Agnes Wong—Senior Manager of Talent Management, HKBN
Debbie Mannas—Group Head of Human Resources, Wallem Group
Georgina Chan—Director, Institute of Advanced Executive Education
Janet Bibi Ferreira—Director, Human Resources, Baker Tilly Hong Kong
Vivian Lui—Human Resources Director, Greater China, Ferragamo HK Ltd.
Quite often is the perception that IT rolls outs are a headache for HR which was the point that kicked off the panel discussion. Wong stated that such roll outs can work but both people and the process need to be efficient. She added, “There are different impacts on different generations – some feel empowered while others feel left behind.”
Arkwright followed up by mentioning that IT departments often struggle to articulate new systems to employees and asked what ways organisations can get IT to help. Wong responded that in HKBN, they hire staff in HR who collaborate with IT and share their knowledge with the rest of HR in language that they understand. Further to this, Mannas added, “We need to remember, systems are often not just for HR but a business system.” As such, communication with the rest of organization is also key and explaining the system from a business perspective was the key to selling such technology.
With this, rolling out can often face a minefield of pitfalls. Lui explained that at Ferragamo they have lots of different systems that they operate that do different tasks. Indeed, one system cannot possibly complete every task and some issues need a spreadsheet or people to deal with. Ferreira highlighted that often there is a lack of clarity with what is wanted by staff as they are often used to be served with the information they need to work with – rather than dealing with a model of self-service. Chan added to this that quite often HR faces the issue of how to integrate many systems into one – it can be a major transition for institutions like universities. She added that what’s more, when implementing such systems, systems and HR cannot lose their human touch and remember that both go hand-in-hand to support people.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
