« Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients” (Richard Branson)
Have you heard lately that an engaged workforce could be one of your most competitive advantage? Being aware that a positive employee experience can lead to a higher productivity and engagement level and even more innovations; most companies around the globe are now trying to cope with employees’ expectations, adapting themselves to an everchanging labour markets.
This shift in paradigm is radically changing the way you interact with your workforce in terms of company culture, internal processes and of course…tools. Human Resources obviously are in the center of this shift since they have a tremendous impact on employee experience and are leading the way in transforming or adapting their company toward a new model. HR is now expected to align itself with overall business strategy, help create a digital workforce and digital workplace, and contribute meaningfully to business needs.
HR management is on the edge of drastic changes supported by various innovative tools that are now being designed and continually updated to serve your “internal clients”.
But to ensure a sustainable employee engagement companies now have to adapt their organizational models and surely to choose the right digital tool.
To stay up-to-date with the latest cloud-based HR innovations, I-RH Partner attended the Talentsoft Club 2018 held in Amsterdam (NL) on June 12-13th of 2018.
Talensoft is the European Leader in cloud-based Talent Management software and they gathered clients and partners around “reinventing the employee experience”. During this two days event lots of information have been released regarding the evolution of cloud-based HR solutions market, emphasizing the new trends. I-RH Partner was there to grasp the major changes that will have a significant impact on the way companies deal with the employee experience.
Innovations in cloud-based solutions: the rise of employee-centric digital platforms
Today’s Human Resources are facing drastic changes. In fact, human capital management is being reprioritize and integrated into a digital workplace allowed by constant innovation in cloud-based HR software market.
The overall approach of how employees’ engagement is managed is shifting from having a workforce dedicated to the clients to developing a dedicated and engaged workforce which will best serve the clients.
Organizations are now using or looking toward using cloud-based systems to cope with the constant changes that occurs in Human Resources or to cope with the changes expected from an empowered digital workforce. As a result, HR services must be quick and adaptable and also offer user-friendly applications to its employee to boost engagement and productivity.
These cloud solutions give managers access to actionable insights in real time and allow employees to get all the information they need, including development tools and training materials, whenever they want, on whichever device and channel they prefer.
On top of being real decision-making tools for managers and a huge gain of time, the way those applications are designed grant a large autonomy to its users; this help the users to develop the feeling of being actors of a unique path which is theirs.
Most cloud-based software solutions offer a tailored approach in which all HR processes are compounded to grant a unified employee experience. Users have the opportunity to deal in a unique interface comprising every aspect of their career path from their onboarding to dealing with their employee file, but also covering payroll, training, annual performance review…
Cloud-based software companies are constantly developing their products using Design Thinking concepts applied to Human Resources by rethinking the employee career path as a full employee “experience” that aims to be positive and long-lasting.
Allowing HR to regain a strategic role
In the process of granting an all new experience to its employees HR services tend to be more and more efficient.
Thanks to technology, HR business partners are liberated from huge loads of administrative work. Most processes tend to be automatized and digitalized using cloud-based solution. Recruiting, managing performance and rewards, learning, workforce planning, HR analytics…for every specific brick of HR stands a digital and adaptive tool which allow HR services to liberate more time and fulfill the strategic role they should have.
Following the 80-20 principle of Vilfredo Pareto HR business partner are moving from spending 80% of their time dealing with administrative matters and 20% on strategic issues and analysis to a complete reverse trend in which they will tend to spend 80% of their time in analysis and only 20% dealing with administration.
Furthermore, by integrating new digital HR tools, companies usually spend a lot of time rethinking their internal processes in depth and transforming themselves into digital compliant organization with adapted processes. Organizations are pushed to jump into the age of dematerialization and digitization.
This trend creates in addition a virtuous circle in which technology allows huge gain of time for both employee and HRBPs, time that can be allocated to continue designing their internal customers’ journey.
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Here are a couple elements of a much more complex transformation that is currently occurring. Stay tuned next week to find out more about how technologies keep on reshaping HR activities and how an employee experience can be rethought…