HR future trends are some of the key features of the annual People Matters TechHR that has been driving the evolution of talent transformation and HR technology in Asia since 2014. Last year, the event hosted 200 HR technology companies and 30 start-ups making it the largest marketplace in the region.
HR future trends received the spotlight in the recently concluded People Matters TechHR 2019 Conference and Exhibition held last 1st and 2nd of August at The Leela Ambience Gurgaon, India. Shraddhanjali Rao, VP Human Resources at SAP Labs and SAP India, was one of the notable speakers in the conference who shared how SAP leveraged technology to impact employee experience creating a future-ready HR.
For two consecutive years under her leadership, SAP Labs India ranked as the number 1 company in the list of India’s Best Companies to Work for 2019 by the Great Place to Work Institute, a global authority on building, sustaining and recognizing high-trust, high-performing workplace culture. According to Shraddhanjali, SAP Labs strongly believes that:
“Reimagining human experience with the help of technology is going to be the future of HR”.
She explained how digital technologies like Big Data, IoT, AI, ML, Blockchain, In-memory computing are changing employee expectations, especially that by 2025, 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the workforce will be millennials. To date, 90{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SAP’S HR processes already run on the cloud across functions like onboarding, development planning, continuous performance management, learning and HR Analytics. The company aims to address the changing expectations as soon as now.
Though we are in the digital age where technology and innovation separate the leaders from the cliques in the industry, it is still an undeniable fact that humans are the fundamental reason for every organisations’ success or failure. Humans experience 27 human feelings that affect the decision-making and actions of leaders and even the whole workforce of an organization. One of today’s HR future trends is striking a good balance between managing human factors and utilizing technology.
In SAP, there are four fundamentals that balance people practices and technology.
- Building human elements in the digital revolution. Being future-ready and anticipating demands are critical for both the organization and its workforce. Organizations need to align future readiness with employee aspirations. Organizations are expected to empower, integrate learning with work and equip employees through system generated personalized learning suggestions that value their aspirations. She said:
“To build human elements there is one practice that needs to stop. Control. We have to learn to let go, believe in people and technology.”
- Creating human experiences at scale. With regards to reimagining and reshaping HR, Rao explained:
“If you want to build experiences that matter, you have to relook at how you structure HR.”
By building distinct HR segments catering to unique employee needs and crafting personalized health and benefits for employees, an organization will be able to create human experiences at scale. There are different needs for every employee segment. These are:
- Simple/easy employee-focused services like career coaching, etc.
- Tactical support and consultation on complexities
- Strategic support on organizational design
Furthermore, HR services that need to be divided into focused segments.
- Building connected organizations. Social collaboration and building employee communities are highly valued in SAP, especially at this time when connectivity and agility play a critical role in driving change. Aside from its purpose of internal networking and communication, employee communities can be leveraged to inspire entrepreneurship with the help of startup studios, bridge forums, and flexible fellowships.
- Infusing inclusion via technology. Organizations can leverage technology in building a culture of business beyond bias. With technology as an enabler, organizations can push for jobs to be bias-free. Now, generic job descriptions without biased stereotypical gender traits, photo-less calibration sheets, and diversity reporting tools are tech-enabled practices that help attract and hire diverse talent without biases.
“We are an experience economy. Be the experience company.”
About the Speaker
Shraddha provides HR leadership across the region for all entities including R&D, Sales, and Services organizations. Apart from designing and executing the people strategy focusing on Leadership, Talent, and Culture of over 13,000 employees in the region, she is also a Board Member of the SAP Startup Studio, an accelerator program of SAP Labs India. Under her leadership, SAP Labs India has ranked #1 in the ‘India’s Best Companies to Work For – 2018’ survey carried out by the Great Place to Work Institute along with being the Best Workplaces for Women as well as for Culture of Innovation.
