Why Digital Transformation Is The Top Priority For Your HR In 2021?

A recent survey that was conducted with more than 700 Human Resource leaders or executives shows that although many expect their business to focus on growth in 2021, the improvement in operational excellence remains to be paramount. But then the question is, how to achieve this?

Mr.Mark Whittle recently said that – “As organizations move from their initial pandemic response to more sustainable operations, they’re trying to build resilience into everything, from strategy to work design, to enable the organization, its leadership and employees to sense and respond to change, repeatedly.” Thus, he explains the need as well as the challenge that exists in the priority list.

However, as much as the changing priorities seem challenging, it cannot be tagged as “impossible.” Especially with the colossal and extraordinary growth of the technology along with its tools, the possibility of experimenting and excelling in the different targets is indeed vast. And one such pre-dominant factor that contributes to the success of the organization is transforming most of the practices to perform digitally, especially the tasks concerning the human resource department.

What Is Digital Transformation In HR?

In order to understand the concept, let’s first try to split the heading into two. Meaning, let us understand what is this digital transformation that we are talking about and then move on to understand the relation of the same in the HR department.

The technique of integrating digital technology in almost all the different areas of the business is called digital transformation. The fundamental aspect of digitalization is basically the simplification of how we operate as well as delivering value to our customers. Digital transformation can also be understood as a cultural change that insists the organizations continuously experiment and, above all, challenge the failures that arise.

Since we are already aware of and at least have a basic understanding of what digital transformation is, there definitely wouldn’t be much trouble understanding the HR digital transformation. In simple words, making use of the available digital platform that is an automated and data-driven program to achieve the efficient and simplified process of the human resource function is called an HR digital transformation.

Why Is Digital Transformation Of HR A Priority?

The function related to HR has always been a cog in an organization’s machinery, and keeping it well-oiled and maintaining it is one of the function’s primary objectives. HR function’s growing importance as a strategic arm of the business has made digital transformation even more critical for HR leaders. It surely wouldn’t be wrong to say that the technological shifts’ current phase is observed as the fourth industrial revolution.

With the hel[p of the image below, we can observe the increasing need among the businesses for digital transformation in their workspace.

Image( source)

Here are some factors that will help us understand why it is so important and the need for time, especially when the businesses are slowly recovering from the losses and hindrances caused by the pandemic.

Employee Information Management

The employees are always considered as an organization’s critical assets. If so, aren’t the information related to them as well as their documents important to the organization? Irrelevant whether it’s a small scale or a medium scale business, or even the number of employees that an organization has, the management of their information is quite necessary. But then handling the information and physical documents is quite risky.

And considering this case, the digital tools come as a great rescue to the managers. The managers just have to upload the softcopy of the documents, and the information is stored on the software safe and secure. Apart from this, the software facilitates you to access the data from any device, which becomes an added advantage.

Leave Management

Applying, tracking, and approving the leave of the employees has always been a time-consuming task with a pen-paper method. Whereas, digitalizing the tasks can help you with the pertinent information of leave such as the approved leaves, remaining leaves, leave with/ without pay, etc., in a click. This helps the manager to monitor and automate the leave management tasks quite seamlessly.

Data Security

Making sure that the information and the data related to the organization are secured is another challenge. Definitely, maintaining a physical record of all the transactions or storing them on the laptop or personal computers isn’t enough. Therefore, when using the digital tools for your data security that are available, you can restrict the access of the data to whomever you decide to give.

Thus, by allotting the right information to the right person with secure passwords, the organizations can provide a platform for themselves against the risk of data theft. Added to this, if the software that the organization has, is cloud-based HR software, then you can get access to the data anytime and anywhere, making sure that distance or the allotted devices couldn’t be a hindrance anymore.

Improve the employee experience

One of the important factors that many organizations have begun to consider, and few have overlooked, is the fact that about 95% of today’s employees are Millennials. You might wonder what this has got to do with our topic. Definitely, much more than what we can think. It’s because the Millennial’s attitude towards work is so much different from what it was before. And technology has influenced a lot in the changing attitude of the workforce.

Engaging the employees who are an important asset to the organization has always been a great concern for the HR manager as it is not an easy task. But the growth of technology has figured it’s way out in assisting the organizations with employee engagement. The workforce too demands to work amidst the digital environment. The several tools of technology can help the employees coordinate and keep themselves and as well as the others updated on the new developments and are less dependent on the management.

Shifting focus on the core activities

The ultimate outcome of the digital transformation in human resource management is the drastic reduction in the time spent on all the activities. As much as the time is saved, the managers can utilize it in the other major concerns of the organization, especially the bottom line of the business and productivity, as well as the ways to maximize according to the organization’s nature.

What Are The Possible Threats To Digital Transformation? 

The path that leads us to success is always abstruse and complex, but never unattainable.  Similar with digital transformation. Now we are aware of and understand the importance of transforming our human resource management from traditional practices to digital form. But then what are certain considerations that are necessary? Here are a few challenges that an organization may face when transforming to digital techniques:

• Unclear strategy or goals in regard to digital transformation.
• Lack of agility
• Investment incurred
• Lack of expertise

Once, it was said that “Technology is not worth the investment if it is not properly adopted and effectively used, and it must deliver value to the organization.” Therefore, a considerate amount of thought and insights are needed to make the right choice as well as implementation. So that defining the digital transformation process will play an essential role in benefitting your organization.

Key Takeaways

One of the significant threats that any organization faces is the resistance to adopt. And added to it, technology is an ever-growing factor. As mentioned earlier, it might seem a little tricky in the beginning, but then, it’s not impossible. And creating a sense of need and urgency in order to initiate the implementation of the digital transformation process is vital.

However, digital transformation is not an overnight process. It may take time to adapt along with the technology, which is still growing. All we need to be agile and continuously have clear cut goals as well as a solid plan to implement and track the end results. Thus, making sure that with the digital transformation, your HR department will be more productive and efficient.

Author Bio:

Divyang Metaliya is a Business Consultant. Apart from managing and improving business processes, his hobby is to spread his vast area of knowledge to the people out there. He loves to create content that is innovative and engaging for the readers.