From Talent Optimization to Talent Transformation

We find ourselves at an interesting inflection point today. The headlines from the World Economic Forum at Davos, and the theme for this year is the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” – highlighting the way digital technologies have radically influenced our lives, societies, and experiences at work.

Josh Bersin rightly points out that these changes, which impact organizations in every country, are coupled with a workforce which is increasingly diverse (in gender, age, culture, and nationality), demanding, and mobile. The result: the way we manage, lead, collaborate, and organize ourselves is undergoing radical change.

So what are the top areas of focus for HR today - and how is technology addressing it?

Digital HR becoming the new normal

Technology is everywhere, driven by mobile devices, sensors, location awareness, and soon wearables. We live in interesting times where we spend many hours a day interacting with digital apps, get monitored closely by digital devices, and are influenced by suggestions and recommendations driven by analytics and behavioral economics.

Against this backdrop, HR thinking begs for a revival. To be in sync with this new normal, companies need to look afresh at the ways programs are designed, the tools used at work, how information gets communicated and consumed and more.

To be a winner in the Digital HR era requires knowledge of mobile apps, design thinking, video, user personas, behavioral economics, and the use of embedded analytics. Employees will once again be in the forefront – and the focus will be on enhancing employee experience.

Replacing legacy systems

HR functions are experiencing the removal of dated HR technology – and seeing it replaced by intelligent cloud-based systems. The market has many offerings, for organizations of different sizes including, cloud-based systems for payroll and core HRMS, performance and talent management, online learning, employee engagement, wellness, and employee communications.

If we look at external recruitment, job posting providers (the likes of LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, Careerbuilder etc) have changed the hiring landscape. Now they too are facing a sea change in their business models and consolidation is rife with technology partners. Further, there are niche players who work in related spaces and are bringing in some amazing new technology and functionality.

Making decisions backed by data

More and more the C-suite is demanding data from HR to make important organizational decisions. As this becomes the norm, data will be amongst an organization’s most prized assets, and domain specific analytical tools highly sought after for their prescriptive, descriptive and decision intelligence.

The market is already seeing exciting activity in this space and huge opportunities to leverage data. Imagine data from attrition, certification, project experience, domain expertise, peer rating, employee surveys, performance ratings and more – and how it can be used to drive higher levels of performance, enhance productivity, improve the work environment, change culture, reduce employee turnover.

Revolutionizing corporate learning

Many companies and their L&D functions find themselves out of step with employee goals and aspirations - as well as the needs of the business. Enter technology, the game changer in this space today.

MOOCs are making a deep and long lasting impact in learning and development; video learning is catching on like a wildfire; and hundreds of new learning tools and platforms are entering the market each day. For the L&D profession to up its ante, a strong focus on learning experience design, talent transformation, open peer to peer learning is the need of the hour. As an important aspect of the employee experience, this becomes crucial to an organization’s success in the present and future.

Transforming talent

Globally, if you ask HR professionals about areas that pose the greatest challenge today, you are likely to hear the words: attrition and retention. The reasons of course could be many and diverse. However, the important insight that emerges is that most organizations have not kept up in developing career progression that is in line with employee goals and aspirations. It’s high time for a big rethink and a refresh.

In other words, while companies are still looking at allocating the right person to the right job (talent optimization) – they need to work at creating the right person for the right job (talent transformation). And this becomes the marker for the future.

HR technology, powered by data science and artificial intelligence, is showing the way. By studying data (both structured and unstructured) – gaps and patterns become visible – and the basis on which insights and inferences are generated. Such data backed insights then can be used by organizations to create the right talent for the right jobs and create a win-win ecosystem for all stakeholders.