Stefan Reis, CHRO, SAP explains why HR must grab technology by the horns to engage and retain the best talent
HR has to work hard to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to rapidly evolving technology in today’s workplace. HR Magazine recently spoke with Stefan Ries, Chief Human Resources Officer, SAP to get his take on how, and why, HR must grab technology by the horns to best leverage it in almost every aspect of the employee lifecycle.
Q1) In the GIG economy what do you see as the current role for HR in supporting enterprise-wide digital transformation initiatives?
Despite the inherent challenges it brings, HR should always regard technology as an opportunity, rather than a threat. The prudent monitoring of employee metrics and subsequent analytics can be amazingly leveraged to help with a host of HR functions—most critically acquisitions, L&D and developing leadership pipelines. To proactively drive winning organisations, HR must transition from their traditional ‘functional HR language’ to ‘the language of the business’. This means they must be confident and eager to bring relevant HR quantitative data to the table to strengthen their strategic stance. By speaking this ‘new HR language’, HR leaders can then truly embrace these analytics to steer the organisation in the face of change. With the right digital systems in place, this can not only be done efficiently and effectively, it can be done in real time.
Q2) Why does HR need to embrace digital initiatives immediately?
In the past, HR was primarily responsible for the ‘softer side’ of the business, but now they are assuming a much more strategic role. Failing to acknowledge the importance of technology in this new role can be fatal, and so as the new digital forerunners, HR leaders require a very different profile than before. Today’s younger generation of HR managers are the real ‘digital natives’ who are best positioned to immediately run with technology and assume the new digitised HR profile. Baby boomers are ‘digital immigrants’ by comparison, but nevertheless it is essential that they too embrace such digital initiatives to keep themselves relevant.
The need for HR and the C-suite to rapidly access real-time business intelligence, ad hoc reporting, and what-if analyses has become critical in terms of them being able to make well-informed strategic decisions. SAP’s Digital Boardroom has facilitated this by transforming executive meetings from old-school presentations based on static information into interactive discussions based on live, up-to-the-minute facts. The platform provides artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to put key metrics at the fingertips of HR managers. When HR can objectively define key metrics and discuss them in real-time, alongside the finance team and business leaders, this creates a powerful synergy. Such digital initiatives enable HR and the business to access ‘one single source of truth’ which is incredibly empowering. It is essential HR has this credibility before starting to talk about strategy with the rest of the C-suite.
Q3) How can HR drive digital initiatives if they lack the technical know how?
Firstly, I find listening to my children is a great help in this regard as they are living in a totally different world to me, in terms of digital advances. They have a lot to say about the use of technology and probably understand it a great deal better than I do. So, if you have children—listen to them—as taking onboard what they say can be a guiding light when trying to put new technologies into proper perspective, and you are looking for ways to best leverage them.
Secondly, reverse mentoring can be a great way to help drive learning—the key benefit being that it works in both directions. The younger generation gains some insights from seasoned HR practitioners while the older generation receives key insights into technological changes. The younger members of your team can also give invaluable advice on the most suitable social platforms to disseminate key HR messages to maximise their traction amongst millennial talent.
Q4) The World Economic Forum recently indicated that 5 million jobs globally may be lost to robots by 2020—how will this impact HR?
Losing jobs due to great technological advances is nothing new. During the Industrial Revolution, the world experienced a dramatic shift in worker demographics. Then, the timeframe of change was decades and the pace was slow. In today’s marketplace, the rapidly accelerating pace of change means that timeframes for change are significantly shorter—down from decades to just a few years. This rapid evolution is leaving many businesses unable to adapt quickly enough. However, the rapid changes in today’s technology are more likely to be reshaping HR roles in future, rather than threatening them.
In terms of the impact on HR, as data collection has become much easier, the sheer volume of data collected has also ballooned—creating the era of Big Data. One of the most critical tasks for HR now is deciding what items among this Big Data are actually useful. So moving forwards HR should be looking at Smaller Data—whittling down the ‘noise’ to enable focus on only the most important metrics.
Furthermore, AI can be used to significantly streamline the entire recruitment process—making it much more objective. Tackling unconscious bias will be one of the biggest benefits to emerge from this process. Although HR will still have the final say on who is hired, AI can prepare and guide them into making more informed, and less biased, decisions.
It is true to say that jobs will change in the future, with many predominantly-functional roles being replaced by robots. However, many new roles and opportunities will also arise. HR needs to anticipate how they recruit for these emerging roles, and what skill sets and traits they need to look for.
Q5) What does HR transformation mean for the future of HR?
The pace of HR transformation is going to continue to accelerate in the coming years as HR leaders move to the forefront of organisations. A continued shift in mindsets, already well underway, will see ‘change’ viewed as an opportunity, rather than a threat for HR leaders.
A bigger change will concern who the future HR leaders will actually be—tomorrow’s heads of HR will be coming from a background with little or no HR background. I have already witnessed many business strategists moving from the financial sector into HR roles. HR is already breaking the mould and taking on much more diverse roles within their organisations. We will continue to see the value of the HR function rising, with an increasing amount of senior HR leaders taking a seat at the executive table—solidifying their position as key stakeholders in the boardroom and even becoming the CEO.
The best argument for embracing HCM technology is that for those that do not, there is a risk of not being seen as an employer of choice by potential talent. This is an even more poignant point for younger generations, who are used to technology in their everyday lives. Organisations running HR systems without tech in today’s workplaces are already alienating about 75% of talent.
HR must ensure that any process of change is seen as relevant by all stakeholders. Understanding why change is being made, and communicating this to talent throughout the organisation is essential to guarantee buy-in, as at the end of the day, it is the talent who can make or break the success of that change.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
