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The Digital Terms Every HR Professional Must Know

October 20, 2019

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Amid a rising wave of technological changes, human resources professionals are experiencing a profound transformation with the challenge of retaining employees and finding new talent.

In the last few years, the HR department has gone through a flux of important shifts that changed the rules for employee productivity, office environment, people management, and many other areas. This enabled a more efficient service delivery and impacted the way HR professionals do their job on a daily basis.

HR seems to be getting more and more fascinating. However, in order to keep up with all the transformations, emerging market trends, and the role of HR in general, there are four important digital terms that every HR and talent management professional should know.

Let’s take a look:

1. Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a popular topic for most HR professionals since technology demonstrated the ability to transform the role of HR. It describes the shift from traditional HR to a more digital approach where the operational processes are becoming automated and data-driven.

Although digital transformation varies based on the specific challenges and demands companies are facing, onboarding apps is a good example of the digital changes that are impacting the industry. While so far the process of hiring meant undergoing an intensive training program, today apps are guiding the new recruits and helping them settle into their new roles.

The benefit? Onboarding time is cut in half and the “mentors” that were supposed to deal with the process can now focus on their own work.

2. Digital HR

Digital HR represents the optimization process that leverages social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) technologies to make HR more efficient. It enables changes in both the approach and the execution of business processes.

Digital HR is transforming the HR function from paper-based and time-consuming to digital-first and optimized, improving the employee experience and organizational success.

3. SMAC

SMAC stands for social, mobile, analytics, and cloud and it represents the enabler of digital HR. It helps integrate different functions into a single platform using a blend of multiple technologies.

Considering most people leave solid digital footprints, social and analytics play key roles in recruitment, helping the HR department quickly make predictions about any potential workforce. The information analytics offer can be funneled into the recruitment process and employee profiles can be shared for learning purposes and to improve performance.

4. Digital Workforce

This topic is heavily discussed at the moment. Digital workforce represents the employees that are integrating technology in all elements of the business environment.

Technology is changing the way we work, helping employees become more flexible and operate efficiently. It enables the automation of many of the traditional administrative tasks that HR was dealing with manually.

There are five key components that define the digital workforce. These are all mentioned in the SCALE acronym:

  • Staff on demand
  • Communities which are leveraged and maintained
  • Algorithms that help employees operate more efficiently
  • Leveraging technology to fully automate work processes
  • Engaging the workforce

HR is the industry that uses very specific terms and expressions. And with the emergence of new best practices, trends, and technologies it’s important for HR professionals to get familiar with the terms and definitions in use today.