Hi tech HR

From spreadsheets to tablets—HR gets technical
To find out about the latest technology trends in the Asia Pacific region, HR Magazine caught up with Ashley Clarke, Chief Operations Officer, FlexSystem to discover just how they are revolutionising the role of HR and making their life that little bit easier. 

Juggling the tasks of recruitment, training and development, performance management, employee benefits, review and appraisals, with the daily duties within an organisation, means the life of a human resources professional is certainly not easy. But with technologies evolving every day, the move towards a more fast-paced, ever-advancing digital world is drastically changing the way employees and HR are accessing data within the employment lifecycle, from recruitment right through to retirement.

Mobile authorisation
Clarke explained, “There’s no doubt about it, we are going through a massive mobile revolution at the moment. Tablets have gained huge popularity in the past couple of years and from an HR perspective, professionals have looked to these devices to improve their processes.” To illustrate his point, Clarke cited the example of the hospitality industry, which has traditionally been very cutthroat in terms of talent acquisition due to casinos in Macau absorbing a large proportion of the local talent pool. He observed that to gain a competitive advantage, HR professionals within the industry have been deploying processes which utilise mobile authorisation in order to enable a number of employees to sign off very quickly via email and gain approval. He continued, “As part of this mobile revolution, we are also seeing HR move away from spreadsheets and into the cloud, so to speak. By deploying employee self-service applications, whether that be for requesting annual leave, receiving training schedules or reports, the amount of time and money spent on administration is significantly reduced and therefore the role of the HR department is changing.”

Evolution of HR
However, despite technology playing a significant part in simplifying life for HR, as employees take a more active role in their own employment lifecycle, Clarke asserted that the need for a solid HR team is still necessary and, in fact, more prevalent today than ever. He explained, “If you go back about 15 years people were talking about the CFO and CIO and wondering how the two would work together to ensure that a quantitative ROI was associated with every project. The same thing is happening now with HR.” The HR of today is taking on an increasingly important role between the function of HR and the broader management. A lot more reporting and analysis is now possible when it comes to reviewing productivity in particular divisions and the driver for this is partly due to the change in the way payroll is dealt with. He added, “Traditionally payroll has been kept very separate from other functions as people have always been nervous about data moving outside the system, but with improved data protection and security and the introduction of internet-based HR systems throughout the world, confidence is growing and we are moving in the right direction.”

Building bridges
Clarke predicted that the function of human resources is going to expand in terms of how people embrace it within an organisation due to a greater accessibility to data. He elaborated, “Traditionally when employees have talked about their financial information, they have expected an end of year report which they can analyse, however operational reporting happens on a much more frequent basis now and allows staff to observe their sales figures and the number of employees in their team in order to judge whether they have sufficient resources to reach their KPIs.” Until recently this type of reporting had been limited and isolated but Clarke pointed out a shift in this trend and that the sharing of information across different departments within an organisation was becoming much more commonplace. HR are increasingly looking for solutions whereby analytical data can be spread across the HR and finance teams—bridging the communication gap between the two departments, which has traditionally been an obstacle within some companies.

Champion of change
According to Clarke, the main inhibitor of change is going to be whether organisations embrace technology moving forward. He explained that whereas many large MNCs have the budgets to outsource third-party consultants and put in place processes to drive positive change. The mid-market is now leaner than in previous years and relies more on the influence of management to generate improvement, but who this should come from remains questionable. Clarke said, “There needs to be a champion of change within an organisation and companies need to decide just who this is going to be, whether it’s a local, regional or global manager. The demand for more information and greater productivity, coupled with more understanding of the technology available, means that HR is going to have a more important role going forward in terms of providing even more granular information that will enable organisations to achieve those KPIs and we are beginning to see this now.”

Clarke believes that within many organisations technology, like the HR function itself, does not often get the attention it deserves but he predicts that this is going to change. He said, “Traditionally in the mid-marketplace people didn’t see the real value in these technology systems, however the increased power of computers and mobile technology now makes it quicker and easier to analyse information that would have otherwise taken a long time to obtain. This, combined with the fact that a greater variety of products on the market is making options more affordable, makes it an easier sales proposition for HR when convincing the C-Suite to adopt change."'

A generation combination
Clarke believes that it is not just reduced costs that is giving technology its appeal, as Generation Y is also playing a key role in encouraging change within the workplace. He explained, “The combination of baby boomers and Gen Y is a very powerful and influential one, as we are seeing the merging of experience and wisdom built up over years of employment, with the enthusiasm and passion for modern technology, such as Web 2.0, social media platforms and mobile devices, from a new phase of the workforce. With concepts such as ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) becoming more and more popular in the workplace, there is a greater opportunity for new technology to be incorporated into the working day to the advantage of all employees. This makes the office a more appealing place to work, as the younger generation utilise technologies which they are familiar with and choose to engage with in both their personal and professional lives. Moreover, this enables companies to address the need for flexible working, which is becoming a key driver in establishing a healthy work-life balance within organisations.”

Clarke concluded, “We are at a very interesting turning point both in terms of technology and the role of HR. Over the past few years we have seen the leap from spreadsheets to tablets and the move towards a more digital world—it will be very interesting to see what the future holds for both employees and HR leaders.”