Are HR leaders fully prepared for the impacts of digital transformation?

Employers need to stay on top of the changing needs of the digital workforce

BY HRD 31 Oct 2017

Scott Davidson, GM of Synchrony Global ANZ – SAP Gold Partner – says employers need to stay on top of the changing needs of the digital workforce

Do you think HR leaders are fully prepared for the impacts of digital transformation?

I recently read that 44% of CEO’s say the prevalence of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will make people “largely irrelevant” in the future of work. I think that, at least in the short term, the role of HR leadership is to ensure that their workforce is skilled and equipped to add meaningful value to their organisation. Undoubtedly this will involve significant adoption of cloud-based digital tools and applications to automate processes and improve capability.

Just as marketers have discovered the power of chatbots to personalize a shopping experience, HR leaders are starting to pilot chatbots to transform the employee experience. According to the Korn Ferry study, 33% of HR teams are using some form of AI technology to deliver HR solutions, and 41 percent are actively building mobile apps to deliver HR services.

What can HR leaders do prepare for a digital workforce?

First and foremost, HR needs to become core strategic function that is a driving force in an organisation’s digital transformation. Successful organisations will build a holistic digital transformation strategy which looks to engage customers, empower employees, optimise operations and transform products.

HR leaders also need to embed a learning culture and drive innovation by championing a change management methodology of “adopt, then adapt”… with continuous improvement. They also need to move away from traditional employee training and leverage online and mobile learning platforms.

Finally, HR leaders should realise the tangible advantages that digital transformation can enable in terms of driving stronger employee engagement, improving capability to manage talent, and enabling higher levels of process efficiency and automation.

In your experience, how do we achieve high levels of employee adoption of a HRIS implementation.

Our customers recognise the importance of rapid delivery and immediate, cost-effective adoption in benefit case realisation, which is why Synchrony Global’s unique delivery method is simple, rapid and scalable; removing the complexity of traditional IT implementations and making transformative HRIS solutions deployable in days.

We also recommend HR Leaders take a best practice approach by choosing the leading out-of-the -box configured software, rather than customising to inferior or soon to be redundant requirements. SAP SuccessFactors is at the forefront of HCM cloud technology, and has a user friendly, consumer-grade digital interface, which when combined with our SyncPilot – powered by Walk Me solution, creates an intuitive user experience with “GPS-like” guidance for digital processes. This helps facilitate high levels of HRIS user adoption, addresses the employee digital skills gap, increases employee engagement levels, and allows companies to fully realise their investment in cloud technology.