self-service, self-directed approach applies
to training and performance tools, as well.
That shift supports the evolving rela-tionship
between employee and employer.
“There’s a shifting social contract with
employees,” said Benoit Hardy-Vallée, exec-utive
advisor for IBM Smarter Workforce,
Canada. “The older type of social contract
was about having a job for life and a pen-sion,
post-retirement. This promise was in
exchange for a lifelong commitment. Now,
an employer offers an employee the tools, a
great environment and the ability to grow
and build on strengths and engage in work.
In exchange, the onus is more and more
on the employee to manage his or her own
training and development.”
Some organizations may have achieved
this state, but it’s still a target for others.
Much depends on the quality of the user
experience.
“The ‘secret sauce’ is always going to be
in how service-oriented the tech is,” said
Fullerton.
FREEING UP HR FOR STRATEGY
When the tech catches up, though, indus-try
thought leaders predict HR will be
freed from its more administrative tasks
and be able to focus more time and re-sources
on strategic work.
“The HR function is becoming more
of an advisor or consultant to help solve
problems and advise the business on tal-ent
strategy,” said Hardy-Vallée.
Part of that evolving role for HR will fo-cus
on behavioural economics and leveraging
tech to tailor and personalize growth oppor-tunities,
making the most of mobile and
cloud computing to offer a non-stop roster
of on-demand training opportunities.
THE CATCH(ES)
All this growth and development doesn’t
come without a snag or two. For starters, is
your organization flush with experts who
understand these technologies and can fore-see
their use into the next handful of years?
In the near future, the demand for techni-cal
acumen will almost certainly exceed the
supply within a typical organization.
“The real challenge is sitting down and
thinking about your current organiza-tion,
the skill set that they have, and then
looking ahead two or three years,” said
Hardy-Vallée. “You might start forecasting
that certain skills will become more and
more necessary. If you’re going to be more
socially connected, more cloud based,
more connected with your customer, you
will need other types of skills.
“The second big thing is considering
whether to acquire these skills – if it makes
sense to train people, to hire a third party to
help with on-demand resources or to hire
people that have those skills already.”
FINDING A FOCUS
The sheer number of competing technol-ogies
to consider implementing can be
overwhelming.
“Don’t get caught in the whirlwind,”
said Bersin. “The changes are complex,
but if you start with the user, whether
that means leadership, citizens, employ-ees,
clients, patients, just start with those
stakeholders in mind, then work back-wards
and figure out where to go next.”
As with making any changes, consider
what areas of the business need attention.
“Spend time where the company makes
money,” said Hardy-Vallée. “Look at the
things the business could do better to im-prove
results or reduce costs.” Can tech be
applied to those areas to make a positive
impact? If teams could be more collabora-tive,
for example, is a tech solution among
the possible remedies?
“It’s incumbent upon the HR leader to
spend time with the CEO or the business
leader they work with to let them say, if I
could only do two or three things this year,
what would they be? What would drive the
biggest improvement for the organization
from your standpoint?” said Hardy-Vallée.
THE PRICE IS (BECOMING) RIGHT
The unexpected good news, when it comes
cover feature
to tech, is often the price tag. There was
a time when applying these tech solutions
would have been beyond the affordability
of any but the largest companies, based on
economies of scale. Not anymore.
“The venture community has poured
billions of dollars into mobile solutions
for HR in the past few years,” said Bersin.
The result has been dozens and dozens of
useful, engaging and entirely affordable
employee-facing solutions.
LEVERAGE THE POTENTIAL
Disruptive technologies – despite the om-inous
sounding label – aren’t inherently
good or bad; they’re simply inevitable.
“If we zoom out, one generation’s wor-ry
is another generation’s business as
usual,” said Hardy-Vallée. “Twenty or 30
years ago, I’m sure people had other kinds
of worries about culture. So just like any
change, we have to make sure that what we
do with it brings more good than bad.”
How an HR professional handles ongo-ing
disruption can make all the difference
to an organization. Trying to ignore tech-nology
and the change it brings is both
futile and ill advised.
“It’s like saying you want to live in world
that doesn’t exist anymore,” said Fullerton.
Instead, diving into the world of tech
advances – learning, researching, adapting
and riding the waves of change – might just
lead to a long list of positives, including in-creased
efficiency, better collaboration and
increased engagement.
“Develop a mindset that’s excited about
change, that welcomes it and leverages it,”
said Cragun. “If you do, you’re more like-ly
to operate as a strategic partner and to
help the organization not only flourish,
but also get ahead of competitors.” ■
WHAT IS DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY?
The term disruptive technology was first coined by Harvard Business School profes-sor
Clayton M. Christensen, in his 1997 best-selling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.
He considered technology to fall into two categories: sustaining or disruptive.
To qualify as sustaining, a technology featured incremental improvements over
an existing version. To be disruptive, it would need to either create a brand new
market, or displace an existing technology and shake up an industry.
Automobiles, for example, weren’t disruptive because they were too expensive
for most people to purchase and their introduction didn’t have an impact on the
market for horses and carriages. But mass-production of the automobile, 30 years
after the product’s first introduction, was a decidedly disruptive technology, making
cars affordable for the masses and radically changing the transportation market.
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