The pandemic has shown that HR is and must be digital, especially to keep up with the ever-changing landscape. The digitalization of HR is a change in the area's operational processes, so that they are automated and data-driven. The adoption of digital solutions for processes is fundamental as they offer a number of benefits, especially in reducing redundant and/or repetitive tasks, reducing the risk of human error and allowing the team to have more time to focus on priority demands.
Companies that don't digitize their processes run the risk of losing relevance and talent. The pandemic has also presented challenges for HR managers, especially when it comes to supporting employees who work remotely. From one day to the next, recruitment and training processes for new talent were only possible online, and they also needed to have greater control over working hours.
What is HR digitalization and how does it work?
Before embarking on the journey to digitize HR, it is first necessary to establish what makes the most sense from a business point of view. Most of the time, this objective is related to the employees and/or processes that need to be optimized, so identifying the key metrics that determine effectiveness is the first step towards digitization. Access to real-time data through reports and dashboards helps leadership respond to the team's immediate needs. Another important point of digitalization is to make the employee experience better, which is a continuous process that develops over time as digitalization is implemented.
The digitization of digital HR involves four phases:
- Efficiency: In this phase, the company invests in technological platforms that efficiently manage HR processes;
- Effectiveness: Technology is used to improve people practices (recruitment, training), performance management, communication and work;
- In formation: Information is shared between sectors, internal data is combined with external data and people analytics is used to create relevant insights;
- Connection/experience: In the final phase, the digitalization of HR is harnessed to create a connection between people, enabling a stronger sense of belonging.
Understanding how current processes work and assessing the company's future needs are important for developing a plan and understanding which technology solutions will best serve the business.
The important thing is to develop a plan and understand which approaches and what you need for each stage in order to achieve the result.
Benefits of digitizing HR
Digital processes optimize and reduce unnecessary costs, bringing benefits in terms of personal productivity, productivity of activities and quality control, allowing greater management, development and implementation of competency-based assessments. Four main results can be achieved through a holistic view of HR.
- Connecting people to the company's strategy through data and helping leadership understand what they need to know about talent in order to make critical decisions in good time;
- Unleashing the potential of staff through integrated technology, which enables the management, development and implementation of performance evaluations;
- Improving the employee experience deploying automation, artificial intelligence and chatbots to provide a simple, real-time user interface for HR processes and policies;
- Achieving higher levels of data security compliance and handling personal information as efficiently as possible through automation and simplified processes.
The digitalization of the human resources area plays a key role in helping HR in times of change and challenges.
Stages of HR transformation
It's important to use technology as an enabler. Often, digital transformation is seen only as correcting a technical or informational deficit by implementing more up-to-date tools, applications, processes and training. The company needs to consider humanizing experiences and changing processes. Looking at current processes is fundamental to understanding which are still useful and which can be improved with technology. Check out the 10 main stages of HR digitalization.
- Reduced use of paper
Paperwork that requires interdepartmental approval means that one sheet of paper has to go through several departments to get the necessary signatures. For example, HR departments in large companies deal with hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of paper every day.
- Self-service application for employees
The use of smart apps simplifies HR processes for professionals and changes the way they interact with the company. Mobile apps help employees obtain information without having to go to HR, becoming a "self-service for the professional".
- Automation
Automation eliminates hours of manual labor and reduces human error.
- Recruitment through digital platforms
Recruitment has changed with the rise of social media. For example, LinkedIn has transformed the way people display their profile, on more social platforms like Facebook, HR can also assess a person's personality;
- Virtual reality for training
Learning is always better through practical real-life experiences or through practice. With the advent of virtual reality (VR), companies can simulate real-life examples during training.
- Gamification at work
Applying game dynamics in contexts not usually related to games helps companies to develop better employee engagement. For example, how to reward professionals when they achieve their goals, recognize efforts when dealing with complicated situations or even praise behavior in the workplace.
- People analysis
It is essential that HR's understanding of employees matches the real scenario. With millennials entering the job market, it's necessary to adapt to increasingly personal changes, so creating performance evaluation aligned with the reality of the employees and provide support for their mental health help performance.
- Training without borders
Text, video and audio materials can be made available at the click of a button, and the cloud-based training system, where the only requirement is an internet connection, means that employees can take part in practical training that can be done and repeated at any time.
- Digital platforms
Digital platforms are already part of today's culture, and for HR processes they can help connect two or more groups of people looking to interact on a demand, assessment or request.
- Digital culture
Digital culture in different HR processes creates a new set of cultures relevant to the next generation of professionals. With the retirement of the baby boomers and generation X, a large part of the team consists mainly of millennials.
