your core HR processes to manage and track the day-to-day HR activities efficiently is the basis of your transformation. Time and attendance, performance management, Training and development, Payroll and compensation, claims settlement, travel desk and compliance management are the important areas that a smart HRMS automates and monitors. Workforce analytics help you with relevant data and enables smart decision-making ensuring optimum HR service delivery.

We at Probus, have a proven HRMS system that caters to all the important aspects of HR and employee management. We have been serving more than 100 clients in the HR automation space. At Probus, we believe that though every organization aims for HR transformation, each organization is at a different phase of its growth journey and therefore has unique requirements. We consult and help such organizations find the right fit for their companies to gain the most from their tech investments.