In the last two decades, technology has transformed the world, and the growing digital world is rapidly merging with our material reality, changing every part of our lives, leading industries, businesses in all sectors, and much more. Companies that wish to generate organisational memory and take immediate actions have begun to acknowledge the importance of digital transformation in a fast paced and evolving competitive market.
Digitization of human resources (HR) is one of such major trends influencing businesses, and it has grown in popularity significantly over time. With the advent of digital workplaces comes a plethora of alternatives. Human Resource leaders can transform their organisations and take their companies forward by implementing technology-enabled solutions with a customer-centric approach, relevant data, and the correct skills plan.
What is HR Digitization?
The phrase “HR Digitization” refers to the digital transformation that is currently influencing the human resources sector as a whole, which is mostly driven by advances in data collecting and analysis as well as numerous technologies.
Changes in Human Resources Processes as a Result of Digitization
Effects on Recruitment:
Previously, job seekers had to sift through newspapers in order to find good positions. It involved going through mounds of applications to identify the appropriate applicant for recruiters.
Recruiters now have the visibility, accessibility, and information they need to target the best applicants as around 60% of candidates utilise online job search sites and professional social networks to search for new jobs.
Organisations and recruiters use online resources and tools almost same as the job seekers and it is proven by the fact that more than 20 million firms are listed on professional network sites, and around 90% of recruiters use platforms like those on a daily basis.
Human resources departments are therefore investing in the development of innovative application tracking technologies to help them manage their jobs. In addition, doing the first round of interviews via video conferences has become regular. For modern enterprises, a digitised recruitment system has undoubtedly increased the speed, connection, and effectiveness of the hiring process.
Effects on Management:
It’s worth noting that the human resource department’s responsibilities don’t end with recruiting and firing. They are also involved with personnel management, which includes assessing performance, dealing with employee concerns on a daily basis, promoting productivity, and attending to their requirements, etc.
Multitasking is needed in management, which is where apps and software come in handy – organisations may choose from a variety of HR software to assist them manage their Human Resources more effectively.
What are the ways to digitize HR Practices?
Choose your priorities and objectives:
Human resources processes should be digitalized to meet more than just the department’s needs and expectations. Employees should be the true beneficiaries of a successful digital transformation. A purpose of digitization can be to allow employees to record training requests via the system. Another purpose could be to use digital technology to perform recruitment operations, which is a relatively complicated procedure.
Self-service app for employees:
Nowadays, mobile apps make everything simpler. Employees’ HR processes have been streamlined, and their interactions with the organisation have changed as a result of the adoption of smart apps. Employees can get transactional information without having to go to HR using mobile apps. This is one of the best example of “Employee Self-Service.”
Deloitte had been testing a system that keeps track of consultants’ billing hours and compares them to their peers. The technology uses the information to make intelligent recommendations for changing inefficient working patterns. Another programme listens to the user’s voice and diagnoses distress, allowing the employee to take steps to enhance his or her health.
Digitize Performance Evaluation Procedure:
It is impossible to use technology without human people, no matter how advanced it becomes. Implementing a realistic and fair performance evaluation has become essential in human resource management to ensure that employees can work in an effective, efficient, and comfortable environment. Performance assessment is a time-consuming procedure for both employees and management in businesses.
Automation in action:
Hours of manual labour are eliminated by automation. The processing of hundreds of medical claims, for example, is a typical example of a tiresome job that can be automated. Also, HR experts can spend their time more effectively in other processes by posting vacancies. Companies quickly adapt its solution because of its novel approach to solving an existing issue. Manual work, on the other hand, is prone to mistakes.
VR for Training and Interviews:
Learning is always better when it comes from practical, real-life experiences or practices. With the advent of virtual reality (VR), businesses can recreate real life situations during training, lowering travel costs, attracting a larger spectrum of eligible job seekers, and increasing employee engagement.
Drawbacks of Digitization
Human resources and recruitment must deal with piracy, cybercrime, data breaches, and viruses, to name a few of the consequences of digitalization.
As simple as it has become for HR stakeholders to operate with digital resources, hackers have found it just as simple to access these systems, mandating improved digital security across enterprises and industries.
This can be a considerable disadvantage, given the secrecy and personal nature of the information held by human resources.
Furthermore, while the abundance of information and ease of access has helped recruiters discover good candidates, it has also caused HR managers to face significant retention issues.
Rivals can effortlessly prey on best performers and allure them using the various communication channels available to today’s workforce.
This makes it more difficult to keep staff, requiring employers to be cautious about how they treat and compensate their employees.
Conclusion
However, the implementation of digital solutions for Human resource processes is vital for organisations as they offer numerous benefits such as reducing repetitive work, minimising the chances of making an error, and allowing HR to focus on more crucial tasks.
HR research and management are set to be revolutionised soon, since the process of hiring and managing people has gotten faster, easier, and more manageable, thanks to growing tech trends like advanced analytics which are used to rate prospective candidates.
References:
https://healthmetrics.com/m/10-hr-digitalisation-practices-that-you-can-implement-right-away/
https://www.cfr-group.com/how-does-digitization-impact-hr-and-recruitment/
Image Source: Adobe Stock
Author: Somasree Roy
