4 Principles of Successful Digital HR Transformation

It is becoming easier and easier to conduct the transactions of our daily lives without interacting with a human. Self check-out at the grocery store. Filing our taxes online. Paying our highway tolls without handing over cash or coin.

Why, then, does it sometimes feel different to think of technology “doing HR”? Here are a few ways technology and human resources are intersecting these days:

• The Mya chatbot from Firstjob can do away with as much as 75% of candidate questions during recruiting
• New employees at Royal Bank of Canada get to meet their new team members virtually prior to their first day
• IBM reduced waiting time for employees to get answers to 200 common questions by implementing a cognitive assistant
• IBM also scrapped its old content management system in favor of a digital learning platform that gives employees autonomy regarding what needs to be published, proposes training based on individual learning and experience levels, and incorporates externally-sourced information

Even if all these technological advances have the potential to increase organizational speed and agility, they won’t matter if leadership isn’t onboard, middle management is unsure of what direction to take, and employees don’t trust something they don’t understand.

Make sure your organization has taken each of these four principles into account to achieve digital transformation success:

Know Your Starting Point

Long before making purchasing decisions about HR technology, assess your organization’s current baseline. Diletta D’Onofrio of SnapLogic notes the importance of being aware of any skills gaps early on. The human resources department may need to add additional resources with digital or change management expertise, for example. Digital transformation, she notes, is likely to challenge existing processes and roles.

Assess the Best HR Technology Options for Your Organization

As is the case with any procurement, due diligence is critical. Take the time in advance to delineate what you want, what criteria you expect in a vendor, and how you will evaluate the best choice.

Make sure to have potential vendors perform demonstrations customized to your organizations’ needs, rather than a cookie-cutter approach.

Confirm reliability records and security protocols for cloud-based platforms. Find out if the solution can grow with your organization, along with how much say you will have in changes and additions over the course of time.

Be Willing to Eliminate the “Old Way”

Digital transformation is called “transformation” for a reason: it’s not easy! HR will retain its traditional responsibilities, but be expected to, as Deloitte says, “rewrite the rules.”

The challenge? Not that many organizations are doing that much re-writing yet, with SAP reporting that only 17% of organizations have integrated HR with their talent management systems.

Embrace Transparency

Silos are going away, and very little is shrouded in secrecy any longer. “Transparency is becoming a standard in the world of HR and talent,” notes Deloitte. Examples include salary repositories like Payscale, Glassdoor and LinkedIn Salary, that accumulate high volumes of salary information anonymously to aid other employees in their research.

Transparency extends far beyond salary, though. Digitally-savvy applicants want the work experience to look like the rest of life, with information easily accessible.

Speaking to his experience with millennials, David Reid, CEO of Ease Central, said, “They are analytical and they want access to on-demand information immediately…”

Will Machines Know Your Employees Better Than You Do?

One transition taking place in digital HR is the increased use of machine learning and artificial intelligence. While some robots depend on humans to program them, others are technologically capable of learning processes in order to make “decisions.”

Machine learning is the power behind human capital management systems figuring out why one employee may be best suited to apply for that accounting opening whereas an employee with different strengths and performance metrics should be directed toward operations.

Machine learning can even be used to try to eliminate bias in recruitment and hiring decisions.

No matter what buttons are pressed and “1’s” and “0’s” are put together to recruit, retain and manage, it’s important to remember that all the technology in the world pales in comparison to knowing your organization is glad you’re around.

This article was first published on FOW Media.