To fashion the future of the workplace, CHROs must reimagine the basic tenets of organization. This calls for workplace models that are creative, adaptable and antifragile. Through the lens of a fast-approaching future, talent replaces labour. Networks of teams replace hierarchies. An ecosystem of collaborators replace competition. Ultimately, the workplace becomes more human: a nurturing space that can be in equal parts inspiring, collaborative, and bent on creating an employee experience that is meaningful and enjoyable.��

Reimagining Basic Tenets of Business

While the nature and purpose of the HR function have been evolving for years, the demands of the pandemic dramatically accelerated this transition. It is clear that in the next two to three years significant changes to the HR operating model are on the way. As the future unfolds, HR is becoming as relevant to business success as core functions like R&D, sales, or production. It now needs to ensure a company can still be operational during the pandemic.��

Future focused CHROs are stepping up to this new responsibility, leading a change that requires HR to transform itself, adopting the organizational principles and key performance indicators of core business functions. HR leaders need to drive more agile and fluid organizations, shift the role of business partners, and drive the employee experience—and do it all with a clear leadership mandate. At the heart of this change is the adoption of technology, not just as a tool but as an enabler of thought, translating into action. In this article we break down the top concerns of CHROs, to carve a greater share of the future of human capital for stakeholders.��

Nurturing Culture for Human Experience��

An organization’s culture is simply a repeated set of actions that become a part of its practice. But shaping culture in a changing world is a steep challenge. There is ceaseless debate over who the custodians of culture are. It is easy to lose sight of the way this culture is actually shaped across the business. The truth does not lie in operating manuals or on-boarding decks or policy documents. Culture is shaped in moments that matter.����

HR needs to shift its focus from a pure-process orientation to the customer journey and identify the moments that matter for the employees in their interactions with the company. Organizing around the employee experience by taking an approach similar to how retailers define customer journeys—in this case, by identifying the employee moments that matter most and deploying resources accordingly. For example, critical moments for employees could include the , onboarding, performance reviews, and promotions, and the roles and responsibilities of the HR function could be aligned around them.��

Leveraging Technology for a more Human Future��

For years now, CHROs have found themselves using technology as a cost-efficiency treadmill. Deploying analytics and big data to existing HR operating models was the go-to norm. Technology adoption entailed a worthy but uninspiring mandate: optimizing labour costs and reinforcing compliance using standardized measures.����

Even in areas of HR that were loaded with cultural significance for the organization such as recruitment and learning, the emphasis with technology has been on productivity, and how to measure it. For CHROs, the question has now become whether processes have replaced the creativity and innovation they need to attract and develop talent, manage and reward performance, and optimize workforce strategy. If the future of work is to focus on the human, HR must employ technologies that are changing how consistent process execution and excellent employee experience are delivered.����

The biggest workplace disruptor is next-generation automation technologies. Some estimates indicate that nearly half of all work could be automated with current technologies. For HR, intelligent process automation, can help deliver consistent people processes – something that has eluded many HR operations teams given the dynamic nature of the requests they receive. Cost savings also materialize through deploying such technologies as robotic process automation, and cognitive agents. Re-evaluating the level of automation of HR and providing a “human interface” to employees where personal interaction adds value. In the past, HR has automated too many tasks. It needs to provide a real human interface at points in the employee journey where personal contact is generally expected. Elevating HR through digitalization by automating processes, especially traditional administrative tasks; by gathering, analysing, and acting on employee data to make more informed decisions; and by implementing mobile self-services to elevate the quality of delivery. CHROs must drive conversations that begin by thinking of solutions, data, and employee experience when talking about digitalization in HR.��

Unlocking Design Thinking for Human Experience

Imagine a world of work where management began with what people need rather than adhering to a process? As the future of work unfolds, CHROs are increasingly turning to Design Thinking as a tool to bring a “Human-Centric Approach” to their organizations. At every single step of the organization design process, teams are empowered and accountable to gather user insights. These insights pose a powerful question that begins with: “How might we…” The power of this question is almost hidden at first. “How” represents a solution-oriented approach, “might” encourages optimism and “we” represents collaboration. Teams are encouraged to inspire new thinking by discovering what people need, and not retro-fitting need to what the organization already is.��

Stripped of the hype and jargon, design thinking in HR is simply a process that prioritizes the employee’s needs and then creates solutions around that problem. The learnings are based on empathetic observations of how human behaviour in specific environments and reactions to these happenings in that environment. Thus, the approach is a hands-on method of creating innovative solutions. The human element of thinking is at the centre of the design. Design thinking processes are created around humans, and not simply for humans. Therefore, it relies on evidence of how humans behave towards a product or service and continuously improves that experience.��

The method we all know and use to solve problems is to identify the concern, then investigate and find solutions. Design thinking doesn’t focus on creating one solution. Instead, it is a continuous process of adapting thought and approach to meet the end-user needs.��

When applied to the world of work, especially in a rapidly changing new normal, design thinking can lead us to answers that will help the HR function be in lockstep with the needs of the organization’s most precious asset – its people.��

Seeking Success– Questions to be Answered while Creating a more Human Experience��

The future-focused CHRO must drive organizational transformation to create an experience that is more meaningful, simple, individualized and aligned to the business’ needs.��

Meaningful: How can we create meaningful experiences for employees?��

When it comes to the moments that matter, are you understanding employees’ emotions and perspectives at all touch points? Can you take action and focus experiences on what matters to the people who drive your business?��

Simple: How can this global complexity be replaced with guided simplicity?��

Is global compliance, local regulations, diversity, inclusion, and employee well-being getting in the way of more strategic work. Gaining full visibility into your entire workforce and automating processes is the key��

Individualized Learning: Can skills and agility be individualised for employee learning and development?��

When you move from traditional learning to create a culture of curiosity and growth you can build a strong, knowledgeable workforce. Leverage powerful technology to develop a workforce that can take on any challenge.��

Aligned: Whose responsibility is it to align HR and employees to improve experiences and drive business success?��

Alignment begins with the act of listening. Discover the importance of listening to – and acting on behalf of – employees to decrease employee turnover and negative customer experiences (CX), while minimising the risk of damaging your brand and alienating key investors.��

In Conclusion…��

Transforming the role of HR is no cakewalk – but ����’s efforts reap rich dividends. Driving more human centric and fluid organizations, shifting the role of business partners, and elevating the employee experience are central to evolving the HR operating model—which benefits not only the function but also the broader organization.��

CHROs can enable business by driving this transformation in their own HR organizations: developing and reinforcing clear priorities towards the human experience. While clearly a trial by fire, the pandemic also provides an opportunity for HR to accelerate its shift from a service to a strategic function, helping to shape a more dynamic organization that is ready to meet the post-crisis future.��

The post A Future More Human appeared first on 51����India News Center.

In the past two years, in particular, HR’s strategic role and its organizational importance has come to fore. From talent management to its role in ensuring business as usual by liaising with IT teams to provide collaborative tools and increase technology adoption is well-documented. What this has also led to is the increased use of data to derive insights resulting in better talent management (both hiring and retention). But leveraging data and analytics hasn’t been adopted as much as it should. Manual intervention is still time consuming, costly and at times ineffective. Consequently, human resource teams are beginning to realize the importance of people analytics and more data driven management in all aspects of HR functions.

HR takes a central role in business strategy

There has always been a distinctive difference in the conversations that happen in HR vis a vis other functions (sales, marketing, finance, etc.) . Typically, the former tends to be more anecdotal in nature, while other functions are mostly always data-driven. This strengthens pre-existing notions of Human Resources as an intuitive function. Of course, the role of HR in talent management strategies need to find basis in individuals. But by nature of diverse work cultures and office dynamics, HR strategies aren’t always accurate and subjected to bias. And while data is an intrinsic part of HR operations, it usually finds its place in descriptive reports (number of people organization-wide, geographic spread, etc.…) ��rather than as a tool that can be leveraged while planning business strategies.

According to Deloitte, the focus on big data will challenge HR leaders to build a people analytics team, bring together multi-disciplinary skills, and develop a long-range plan to “datafy” HR.

People choosing People Analytics

While data analytics is just that, crunching data to get a better understand of what the numbers imply, people analytics is a whole different game. People analytics refers to all talent data and its application which helps human resources base their talent management strategies on data. It also allows HR to spot trends and predict talent strategy.

In fact, people analytics becomes the bridge which connects HR metrics to business outcomes. amalgamating pre-existing HR data with real time activities. This approach would help create a database through which HR can model and predict outcomes helping businesses attain maximum returns on investments on human capital.

According to Deloitte research, 70% of respondents surveyed had invested in people analytic tools while over 50% planned to invest in such tools. Digitization in the workforce, owing to the pandemic, has also prompted high performing organizations to be two times more likely to implement people analytics software over low performing organizations. In part, this due to the cost-effective software and because of its ability to offer unique insights to shape the employee experience, which has proved to be of paramount importance in recent times.

Employees are your first customers

While most businesses agree that it is crucial to have a customer-centric model for more success, they often fail to realize that employees are the first customers, who in turn can ensure customer satisfaction. The company goals – whether they are revenue related or cost and market share related, eventually comes down to employee satisfaction.

Employee engagement and satisfaction are the pillars on which a company can build its overall business goals. And this has become of even more importance during the pandemic where feel burnt out from working remotely. Factors influencing this include-

• the added three hours of work due to the remote operations
• the mental fatigue of the pandemic.

Thus, with the increasing uncertainty, ranked employee experience as their first priority with people analytics playing a major role in improving it. Implementing people analytics will help HR to be strategic in how employees are utilized. When combined with design thinking and the employee’s persona, people analytics can give insights about how to avoid high attrition improve internal communications as well.

Benefits of People Analytics in HR

People analytics can be utilized by the HR department from the beginning of employee recruitment to the stage of onboarding. It lends itself in easing of the business operations in the following ways –

1. Removes Bias – The data from people analytics helps in making insightful decisions about talent management by removing inherent bias that exists in an individual. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) process removes the aspect of subjectivity and guesswork which is usually associated with the talent recruitment process. With candidate interviews also becoming digital, the AI software can analyze it through its metrics of personality – thereby providing an objective view of the qualities possessed by the talent vis-à-vis the criterion of the company.
   Juniper Networks, for example, not only analyses where their top performing employees come from using apps like LinkedIn, but also the company they join post exit. Having such insights will allow organizations to better manage their talent.

2. Personalization of Data – On onboarding talent, people analytics software also makes provision for the personalization of each employee’s data. This allows the employer to have a more individualistic understanding of each talent which also helps them give more personalized and effective feedback and recommendations. This goes a long way in talent retention.
   For example – Wal-Mart uses people analytics to hone talent capabilities and help them get a better understanding of their career paths and roles. With around continuing to work at Wal-Mart for over ten years, their dedication to the company is a testament to the effectiveness of People Analytics.

3. Facilitating smooth Management – Through the personalization and data visualization, the people analytics software can also keep records of time management, performance, feedback and work life balance which can help HR department implement plans for their employees’ well-being better.
4. Maximizing ROI – With employee satisfaction being taken care of, these key talent metrics can be aligned with the financial and managerial decisions of the company to account for maximum return on investment in terms of talent.
   The company Royal Dutch Shell, for example, would ask the employees to play video games, analyzing the data from that to ascertain which employees have the best ideas and incorporating that in employee suggestions.
5. Integrating Organizational Capabilities – Through the streamlining of HR processes the people analytics software can also integrate different organizational capabilities along with talent management like digital collaboration tools, IT architecture and business strategies. This is further helpful in developing leadership pipelines, reducing employee turnover, increasing productivity and create effective learning and business plans.

People analytics in a post-pandemic future

With technology transforming every day, people analytics throws up endless possibilities. Real time analytics and data can help companies understand the mental and physical wellbeing of their employees. People analytics should be viewed as an enabler that can allow HR teams to be strategic about their functional role. For example, analytics help managers get an estimate about the drop in productivity and delays, thereby allowing them to plan alternative strategies beforehand. Such insights become critical during times of disruption.

And in the new normal when hybrid working and remote working is the norm, it is vital that HR help organization to look at new metrics that matter. For instance, gauging employee satisfaction and engagement levels becomes as important as figuring out if customers are satisfied. This can be achieved through:

• Employee journey mapping and design thinking.
• Feedback from virtual focus groups also helps organizations understand the type of virtual workspace wanted by the employees.

For example – Google uses People Analytics to check and improve the pulse of the employees. This is done through surveys and feedback of its talent with a rate from the employees

People analytics has upgraded the HR analytics from an analogue and intuitive to a digital and predictive world. Through its uses in talent management, the people analytics tools have become the meeting point of HR and business operations. And, as organizations and people move past the pandemic, where things becoming increasingly technologically oriented, people analytics and new tools will become integral to HR strategies.

The post Closing the gap between HR and Business Operations appeared first on 51����India News Center.

Consider this: Global information services company Experian faced unusually high levels of turnover, about 4-5 percent higher than average. Rather than a typical reactive approach, the company’s HR team responded in a unique way.��, including team size and structure, manager performance, length of commute, and other factors contributing to the flight risk.

This model was rolled out across multiple geographies, and the results were stunning! Some interesting insights gleaned from analytics – when a team member moved away from the office, it increased the chances of quitting. When such insights were combined with best practices, the attrition rate was lowered by 2-3 percent over an 18-month period. This not only improved employee efficiency and morale but also saved the company nearly $10,000,000.

Moving from reactive to proactive

Clearly, an HR management system that centers around uniformity and bureaucracy will be rendered obsolete in the post-pandemic era. Taking its place should be a strategic human resource planning model that is flexible, responsive, and built around the future of work: Increased connectivity, rapid automation, lower transaction costs, and workforce demographic shifts. But to embrace this new human resource management model, senior HR managers and CHROs must reimagine the core tenets of their practice and have a strategic approach to staffing. Here’s how:

1. Gain a deeper understanding of company objectives, purpose, and culture

CHROs need to build a culture where all employees understand the ‘why’ of the business and how it connects to the big picture. But for this, people leaders themselves need an in-depth understanding of the organization’s culture and overarching values. They need to ask questions such as:

• What is the sole reason for our company’s existence?
• Where can we have a positive, unique impact on the community and the world at large?
• How can the employees’ contribution tie into organizational purpose and values?

These questions also serve as a compass during recruitment. Employees today want to work with companies whose values and purpose align with their own.����shows that employees who can find deeper meaning in their work are more likely to stay on at their organization.

2. Leveraging data to take the guesswork out of HR

With the vast amount of data available throughout the various touchpoints in the employee lifecycle, HR can make faster and better decisions with actionable insights and reporting. By leveraging historical data, analytics, and workforce planning tools, CHROs can forecast trends, manage recruitment, and handle attrition more efficiently.

For instance, one of the most crucial but time-consuming responsibilities for HR is recruiting the right person for the right role at the right time. Using data, HR can better understand the company’s hiring needs and the exact responsibilities for each position. This can streamline the recruitment process and eliminate expensive over hiring while ensuring sufficient employees to serve the customer base.

Leveraging data for people and talent management can offer the following key benefits for human resource planning.

• Sharper Insights –��Data can be used to get valuable insights into employee behavior. It can also help answer some pressing questions that today’s HR leaders ask: What motivates employees? What are the leading causes of attrition? How to increase performance and improve employee engagement?

Tools such as employee satisfaction surveys, assessments, and exit interviews can help organizations identify why people leave and how to increase job satisfaction. The big ones have been doing it for some time now. For instance,����reduced the attrition rate in its call centers by almost 20% by using big data to find out why employees leave in the first place.����are among the many leading companies routinely using predictive people analytics to identify employees most likely to quit- and then make them counteroffers before they do so.

• Training and development-��Accurate performance analysis can indicate where training is needed and specific skills and topics to be covered. Analysis of such data helps HR managers improve the training programs too. Using cloud-based analytics, managers can get real-time updates on employee participation and engagement. They can also use those insights to adapt the methods as the training progresses. This is especially useful for the remote model of work.
• Hiring accurately-��The recruitment process, until recently, was primarily based on intuition and guesswork. , the cost of a bad hire is at least 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings. When non-productive hires don’t pull their weight, good employees must make up for them, getting burned out in the process. This is where modern hiring and vetting tools, that use the candidate’s historical data to predict future outcomes, come into the picture. For example, Wells Fargo��, that uses verifiable biometric data to hire candidates who are likely to perform better and stay longer.
• Performance management –��Measuring performance is a highly complex process. It isn’t easy to understand why some employees consistently outperform others or how to evaluate the non-quantifiable work done by an employee. Today’s performance management systems include multiple interconnected processes and documents. The right analytics tool can use these datasets to provide a holistic view of the employee’s performance, enabling easier identification of areas of improvement, faster learning, and better business outcomes.
• Workforce analytics –��It uses algorithms and employee data to provide ROI evidence for resource management decisions such as future forecasting. Talent analytics helps by evaluating the existing trends and offering an inventory of skills within the organization, studying labor shifts, and predicting future gaps. It can also determine the factors that indicate employee engagement and job satisfaction to sustain a high-performing workforce or flag upcoming talent for succession planning.

3. Automate HR operations and planning

To empower HR and HR leaders, there must be a shift from operational roles to strategic positions. HR departments still spend a significant amount of time and resources on transactional, routine activities. By leveraging next-generation automation tools and solutions such as HRIS (Human Resources Information System) system software and HRMS (Human Resources Management System) software, HR can provide enhanced service and improved employee experience. Here’s how:

• Process automation- Providing direct access to information or transactions online and simplifying processes enables process automation, leading to informed decision making.
• Offloading lower-value administrative jobs- HR administrative services such as payroll and benefits need to run reliably and consistently, yet at a low cost. This can be done by either adopting new digital tools that consolidate your legacy systems or outsourcing the work to external vendors/partners.
• Leading-edge edge automation- Next-generation automation is replacing several HR processes by building on core HRMS and HRIS software. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Natural Language Processing reduce cross-functional workflows and streamline the old-school onboarding process. Bots are helpful allies here since they can access multiple systems, manage an intelligent workflow, and handle the complete onboarding process. Onboarding time can be reduced from weeks to days, with the spin-off benefits of lower risk of manual errors and a more streamlined journey for each recruit.

4. Focus on employee experience

Employee experience and satisfaction are essential to measuring HR’s operational effectiveness. In the new normal, this means ensuring a smooth experience that is consistent and similar for��all��employees (both on-site and remote). HR leaders should understand their needs, pay attention to factors that make work enjoyable or tedious, and enable them to complete transactional tasks online quickly. In fact, as employers get increased visibility into the personal lives of their employees, there is a need for a shift to supporting the employee life experience, says��.

5. Review and Evaluate HR plan

As organizations continue to evolve and become digitally agile, HR also needs to review and re-evaluate its planning and role constantly. The human resource planning process is now strategic to expand the focus and extend its influence beyond the operational and the transactional to the enterprise ecosystem. Instead of focusing merely on technology or tools, the human resource planning process can start with employee experience and engineer a strategy that keeps this at the center. The result will be more fruitful overall.

We are no longer inching towards a New Normal, we are already in one. And HR leaders have to be strategic thinkers, constantly looking forward, assessing organizational needs, and coaching employees to gear up for this change. With the help of��, HR leaders can stay tech-savvy and strategic in their human resource planning and can successfully deal with an increasingly ‘restless’ workforce, used to the work-from-anywhere freedom!

The post Strategic HR planning: The crucial step in organizational growth appeared first on 51����India News Center.