Coexist with Technology, & Focus on Individuals > Insight

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There is a range of keywords describing the new trends in HR. Let’s briefly review the trend by focusing on technology as an environment governing the pace of change, individuals as customers leading the direction of change, and the role of HR as a result. 

HR coexisting with a new technology environment 

Goodbye, email

Recently, e-mail within a company is gradually losing its meaning as a communication tool. It is often used as a formal procedural process or as a means to make it clear to e-mail recipients. Email is gradually becoming an inefficient tool and a tool with a difficulty in selecting content as the amount of information flow increases and immediate communication and collaboration are emphasized. 

Organizational members naturally accept a tool that is the easiest to use in the market, even if it is not an approved communication channel. Depending on the type of team or workgroup, an application that is specialized in collaboration, communication, and messaging will replace emails even faster. 

HR in smartphones and tablets

The prediction that mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets will dominate has been widespread in the business world for a long time. Even though laptops and desktops are of great value as work tools, it is increasingly difficult to go against the mobile-centric trend from the user's perspective. In this method, HR, utilizing technology, shall be in charge of invisible complexity and employees, users, can experience various services more conveniently.

In particular, communication and collaboration tools, various types of working hours, and the salary and welfare area including vacation management and severance pay are domains most repetitively accessed by members and they will be mobilized faster than other domains. It seems like people in charge of HR and IR must actively seek changes in the information access method, which has been closed.  

Diverse Digital HR

There are emerging HR service providing methods that combine technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), robotic process automation (RPA), and Chatbot. It can improve practical job problem-solving skills by experiencing customer care and fieldwork processes through VR. Chatbot is actively used in the service or technology support process. 

Particularly, applications supporting the on boarding process of employees have been introduced. By using “FAQ”, HR can free up time by responding to HR-related questions such as benefits, compensation, and retirement.

HR Data and Analytics

Big Data and HR Analytics are neither unknown concepts nor new concepts. However, it does not mean that many people understand the meaning of them well or apply them well. In fact, only a few companies use data well or analysis tools meaningfully. It seems like data are rather more often lost or misused. Even though HR has been collecting data for a long time, HR has not used and managed them correctly. 

Therefore, this trend will remain persistently until the data is close to the real condition. It reduces biased decisions and expands employee positive experiences. Data is always incomplete and tends to contradict instinctive intuition. The starting point for making this long journey interesting is to identify good questions. It is necessary to think about what you want to confirm, whether you can elicit execution power for the next step through the conclusions of either “yes” or “no”, and whether if it is difficult to obtain through other methods.

Focus on Personalized HR 

Millennial Generation

The change in the generation is not the realm of theory. The majority of the labor market influx is already millennials and generation Z, immediately connected to everything, will enter the market in the not-too-distant future. The new generation focuses on strong values.

At the same time, the generation is fond of flexibility, transparency, communication, and technology. They are more immersed when a business focuses on something better and have a social impact. In addition, they have a strong desire to coexist with an organization without compromising the value of each individual.

‘Emergence of “Brandividual”

Since the boundary between reality and the digital world has been destroyed in recent years, anyone can create a brand on social media and become famous overnight. The emergence of “Brandividual”, a combination of a brand and an individual, has already been observed. The demand for labor as well as supply is not regular in the recent market, often called “Gig Economy”. 

As a result, the labor market, which forms multiple employment relationships based on individual expertise, such as freelancers, expands its horizon. Intuit predicted that contract-based workers will reach 40% by next year in the United States. 

Because the general labor market of South Korea is changing with more focusing on creating permanent positions and job security, so it cannot be compared directly with overseas’ labor markets. However, individuals will be branded rapidly in a labor market that provides services based on specialized and advanced capabilities. The brand of HR will be the ability to differentiate fake expertise hidden behind the company and organizational brand and the true expertise of individuals, which is at the level that can become a brand. 

Job Re-Skilling

As the industry and technology change faster, the suitability of individual member’s competence is emphasized. Particularly, the gap in skill and knowledge between members is a much more critical obstacle to organizational evolution than in the past. According to a study by the Gartner Group, more than two-thirds of business leaders are concerned that their companies will not be competitive enough in the market if their companies do not cope with the trends such as Digital Transformation before 2020. HR needs to divide and manage the skills of individual job performers in more detail along with the business processes related to the digital environment. There will be more need for functions and skills to existing members, to replace existing processes with new workflows, and to train and educate existing members. 

Expanding the Autonomy and Responsibility of Individuals at the Same Time

There have been continuous efforts to expand the autonomy of members, even though the motivations of them were slightly different (e.g., a good place to work, the trend of the times, the characteristics of millennials, work commitment, and performance increase). Enhanced standards are now being made for the responsibilities of individuals corresponding to autonomy.

It is well known that Silicon Valley companies take “Freedom & Responsibility” for granted in their company culture. HR and managers want each member to maintain the speed and take initiatives, while ensuring autonomy for their members. 

It focuses on having a high-performance organization and not wasting individuals' intellectual resources. In this era, “Just Google it!” has become sufficient for trivial work issues. 

Once Again, Changes in HR’s Role  

Shrinkage and Outsourcing of Traditional HR Organizations

Like other functions, automation is rapidly progressing in the HR field. Moreover, an ecosystem of more specialized and cost-competitive external service vendors has been being formed in certain fields. Recruitment of talents has replaced by an applicant tracking system and search engine. Additionally, the assessment through external expert groups and the outsourcing of salaries and welfare benefits have already been expanded. As the quality of automation and process outsourcing increases, the organizations and people with traditional HR functional will decrease. This change will create a circular structure that accelerates the emergence of serviced software and expands the demand for customized outsourcing solutions.

Dispersed HR

The globalization of business promotes the need to disperse HR services, which is currently centralized, along with the diversification of work types such as flextime and discretionary work-hour systems. Batch-type processing will no longer be valid. Remote work, individual-oriented project-based improvement activities, and collaboration between internal staff and contract experts will not only accelerate the dispersion of HR but also catalyze field-oriented HR. A globalized company will more frequently experience three or four groups in different time zones work together. Centralized HR and a unified system should become more flexible.

HR as an Employee Experience Companion

The vacant space due to reduced traditional HR functions will be used for the interest in employee experience. A journey of experience is composed of what is observed during the work of members and everything they perceive and express. It also includes every step from recruiting, hiring, onboarding, performance, growth, employee engagement, and retirement. Understanding members and developing or offering new experiences should be HR's top agenda. It helps the company hire better talents as it becomes a hiring brand for external people as well as it improves employee retention, commitment, and engagement. 

On the other hand, it has an effect of preventing members with self-agenda, which is completely different from the organization's values, from staying in the company longer than necessary. Members who do not have priorities other than their own interests can damage the experience of their colleagues. It will be possible to improve the insights into employee experience when experience data, even small, is frequently and consistently obtained through a variety of channels by using a reliable tool. 

HR that coexists with technology and moves with focusing on individualized service for each employee is both a trend and a way to develop an employee experience.

Written by Seung-A Baek, Vice President, Consulting Biz Unit (sabaek@e-hcg.com)