Saturday, November 15, 2014

5 Trends Driving HR Technology In 2014

  

Let’s take a look at the top five:

1) The world is your oyster (and your talent pool).  Real talent knows no geographic borders — no country has a monopoly on the most sought after, up-to-the-second skills that are needed in IT, social media, software programming, science and math. You want the best, no matter where he or she lives. The trick is to find them. This means taking your search global by increasing your presence on networks that have worldwide reach. Aggressively seek out talent sites and forums around the globe. Hire outside help if needed to accomplish this.
2) Technology-technology-technology. The number and kinds of data-mining, talent search and hiring technologies that are out there can be daunting. But they are crucial, exciting tools that every organization should make themselves aware of. Whether it’s video interviewing or a pinpoint search for a highly-specific skill set, technology can make HR easier, faster and more effective. Don’t get overwhelmed by your options. Use the technology that works for you. Be wary of too many bells and whistles, and overly-aggressive salespeople. Focus on what you want to accomplish and ignore the rest.
3) Real time talent analytics and big data management. In the bad old days, employees got annual or maybe six-month assessments. Which translated into a lot of squandered time and opportunity to learn, grow and improve (or terminate if need be). Today technology enables a continuous real-time assessment of performance. Employees can be made aware of their shortcomings and get work on improving them, and people who are doing great work can get the kind of support and encouragement that will inspire and allow them to soar to new heights.

4) Mobile hone. The world’s gone mobile and it’s pretty awesome. Now your talent lives and breathes in real time portable connectivity. To reach this talent, you've got to go where they are. Mobileize your search-and-employ efforts. Make applying for a job possible while people are riding the subway, eating lunch, or listening to music (or even doing all three at once).
5) Sweeten the deal. Organizations are cutting back on employee benefits, especially healthcare. To make up for this unfortunate fact, it’s imperative to make employment attractive through secondary benefits such as childcare, flex time, gyms and exercise classes, healthy food offerings, gamification prizes and extras like free-lunch Fridays. You want your people to feel cared for and cared about, morale stays high, and a healthy workforce performs at a much higher level.

Employee Engagement

In today's cut throat competition scenario, employee turnover is a very delicate issue. Attrition rates are increasing. Most employees tend to leave a company due to disengagement. Disengagement at work is considered a costly and  highly frustrating problem. Treating employees as human and not experimental robots makes reducing the problem a little simpler. In order to counter this issue engagement has become a major buzzword across all corporates. According to a survey recently taken by Deloitte, Seventy-eight percent of leaders say it is both an urgent and important priority. Employee engagement is a measure of an employee’s positive attitude towards his/her work and commitment to remain attached to the organisation for a long period of time. 
Engaged employees care about the future of a company and act as their brand ambassadors as well as endorse the brand as an Employer of choice. All core business measures – profitability, productivity, customer satisfaction, quality, retention and sales are significantly higher at companies with a concentration of engaged employees.  
Practitioners and academicians have argued that an engaged workforce create a competitive advantage to any company. In short, it can be said that Engagement is the new currency of the current economy.

It is said that if a company wants to improve their engagement, they must not think of complicated strategies but instead make an effort to create a dialogue with and among their employees. According to Michael Papay and Alexandre Santille the following four strategies turn real time feedback into real time employee engagement:

1.     Focus On What Matters Most
Organisational alignment occurs when top level management focuses their employee’s energy on the most important issues on hand. Solutions for issues come from the most unexpected source at times!

2.     Use Open Ended Questions
      Excessive surveying of employees leads to dehumanizing and increases   further drag on the intentions of improving employee engagement. So once a basic survey has been carried out for the employees it would more feasible to send out open ended questions instead of testing a pre-existing set of solution.  It is better to make the experience of a survey more conversational so that there is a two way communication.

3.     Offer Anonymity and Transparency
Employees should be free to express what they think. It is important for the employer to create an environment for the employees where they feel secure and keep the information exchange flowing to all so that everyone adds on.

4.     Take Action
Before doing anything else it is imperative to put away the ego and pride, be polite and acknowledge people.

The key to employee engagement is to keep the employees involved and motivated. Employee engagement if utilized correctly could be a very powerful tool. It not only has the potential to significantly affect employee retention, productivity and loyalty but also is an essential link to customer satisfaction, company reputation and overall stakeholder value. 
                      
                                                                                             - Sarthak Daing