“The future of HR is no HR”

“The future of HR is no HR,” said SAP SuccessFactors president Mike Ettling in the report, HR Leader’s Playbook: Digital Transformation.

His rather poetic description of the future of the profession refers to the ways digital technology can help simplify and streamline HR practices that its functions start to become transparent.

“In this way, HR transforms itself from a perceived complication to a seamless enabler of the business,” claimed the report.

There are five ways that HR can fully embrace this transformation and the report lists down some innovative suggestions: 

Engage employees
To fully maximise employee engagement, Ettling said that it is important “to make sure the right people are in the right roles with the right capabilities [and] to provide easy access to systems from anywhere, on any device, with a consumer-grade experience.”

Encourage employees to learn and innovate
“Move away from traditional learning methods and leverage online and mobile learning platforms,” said the report, further encouraging HR leaders to formally introduce a mentoring program and to open collaborative online portals where employees can easily share institutional knowledge.

Manage total workforce
Be flexible in handling your teams, said Ettling. Think of your workforce as ‘self-employed professionals’ and allow them a way to be independent while remaining to be a team player. “A couple of ways to do this is to provide a consistent onboarding and offboarding experience across all worker types and to get one view of workforce planning needs,” said the report.

Streamline HR processes
“As the world gets smarter in the digital economy, complexity is killing the workforce in this pursuit. The 21st-century HR function needs to leverage intelligent and predictive technology,” said Ettling. The use of technology should not intimidate your workforce. Some strategies HR professionals need to focus on include “[empowering] the workforce with intuitive, easy-to-use systems and run an easy and simplified system to deliver real-time services to the organisation.”

Make data-driven decisions
According to the report, “companies that build capabilities in people analytics outperform their peers in quality hires, retention and leadership.” Utilize the power of analytics by using the algorithm to recruit new hires, respond swiftly to senior management requests, and track industry trends in order to benchmark against other organisations.