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With talent wars still raging, it’s no longer enough for companies to simply offer material benefits in order to attract and retain the best employees. In addition to a pay cheque, today’s workers desire meaningful experiences. Fortunately, HR is coming to the rescue—with a little help from technology. Modern solutions go far beyond the service-oriented tools of the past to offer employees new contextual experiences that help them feel valued, trusted and supported.
Digital technologies long ago mastered HR’s “resources”-related tasks such as payroll, scheduling and benefits. Today, new solutions are slowly emerging that perform many of the department’s “human”-centered functions as well, including:
- Facilitating Collaboration and Culture: As HR moves beyond service-based tools to experience-oriented solutions, it’s imperative for employees to have a hub where they can connect, collaborate and engage with colleagues and executives. An interactive intranet sends the message to employees that they are supported wherever they are, whenever they need answers. It also enhances company culture, allowing workers to learn from experts while providing mission critical information in a timely manner
- Social Measuring: HR professionals can instantly take the pulse of their organisation using new lightweight tools such as CultureAmp and TemboSocial. By utilising polls and surveys, leaders can see where they need to make changes in order to improve engagement, as well as the employee experience
- People-Centered Recruiting: Hiring apps like Glassdoor and Jobvite socialise the hiring process, while a solution like Roundpegg can help organisations find “culture-fit” candidates for specific departments, managers or teams
- Gamifying the Employee Journey: Gamification increases engagement by encouraging employees to perform certain desired actions. Missions help new hires get up to speed faster during pre- and post-onboarding and add value throughout the rest of the employee lifecycle as well. Contextual quests are also useful for training and development, team building, adopting new processes and fostering brand advocates
- Socialising Feedback: Modern HR technologies provide feedback such as recognition, rewards and coaching in an organic way. They allow employees to connect and collaborate spontaneously, while encouraging their individual workstyles. These tools can also help nurture a positive, high-performance culture by making feedback, recognition and encouragement a part of everyday work
Putting people first has never been more important. While wooing talent is more challenging than ever, collaborative digital workplaces now give organisations the competitive advantage by allowing them to recruit, acquire and develop the best employees in ways that were never possible before. Considering that, by every measure, people are the lifeblood of business, now is HR’s opportunity to step into the spotlight.
For more insight download the Gigaom Research Report ‘A new Charter for HR’:
