Leadership

Smarter Hr: Deploying Technology To Deliver Results

May 4th 2009
By Aquil Busrai

Many will recollect the vintage Personnel Departments where stacks of files and reams of forms were
stock in trade. The Personnel Officers were busy processing forms and maintaining records, submitting
one report or the other almost all day long, intercepted by meeting with union representatives or few
employees then again going back to those stack of papers. Senior managers too were doing nothing very
different, except they had Assistants to get the reports. Personnel Department was considered a
support function by business leaders who called the organizational direction. And those in the erstwhile
Personnel department took pride in calling their function grease that oiled the organizations wheels.
One day folded into another, predominantly doing transaction work. How times have changed. HR
function today stands out as a major strategic partner to business and HR professionals are shaping
organizations destiny.

But has HR become smarter? Has it leveraged technology to make a bigger impact? And have the HR
professionals kept pace with the times and become technology savvy? And in doing so, have they freed
themselves from service delivery mode and become partners to business?




HR service delivery will continue to assume a greater importance as businesses combat challenges of
spiraling cost, demands of global workforce and processes, need for instant and round the clock
information, flexible and changing organizational boundaries and of course rising customer
expectations.




HR function has been a late entrant into the area of making technology work to its benefit. Technology
can provide HR professionals scope to dramatically improve and automate processes and at the same
time, streamline delivery services, besides reducing cost of such activities. Decision making process and
employee satisfaction can improve substantially as the workplace embraces higher level of technology.
In many organizations, HR services delivery has been adversely impacted due to ineffective use of
technology.




As per Forrester Research, HR professionals spend nearly 50% of time on administrative activities. Much
of this can be saved with implementation of HR Management Systems which would eliminate routine
paper work besides reducing costs by automating basic HR activities. It would also facilitate better
decision through accurate and timely reporting and analysis.




Hackett Group study found that high-performing world-class companies operated with 16% fewer HR
staff than the others mainly by more efficient use of IT. Self-service technology contributed to higher
levels of efficiency and productivity and simultaneous reduction in costs. The study also established that
HR leaders in these companies had a deep understanding of technology and made a strong effort to
derive as much value as possible from the technologies they had deployed.




Use of Second-Life concept to onboard new employees and inducting them into company culture has
received favorable response from tech-savvy generation. Besides using technology for basic activities
like disseminating information on company policy, benefit enrollment; organizations are now using it
extensively for talent Management, skill development, self paced learning and simulations. It has made
significant stride in improving communication with employees through simple yet highly effective
techniques like e-notice boards, interactive chat forums, share nets, virtual town hall meetings etc. Even
use of Podcast as means of disseminating knowledge or information is fast gaining popularity for its
simplicity and acceptance by younger generation. Technology is being leveraged to build employees
skills though Touch Point calls or short e-meetings which enable employees to discuss business and
technical topics with experts in a small group setting. Use of 'Mail Cast', a five-minute, flash based
tutorials is a creative way of spreading knowledge, convey policies and processes and also provide an
interactive learning platform, it provides good pointers in those few minutes.




Despite current economic challenges, progressive organizations are continuing to invest and find value
in HR technology systems. According to a Towers Perrin's study of HR service delivery and technology,
close to a third of the respondents have increased their investment in HR-related technologies, and 55%
are maintaining their technology budgets at 2007 levels. For organizations to sustain or even increase
their HR-related technology spend in a year of such economic uncertainty and cost-cutting is a
testament to the importance companies are placing on managing their talent and having the right
systems and capabilities in place to do that well.

The human resources function in its journey of evolution is migrating from an isolated back office and
occasionally bureaucratic function to one that is viewed as a competitive advantage helping
organizations achieve strategic business objectives. A little help from technology is going a long way

1 Comments

By
I am in complete agreement with Aquil, Hi!The expectations from the HR Delivery model has been on
the rise in the wake of economic crisis.Use of Web 2.0 , videos, portals, podcasts, wikis and blogs have
been in demand.Technology is going to play a key role in the future in order to achieve cost and service
efficiency,which essentially remains to be top two business drivers.In these turbulent times, we have
especially been witnessing the phenomenal role of technology in communication through the use of
webcasts and intranet etc.. Copy paste technology may not work for most of the companies who are
looking at using HR technology strategically to develop sustainable competitiveness.We have to
integrate technology into the entire talent management system.The challenge would be to leverage the
same with the existing ERP or SAP applications.A good approach in sourcing the right technology and
customising it with the functionality shall prove to be useful to all. Wishing, HR SMART TECH service
delivery model to be the next strategic advantage in Talent Management. Best wishes, Vijay Rai, Group
President Luxra Group, Gurgaon, India

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