What is the role of technology in human resource management?

Technology has redefined the way we function today, including our professional lives. It has been designed to help us perform our work more efficiently, hence human resources management is no exception

Welcoming Digital Revolution

We today welcome the evolution of technology, which has now engulfed everything and beyond everyone’s imagination. Organisations are facing the need to reinvent and reorient themselves to technological disruptions to a new world of work. During unprecedented times, we have witnessed companies and employees adopt new skills and develop new behaviours which have enhanced the way we function. Such a gap has been bridged by greater collaboration and driving knowledge practices towards a more rampant use of technology. In the year 2020, the world welcomed the digital revolution at an accelerated rate, reimagining technology’s substantial role in how we work, learn and live. 

Technology has transformed every part of our lives and inevitably, it has had a considerable impact on Human Resource as well. In the recent years, organisations across the world have been extensively adopting HR technology practices from several software companies to streamline HR activities and usher in a new level of efficiency at work. 

Large corporates have assimilated to cutting edge human resource technologies and this leaves more room for HR leaders to be engaged and focused on their company’s overall strategy. Increasingly, HR managers are scouting for different tools to make the best use of technology for varied tasks in an organisation. HR technology is now being widely accepted and organizations have implemented technologies to ease the burden of work and improve the overall working experience for employees. Technology enhancement especially in HR is essential to create talent as a competitive advantage for the world along with enhancing workforce productivity at scale.

Pandemic Led Myriad Challenges

With the ever-evolving technology, the role of talent managers continues to broaden and now their responsibilities are aligned towards increasing productivity and employee engagement. Nowadays, there is an app for just about everything relating to workforce management in an organisation. Some of the top applications of HR tech today are smart recruitment, automation of repetitive tasks, employee engagement, employee development.

The pandemic led uncertainty has created myriad challenges for employees and HR managers as they struggle with the lack of clarity surrounding the future of work. During the last two years, Human resource managers have been dealing with this issue and continued to manage in a perpetual crisis mode. HR managers have been at the helm of this crisis as they scrambled to figure out how employees could effectively work from home while also providing various support mechanisms to ensure their mental and physical well-being. Organisations made an over-night pivot towards digitisation to provide access to systems remotely and facilitate work seamlessly.

Today, more than ever, HR is seen as a critical organisational function that has a significant bearing on the technology decisions undertaken by companies. Since employees are an indispensable touchpoint for companies, it has reinforced the importance of bringing HR tech closer to employees. Now digital technology has completely redefined the face of HR management. From workforce planning to day-to-day tasks and employee management, technology has pervaded every function of HR. With the onset of such a digital imperative, the fundamental outlook of HR has also undergone a significant change. Tech used in HR is no longer just transactional, but it carries a transformative and strategic relevance in today’s day and age. Critical functions like payroll, time management and other admin operations are now entirely tech-driven and allow business partners to prioritize employee productivity and talent development from a holistic perspective.

Importance Of Reskilling And Upskilling

Accelerated digitisation has completely transformed the future of work and the onus of reskilling and upskilling employees on a regular basis is on the HR department. Corporates are now upscaling their behavioural skill and other learning programmes to guide employee’s personal and professional development. Learning the latest tools and keeping abreast with the industry movement is vital to an employee’s ability to create value in a sustained manner. During the pandemic, training and learning programmes took on a whole new dimension with HR tech as more interactive and gamified tools were used to facilitate skilling. Employees are constantly being urged to utilise technology and adopt the best industry practices for improving their growth trajectory. Through such large-scale skilling initiatives, companies are giving employees an opportunity to constantly keep themselves updated with the latest industry trends. 

Moreover, now HR is specifically focusing on designing and developing learning programmes that enhance the performance and productivity of employees. It is important to reassess learning gaps to bridge employees with the adequate level of application-based knowledge and experience. HR tech has revolutionized the future of HR departments through better employee scheduling and tracking, easier access to crucial information, improved talent management, improved talent management, cost reduction, security, and privacy. It is quite evident that HR tech is no longer an option but an inevitability. During the ongoing pandemic, HR technology has continued to serve as a key asset for HR leaders and made the remote workforce easier. HR departments have been credited to flawlessly align cross-functional resources and make smarter, data-driven decisions for everyday tasks. 

Adoption of technology in the HR sphere is necessary as it boosts productivity, increases creativity, and improves overall employee engagement. As the demand of top talent rises, businesses will continue to look for better employee management software solutions. In a progressively volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, organizations that are implementing HR tech effortlessly are far likelier to hold on to talent and construct efficiency.  To remain relevant in today’s world HRs should adopt to tech advancements and prepare themselves to ensure they have the appropriate abilities to successfully navigate the new digital world.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house

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The recruitments are planned across verticals and include IT developers, specialized accountants, audiovisual engineers, graduates, and others

IndoStar Capital Finance Limited (“IndoStar”), one of India’s retail non-banking financial companies, today announced the appointment of Deep Jaggi as Chief Executive Officer. R. Sridhar will continue as Vice Chairman of IndoStar until the end of his five-year term on 17th April 2022.

Over the past five years, R. Sridhar has ably led the transformation of IndoStar from a corporate lender to a retail-focused financier and steered the organisation through a challenging period resulting from Covid-19.

In his current role as Chief Business Officer (CBO) of IndoStar, Deep has been responsible for the overall retail business development and collections. Under his leadership, the retail business has established a pan-India presence by adding resources in the North and East regions. Jaggi brings with him over two decades of rich experience with HDB Financial (a wholly-owned subsidiary of HDFC Ltd.), Cholamandalam and Apollo Tyres. He will now lead IndoStar through its next phase of retail growth and value creation.

Bobby Parikh, Chairman, IndoStar, said, "With this change, we are paving the way for a seamless leadership transition. We thank Sridhar for his contribution and believe IndoStar will benefit tremendously from Deep’s extensive retail lending experience. We wish Deep and Sridhar the very best."

R Sridhar, Vice Chairman, IndoStar, said, “Deep has not only been an effective Chief Business Officer but has also proven himself to be a successful leader. He is the perfect choice to lead IndoStar through its next phase of growth and scale-up. I wish him all the best in the new role.”

Deep Jaggi, CEO, IndoStar, said, “IndoStar is a well-capitalized NBFC. We have built a pan-India retail platform by investing ahead of the curve in teams and technology. I am honored to take on the new responsibility and excited about the growth potential of IndoStar.”

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By: Maria Bychkova

Technology has changed the way we do almost everything, including work. Our professional life relies on the Internet and multiple applications designed to help us perform our work more efficiently. Human resources management is no exception. Individuals who have earned an HR Certification in Canada know how to use different tools and technology to effectively manage their workplaces. Here some ways technology assists HR professionals.

Recruitment

Hiring talent is one of the primary roles of human resources professionals. Various tech solutions assist them in running the recruitment process smoothly. Most of the openings today are posted online and the applications are routed through a unified platform. with the requirement that job seekers also apply online through a special system. It’s easier and faster to review the unified application forms rather than resumes and cover letters formatted in many different ways. Recruiters nowadays are also using automated resume screening systems to filter out the applications that are not relevant to the position.

Background check

Screening job candidates is very time-consuming. Many recruiters today use social media while running background checks on candidates. They use these channels, especially LinkedIn, to find more about their work experience and skills and so on. However, this isn’t always the right approach or the only approach for filtering candidates. Individuals who have an HR Certifications in Canada know that social media background checks can’t predict on-the-job performance. Moreover, there is no standardized procedure for this kind of checks.

Employee management

There are lots of day-to-day personnel management tasks that are performed by the HR department. Maintaining staff files, tracking their attendance and work hours, following the progress of their work tasks and evaluating performance are just a few examples. Technology has allowed HR teams to save a lot of time and effort while performing these routine duties and enabled them to focus on more complex projects instead.

Strategic planning

Another important aspect of human resources management is conducting research, collecting and analyzing data and preparing reports on the company’s workforce, and future trends. In the digital world, data analysis is done efficiently and effortlessly. HR certifications in Canada now focus more on teaching future professionals on how to interpret the results and implement them; use these insights for strategic planning and development of an organization.

Communication

Facilitating communication between the employees and departments is the key function of HR managers. By introducing messengers, file sharing systems and project management tools, HR eases the interaction between coworkers from different departments. However, an over-reliance on technology can be detrimental. Employees may rely excessively on online communication and try to avoid in-person interactions altogether.

The way HR department communicates with the employees has also changed significantly. Most modern companies have Intranet to share internal resources, exchange news and updates, store documents and policies, plan events and activities, etc. Intranet also provides HR with an opportunity to measure employee engagement, expose communication gaps and come up with solutions.

Learning and development

The curriculum of HR certifications in Canada also includes training future HR professionals on how to develop employee learning programs and activities. Nowadays a lot of the training is done digitally and is catered to individual needs. It allows HR teams to track progress and measure effectiveness against the set goals. Online training sessions and webinars have been widely adopted by HR departments as practical tools for employee development. They also work well for geographically-dispersed teams.

Technology is constantly developing, and the software solutions utilized by HR managers will become only smarter. There will be new tools and applications that would continue to solve major pain areas of HR, save time and effort and increase the effectiveness of HR activities. The only thing to remember is to ensure that human interaction and social support still play an important role in employee management and that people continue to be treated like people, not machines.

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