Leveraging Technology for Organisational Excellence

Technology & HR-Leverage one for the other:Similarly a transfer order or a separation letter is
"Technology and HR are enablers of business.issued from the system only if that transaction has
Integration of the two would mean not onlybeen carried out in the system.
harmonious co-existence but also leveraging one forFor career planning, success planning, skill and
the other. Leveraging of technology for HR wouldcompetencies matrix methods are used by most of
mean digitizing the mundane HR activities andthese systems. They search an employee with the
automating the back office and transactional activitiesrequired skills first in the in-house database of
related to recruitment, performance management,employees. Once put in practice in letter & spirit,
career planning, and succession planning, training andthis system not only enhances business results by
knowledge management. Leveraging HR formatching the right candidate for right job but also
technology implies managing change associated withimproves retention of employees.
technology by way of communication, training, hiring,Processing payroll, churning out time office reports,
retraining, stakeholder analysis and conscious keeping.providing HR-MIS are some other routine activities of
Thus they can play complementary roles."HR which have been off-loaded to technology.
Technology and HR both have one thing common i.e.,Leveraging HR for Technology
both these are enablers of business.All HR professionals, preaching or practicing, learning
In recent times, technology has become synonymousor experimenting, teaching or studying have
with information technology, as hardly any otherexperienced leveraging technology for HR. But most
technological development of the past would haveof us come across a situation where we need to
impacted all spectrum of business as informationleverage HR for technology. Let us understand what
technology has impacted. Irrespective of the kind ofdo we mean by this.
business you are in i.e., services or goods, commodityWhenever technology is deployed afresh or
or branded, trading or manufacturing, contemporaryupgraded it involves a change. The change may be at
or traditional deployment of information technology inthe activity level e.g., applying for leave through the
one form or the other is a foregone conclusion. Tointranet or at the mental model level e.g., digitizing the
manage and deploy technology in an effective way,process succession planning which have been HR
all business Organizations would need knowledgeprofessionals forte. The people have always
workers. Managing of these knowledge workers isregistered adopting change. This is one area where
the responsibility of HR function. Hence theHR professionals are to deliver i.e., become change
integration of technology and HR is an absolute must.agents and lead the process of technology and
Having understood technology and HR in the presentchange adoption. The resistance to change is directly
context we must understand integration in thisproportional to speed of change. Now speed of
context. Integration would not only mean harmoniouschange has increased and hence resistance.
co-existing but would also mean one enhancing andJust to take an example, most of ERP
complementing the other i.e., technology is used toimplementation in the world have not been able to
enhance effectiveness of HR and HR functions helpsdeliver all the expectations. Some of these have
in adopting and managing change which technologyfailed to deliver at all. While analyzing the cause of
deployment brings in.failure it has been observed that 96% of failures are
Leveraging technology for HRbecause of people related issues and only 4% are
HR management as a function is responsible forbecause of technology.
deliverables like business strategy execution,It is the people who make the difference; hence HR
administrative efficiency, employee contribution andshould exploit its expertise to facilitate the adoption
capacity for change. All these are accomplishedof technology. I would like to put together some of
through what HR people do i.e., staffing,the thoughts on what HR should do for this.
development, compensation, benefits, communicateAt the time of recruitment, stop hiring for skills rather
organization design, high performing teams and so on.hire for attitude and a learning mind. Skills of today
In majority of these areas technology is beingare no longer valid tomorrow. Managing ever changing
deployed.e-Recruitmentchange is the only criteria for success.
Recruitment is one area where all the companiesFunctional or technical skills can be acquired during the
worth their name leverage IT. There are twojob. Hence recruitment in the technology era needs
different models of e-recruitment, which are into undergo a paradigm shift i.e., from a skill
vogue. One is recruitment through company's owncompetency based it needs to be attitude and
sites and the other is hosting your requirement onlearning mind/ ability based interview. That would
the other sites e.g., monster .com, jobsdb.com,translate into hiring for skills for future. In IBM every
jobsahead.com, naukri.com, and and so on so forth.employee has to fill in his/her individual development
The first models is more popular with the largerplan where the employee commits its learning one
companies who have a brand pull for potentialtwo new skills every year thus remaining competitive
employees e.g., G.E., IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, HCL,every time.
ICICI, Reliance, Mindtree consulting etc. OtherIf we look at the chemistry of resistance to change
companies prefer to go to the job sites. Some areit is either a skill issue or a will issue. To address the
adopting both.will issue we need to work at a comprehensive
E-recruitment has gone a long way since its start.solution starting from recruitment (as discussed
Now these sites have gone global. Sites like and haveearlier), reward, compensation and leading to
established global network, which encompassesorganization culture which promotes change. A living
separate sites for jobs in Australia, Denmark, Belgium,example is 3M, a US based company, where
and Canada etc. Job seekers are able to search jobinnovation is way of life, where 10% of revenue
by region or country and employers target potentialmust come from new products every year. For them
employees in specific countries. For example, 3 Comchange becomes way of life.
recently posted a company profile on the Ireland siteTo address the will issue further organization need to
that highlights the contributions of 3 com's Irishprepare a communication strategy which creates a
design team in its global projects.'pull' for the technology. For example, in Ranbaxy,
In the early days e-recruitment was plagued withwhen they went for SAP implementation they
flooding the employers with low-quality bio-data's.anticipated resistance. To address this they started a
Again technology has come as a savior. Nowhouse journal, which was aimed at educating the
pre-employment testing like the one introduced byemployees on the benefits, which will result from
Capital One, a US based financial company, help inadoption of ERP, SAP. This created a need rather a
filtering the applicants. These tools test online e.g.,potential need or a latent need was brought out.
applicants for call centers. 'Profile International' aAdoption of ERP did not become much of a problem.
Texas based provider of employment assessments,At times adoption of technologies is perceived as a
has developed tools that allow instant translation ofthreat by the employees e.g., automation leading to
assessment tests between languages. Furtherreduction in workers, office automation leading to
developments like video- conference specialized sites,retrenchment of clerks etc. HR needs to be
online executives recruitments and combining onlineassociated with the technical adoption right from the
and offline methods are leading to more and morebeginning till the end. At the selection of technical
companies adopting e-recruitment at least as astage if HR is associated, it can map the skills
secondary recruitment method. Arena Knights Bridge,required and create a pull during implementation and
a US based IT company conducts video basedadoption. Post adoption it can release the excess
interview of its prospective employees and onlynon-re-allocatable employees.
short listed employees are met in person. Even CiscoTo understand this process more clearly we can take
was to launch the same.example of ERP implementation. ERP is taken as an
Employee Self Serviceexample as this is one technology adoption which
Employee self-service is perhaps one utility of IT,effects employees across the org. irrespective of
which has relieved HR of most of mundane tasksfunction and position. Any other automation may
and helped it to improve employee satisfaction.have affected only a segment of organisation. ERP
Employee self services is a plethora of small activities,implementation in any organization goes through the
which were earlier carried out by employee throughfollowing stages.
administration wing of HR. These are travel bookings,1. Selection of package
travel rules information, travel bills, leave rules, leave2. Business analysis
administration, perk administration, etc. Earlier all these3. Solution design
rules and information were in the custody of HR.4. Configuration and customization
Every user employee was expected to reach out to5. Conference room piloting (CRP)
HR and get it done. Now with deployment of ESS in6. Go-live and production
most of the companies, employee can request forAt each stage HR has to play a role, which will help in
travel related booking online, fill his/her T.E. bills, applymitigating resistance to change.
for leave, log time sheet and see his perks valueDuring selection process, the change agent can
disbursed and due etc. E.g., in Ballarpur Industries Ltd.understand the business benefit ERP would bring. This
leave administration is completely digitized in itswould help him to draw a comprehensive
corporate office. It is working towards digitizing travelcommunication plant aimed at creating a 'pull' for the
related activities, perks and even compensationchange. The communication plan may use its various
management and performance managementweapons from the armory. The obvious examples
administration. 'Digitize or outsource all the mundaneare Newsletters, Newsflash. In-house journal,
and routine focus only on core and value add' -addressing by the top management, web cast, open
Vineet Chhabra V.P. -PDC BILT.house sessions, meetings formal and informal.
CommunicationDuring the business analysis phase implementation
Communication which is most talked aboutteam is supposed to analyse the existing business
management tool has always been a gray area in HRprocesses. At times this leads to surfacing of some
management. In large companies with vastdata which is not very desirable by the process
geographical spread communicating with all employeesowners, leading to resistance at this stage, HR has to
had really posed formidable challenge to HRbe again proactive and carry out a detailed
professionals. Technology has again come for rescue.stake-holder analysis. Such an analysis should give a
Starting with telephones, faxes, e-mails and maturinglead to potential areas of problem and potential
into video conferencing, net cast, web cast etc.champions of change.
communication is one area of HR, which has beenSolution design involves defining 'To-be processes' i.e.,
greatly benefited by technology. Mouse & clickthe way business would be carried out in future. At
companies like Oracle, IBM has an intranet whichthis stage HR has to play the role of catalyst to turn
caters to most of the information needs of itsthe heat on. The idea is to ensure to make maximum
employees. Brick & Morter companies like BILTout of an opportunity of package enabled business
also have made a foray into deploying intranet fortransformation. HR can play a role by arranging to
internal communication, which has corporate noticeeducate and train the right people on best business
board, media coverage, and knowledge corners.practices, just before this phase.
Knowledge ManagementDuring the configuration and customization HR has to
Another area of HR, which is leveraging technology,keep on beating the drum, the customization of a
is employee development. Programmed learning (PL)standard package is a big no-no. Similarly, during the
i.e. learning at its own pace is one of the mostconference room plotting (CRP) it should help in
effective ways of adult learning. Use of technologyidentifying the right persons to be involved in CRP. A
for this purpose can't be over emphasized. Aptechthorough testing at this stage would result in lesser
Online University and 'The Manage mentor' are somepain at the time of going live. This is also time to
of the Indian sites, which are in this businessfocus on training of end users, the employees who
knowledge management, which is an integral part ofare going to use the system once implemented.
any learning organization, which cannot become aTraining- retraining -training to ensure all the
reality without technology. Companies can harnessprospective users are comfortable with usage of
the knowledge of its employees by cataloging andsoftware before the system goes live.
hosting it on the intranet. Talk to 'Big-5' or not 'so big'During the go-live stage HR has to work over time
consulting companies you will find that main stay ofto keep the motivation levels high. This is the time
their business is the knowledge repository.when management starts loosing patience as one
Technology has enabled them to retrieve it swiftly. Inglitch after the other keeps appearing and virtually
the competitive environment where speed is thebringing the business to halt. At this stage, HR has to
name of game technology driven Knowledgeplay 'conscious keeper' for the top management once
Management constantly provides a strategicinto product relocating the surplus is a challenge for
advantage.which it has to be prepared before it.
If you look at HR module of ERP solutions like peopleThis examples makes it clear that involvement of HR
soft, SAP, Oracle and Ramco they provide you withduring the entire life cycle of technology is valuable.
a comprehensive package which helps in man-powerERP is not an isolated case. It is true for any other
planning, recruitment, performance management,technology adoption only finer details may vary.
training and development, career planning, successionHence HR must play a proactive role rather than
planning, separation and grievance handling. Abeing just a silent spectator or mere executers of
transaction happening in all these areas are digitizedthe wishes of business or chief technology officer in
and form a closed loop ensuring employee databasecase of technological changes.
is always updated. E.g. a joining letter of a newHaving set the case in different perspective, it seems
employee is system generated. It will be printed onlyonly logical to leverage technology for HR and
when all mandatory fields of information are entered.vice-versa.