Almost everyone has had a tough job that they really found hard to cope with on a professional level at some point in their lifetime. In those kinds of roles, the Human Resources (HR) function can feel like quite an emotional lifeline.
With so many of our ERP workplace services now being delivered and managed via digital channels, HR platforms could be perceived as a cold robotic extension of the mothership by workers if their end user functionality does not provide that humanising element that we all need.
Enterprise cloud finance and HR company application Workday must be delivering the right kind of digital empathy at Google HQ; the search and cloud giant is now using an additional set of Workday products to support its global workforce.
Upping the HR ante this year are implementations of Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday Extend, Workday Prism Analytics and Workday Strategic Sourcing.
In addition, as part of its ongoing investment in talent management strategies, Google will expand its current use of Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), adding new applications to deliver enhanced employee experiences.
A cloud-based people system
According to Workday, Google has what is being called a ‘flexible cloud-based people system’ to plan, execute, analyse and extend… helping it meet the requirements for today’s still rapidly changing post-pandemic.
“The expanded use of Workday HCM solutions will help Google continue to drive talent optimization, personalised journeys and suggested learning, while further streamlining its HR management operations,” said the Workday, in a press statement.
VP of corporate engineering for people operations (what Google calls HR) at Google Arvind KC says that Workday is the ‘backbone’ of his firm’s HCM suite.
“In today’s evolving world of work, organisations like Google are investing in technologies that can adapt and scale with their business at an accelerated pace,” said David Somers, group general manager, office of the CHRO, Workday. “Workday offers customers the ability to plan, execute, analyze and extend in a single system, which is why customers like Google continue to increase their footprint with Workday as they advance their digital initiatives.”
There’s an old HR joke…
There’s an old joke in the people management business as recounted by people in today’s digital skills and workplace empowerment professionals.
“What’s the difference between old-fashioned ‘personnel’ and the new world of Human Resources and Human Capital Management? If you really want to know… it’s about £20,000 a year.”
Get it? A lot of this can look like smoke and mirrors unless the new breed of HR is delivered in a meaningful way that really elevates the way we look at workplace functionality differently.
The notion of a job-for-life may be gone, but the need to deliver HR digitally with human relevance must be part of the way we extend ERP systems today and into the future.
