“Head of HR wanted, must be fluent in HCM technology” the job ads read, as Adrian Bridgwater speaks to Workday, IBM, HireVue and Zoho Europe on why thriving in HR’s developing role means more than just understanding people.
With the rise of larger organizations came the pressing need for some way to keep abreast of workplace safety, legal compliance and employee welfare. From its humble and somewhat limited beginnings in the early 1900s, human resources departments and the regulations that guide them have thankfully developed drastically. As responsibilities have ballooned, an HR manager today generally makes an above-inflation rate of pay order of magnitude more than their predecessors, who, caught between a rock and a hard place, have often been viewed as only somewhat successful at lending a kind ear in an attempt to soften the C-suite’s rough hand.
Today, amongst ever weighing legal matters, employee well-being and company productivity, packaging HR into workplace analysis and management systems arguably makes for a neater departmental wrapper. Give it a two or even three-letter acronym (HR is of course twinned with HCM, or human capital management) and organize people into so-called workflows with key performance indicators (KPIs), then we can generally charge more for the privilege. If the post-millennial approach to workplace support is then twinned with finance functions, ERP and an occasional sprinkling of project management, then we’re really in a different world.
The question then arises, now we have more software to support us, is work better in our new HR and HCM-supported utopias? You’ve heard of quiet quitting, so to turn it on its head, are we close to quiet thriving amidst HR tech?
We surely haven’t created some of these HR functions and systems simply for the sake of it… So, how have modern software applications been part of the improvement process that has and will continually serve to look after our work-life balance and ensure we can work in democratic systems of meritocracy?
The age of digitalized HR
As the HR and HCM department now evolves with the new accelerating automation of AI behind and beneath them, we can perhaps reflect upon our own experiences of this still essential workplace function in the hope that we are now leaning towards ever-higher stands of bias control and a more enlightened approach to fairness when it comes to HR matters in the workplace.
Though there is fear of welcoming technology into that essential “human area” of HR, software will of course help hugely with management here and, if implemented right, fairness too. For instance, as the curriculum vitae cum résumé (let’s use both terms to be transatlantically balanced) becomes a more digitally encoded entity, we should be working to build our AI models appropriately to read them. Crucially, the range of skills and competencies a person has can ideally be assessed more holistically and quickly than by any individual human being.
Recent LinkedIn research suggested that the application of AI in the modern workplace will mean that the skills needed for jobs will evolve and change by two-thirds (65 percent) by 2030. This then is big data HR; it’s more information than any one individual can handle, and it may be more than many legacy databases can help support.
This reality is then showcased in parallel when it comes to employee onboarding. With HR now having to shoulder a huge amount of new worker support services from pre-boarding set up of identity management, to delivering training modules, to establishing corporate accounts for certain staff, then onward to remote device management for field workers and let’s not forget a team welcome lunch too (with food allergies appropriately accounted for) where location allows.
New innovation and application developments will directly impact employee wellbeing, workplace productivity and (one would sincerely hope) organizational sustainability for the planet – Andi Britt, IBM Consulting
According to Andi Britt, senior partner for IBM Talent Transformation at IBM Consulting, modern software applications have been part of the HR improvement process for some time now, but today we are seeing AI increasingly embedded and integrated into all processes to help drive a step change forward in experience and design.
“While the design of ERP systems predates the emergence of AI and particularly generative AI, they do offer a rich and reliable source of data that AI platforms can draw upon for insights, which really makes this space an ideal breeding ground for new innovation and application developments that will directly impact employee wellbeing, workplace productivity and (one would sincerely hope) organizational sustainability for the planet,” says Britt.
Human workplace change
As a human workplace specialist who has been a change and workforce leader for most of his career, Britt now proposes that enterprise AI software applications have now come of age. This is no small part due to the emergence of so-called copilot assistant functions that can a) help developers to design HR apps to be more performant and b) also act as comparatively simpler (yet often no less sophisticated) bots to answer queries, perform transactions and provide summarized recommendations with a speed and reliability that would have been almost unthinkable even five years ago.
“For many organizations, the conversational interface within their underlying HR systems will be people’s prime access to the ERP layer itself,” states IBM’s Britt. “In working practice, this means that these workers may never need to access the core ERP platform itself, but simply type or speak their query to a chatbot. This requires organizations to rethink their HR operating model i.e. they need to decide who will need to speak to an HR help desk or HR business partner if the HR virtual assistant can provide the answer or perform the transaction faster and more reliably.”
There’s no question – human management systems are evolving and the terminology we use to describe how people execute tasks is changing. We have rapidly grown accustomed to terms like workflow, cross-functional team structure and (if you can stomach it) so-called “ideation” on the road to creating new ideas.
“The HR function is indeed transforming quickly, with AI at the heart of this change,” says Rich Bye, vice president of human capital management and workforce product strategy at Workday. “At Workday, we want to make sure that the way we deploy new technologies, including AI, is always people-centered and improves human lives. To ensure that technology continues to benefit people and helps them do their work effectively, we need to ensure that HR systems are used (and trained) in a responsible and intentional way.”
AI should be a way to help people work better, instead of as a tool to reduce headcount. To thrive while keeping their people happy, businesses need to focus on arming their people with the best tools – Rich Bye, Workday
Bye suggests that enterprises need to be “very thoughtful” in their approach when implementing HR solutions across their organization. When implementing AI-powered HR systems, chief human resources officers (CHROs) and what he likes to call “people leaders” need to be asking questions like: What are we trying to achieve? How will this benefit my team? Will it drive productivity for employees and our business overall?
“AI should be viewed as a way to help people work better, instead of as a tool to reduce headcount. To thrive while keeping their people happy, businesses need to focus on arming their people with the best tools to complete tasks at pace and with ease,” adds Workday’s Bye.
We’ve been here before
As embryonic and ground-breaking as many in the tech industry would have us believe, we have been here before to some degree – AI in hiring isn’t a new phenomenon, it has been used for employment decision-making for several years. This reality is highlighted by Tom Cornell, senior I/O psychology consultant at human potential intelligence company HireVue.
AI-powered HR platforms are poised to gain popularity, especially among businesses aiming to drive significant improvements in their DE&I initiatives, to foster growth and empower internal mobility, Tom Cornell, HireVue
“Despite this truth, AI-powered HR (and indeed ERP) platforms are poised to gain popularity, especially among businesses aiming to drive significant improvements in their diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, to foster growth and empower internal mobility,” says Cornell, while firmly underlining the fact that the appeal of AI in this context goes beyond mere talent identification for job roles.
“The implementation of AI in this context enables consistent and unbiased evaluation of hiring decisions, it enables organizations to generate reports and analytics that empower businesses to assess their strategies and ensure alignment with diversity goals while addressing talent gaps and biases in the hiring process. Given that many firms are unsure where to begin with this transformative process, having a benchmarking tool to assist them will greatly support decision-making by business leaders,” he adds.
Cornell’s colleague Dr Lindsey Zuloaga concurs with his views in her role as chief data scientist at HireVue. Pointing out that 2024 will be something of a seminal year for the application of AI-driven HR technology, as companies further automate their hiring processes, she asks us to take a step back and remember that these tech-fueled techniques need to be grounded in human behavioral sciences.
Any solution worth implementing must be built on a strong foundation of occupational psychology, bias mitigation and ethics. Once those boxes are checked it’s safe to charge ahead – Dr Lindsey Zuloaga, HireVue
“While rule-based algorithms and even machine learning are already successfully used by most companies – from resume screening to intelligent chatbots – it often feels like there’s a race to implement the latest, greatest tools. Companies would do well to remember that any solution worth implementing must be built on a strong foundation of occupational psychology, bias mitigation and ethics. Once those boxes are checked it’s safe to charge ahead,” clarifies Dr Zuloaga.
It’s a point worth repeating and resonating; as much as we use technology to underpin our approach to people management, it is still essentially all about people, so we must retain our ability to inject empathy and compassion into workplace systems, even when they are digitally encoded, encapsulated and enabled. In aggregate terms though, the transformation from traditional personnel management to modern HR and HCM systems has seen a huge leap in efficiency.
Sridhar Iyengar, managing director for Zoho Europe, laments the fact that HR departments have always sat on a pile of data. But, optimistically, he thinks that seamless AI integration into our existing HR technology platforms brings about the potential for significant change, enabling efficient and much deeper people analytics to help boost the experience. In this new world, employees no longer have to sift through multiple files to find answers. They can self-serve for many inquiries using chatbots and connect with their HR teams no matter where they work.
The HR technologist
New technology including AI in HCM and ERP is changing the game and playing a pivotal role in reshaping work culture and fostering growth – Sridhar Iyengar, Zoho Europe
“With this technological evolution, HR technologist roles are rising up in popularity,” enthuses Iyengar. “HR teams must modernize through embracing the technology to continue to offer compelling and competitive services to their employee base. Employees are continually seeking a better experience at work and expect companies to use modern technology to enable them to do their jobs more easily. It is no different with how they wish to be managed or to be able to use HR services. New technology including AI in HCM and ERP is changing the game and playing a pivotal role in reshaping work culture and fostering growth.”
As the HR tech space is heating up, Iyengar insists that it is “imperative” for organizations and HR teams to evaluate what’s best for the business to modernize, before getting locked in to hefty supplier contracts for multiple years. “For businesses spanning across multiple geographies, the needs are more complex with stringent privacy and compliance laws. Today, the technology is in place to ensure businesses are on the right side of law without compromising on experience,” adds the Zoho leader.
More room for more humanity
If the first age of HR was just a nice sit-down and a cup of tea or coffee to talk about “how you feel about your job”, then that age has surely passed. If the second age of HR and HCM has been a digital enablement process that has fast-tracked everything from onboarding to process and skills development for teams and individuals, then that age is also slowly ebbing away and making way for change. This third age of HR will of course be data-driven, AI-enriched and mobile-first from the start and should – we hope – lead to better jobs, better workplace experiences and better organizations as a whole.
If all that sounds promising, but a little clinical, we can perhaps remind ourselves of the fact that the human touch is still needed and, if anything, this technology frees up time in the day for quality human interaction elements of an HR head’s role. There’s still a requirement for the HR human touch – you know, the come in, have a cup of tea and let’s talk about things – and that ability to convey, deliver and envelop a person in empathy when they may be experiencing a real low will always be needed.
So, looping back to our question, will HR tech lead us to increasingly thriving work environments? No doubt the required skillsets of your HR heads have become much more multi-faceted. But, place a HR leader with the right set of skills at the helm, and this technology might well play a hand in developing a happier, more productive workforce for your business – let’s watch this workspace.
