What is digital HR?

Put simply, digital HR is the integration of digital technologies into Human Resources processes to make these more efficient, effective, and connected. It’s the strategic combination of the HR department and technology that leads to streamlined operations, improved decision-making, enhanced employee experience, and a more agile and responsive organization.

According to Dave Ulrich, the digital HR journey of a company is characterized by four phases:

• HR efficiency: In this stage, organizations invest in technology platforms that efficiently manage HR processes. The key question to ask yourself in this phase is: To what extent do we use technology to streamline administrative HR work? 
• HR effectiveness: At this phase, companies use HR technology to upgrade existing people practices such as performance management, talent acquisition, and training. The critical question is, ‘To what extent do we use technology to innovate our HR practices?’
• Information: Organizations start leveraging people analytics to create business impact. Their data is accessible, and internal data is combined with external data. The most important question to ask in this stage is, ‘To what extent do we use technology to access information?’
• Connection/experience: In this stage, companies use digital HR software and tools to foster a connection between people. Experiences between people are created, social networks are leveraged, and technology enables a feeling of belonging. The question to ask yourself during this phase is, ‘To what extent do we use technology to create connections?’

At the end of their digital HR journey, organizations will have undergone an HR digital transformation, transforming HR operations on the one hand and the workforce and the way work is done on the other. 

How is digital HR different from traditional HR?

Digital HR differs from traditional HR in that it digitalizes manual tasks such as record-keeping, data analysis, and answering employee questions.

The difference between digital and traditional HR is best illustrated with an example. 

Benefits of digital HR 

Digital HR not only gives organizations a competitive advantage, but it also has multiple other benefits. 

Saving time and improving productivity for HR

As we’ve seen in the LASD example mentioned above, digitalizing HR processes can be a huge time saver. This, in turn, will also improve the department’s overall productivity, making it one of the biggest benefits of digital HR.

Streamlining HR processes

Digitalizing HR processes helps to streamline and structure them. Think about recruitment, for example. Rather than manually trying to keep track of your applicants and their process stage, you can use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) instead.

Depending on the ATS, the system can take care of tasks such as:

• Posting vacancies across multiple job boards
• Connecting with candidates
• Scheduling interviews with potential candidates
• Nurturing candidates through the recruitment funnel
• And much more.

Boosting (digital) employee experience 

The employee experience consists of three key components: 

1. The physical experience 
2. The digital experience 
3. The cultural experience.

The massive surge in hybrid and remote work since 2020 and the continuous digitalization of work, in general, have made the digital employee experience more and more important. 

Digital HR can significantly improve the employee experience, for example, by enabling employee self-service. Workers can easily:

• View and download their pay stubs, tax forms (e.g., W-2s), and other related documents
• Enroll in, change, or manage their benefits plans, including health insurance, retirement plans, and other perks
• Update their contact details, address, emergency contacts, and other personal information directly in the HR system
• Clock in and out, log work hours, and track their attendance records.

These self-service features empower employees to manage their HR-related needs efficiently and independently, reducing the administrative burden on HR departments and making their digital employee experience smooth and user-friendly. This enhanced autonomy fosters greater employee satisfaction and engagement.

Better data management

Digitalizing HR processes reduces the risk of data loss. Provided that people know where the data is stored and how to access it, using a software solution such as a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or an ATS will allow for better data management than using a manual alternative.  

Enhancing talent acquisition 

If there is one area within the HR field that is abundant in terms of digital HR solutions, apps, and software, it is talent acquisition. 

Many aspects of the candidate journey can be digitalized and (largely) automated, from candidate sourcing and job posting to candidate pre-selection, interview scheduling, and onboarding. 

Enabling data-driven decision making 

Most, if not all, of the digital HR software today comes with analytics and reporting features, making it much easier for HR to analyze internal data and make data-driven decisions.

Lower administrative costs 

The use of HR technology can significantly reduce the time HR professionals spend on administrative tasks such as payroll processing, employee data management, and benefits administration. As such, digitalizing HR processes will lower administrative costs.

Digital HR examples

Let’s explore some examples of digital HR in practice, looking at how technology is integrated within HR processes and practices. 

1. Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

The HRIS is one of the most well-known examples of digital HR. It’s a system that stores, collects, processes, and manages employee data. HR teams use it to work more efficiently and make more data-driven decisions.

HRIS features typically include: 

• Benefits administration 
• Employee data management 
• Employee self-service 
• Payroll processing 
• Reporting and analytics 
• Time & attendance. 

Using an HRIS is particularly interesting for organizations of a certain size, starting with companies that have between 30 to 50 employees. 

Some of the biggest benefits of working with this kind of software include: 

• Improved efficiency: The fact that all employee data is stored in one place saves time and increases accuracy. 
• Better record-keeping: At its core, an HRIS is a record-keeping system. As such, it tracks all changes related to the organization’s employees and is considered the single source of truth for staff data.  
• A better employee experience: The HRIS can offer self-service tools to managers and employees. This means that they are in charge of things like requesting leave or updating their information, which, in turn, positively affects the employee experience.   

You can think of the HRIS as the backbone of digital HR.

2. Collecting employee feedback 

Employee feedback has become vital for evaluating the success of nearly every single HR process: recruitment and selection, onboarding, performance management, L&D, and so on. 

There are different ways to gather feedback from people, each with its benefits and limitations. Depending on your strategy, what you want to achieve, the target audience, and the timing of the feedback, the decision about which approach—and platform—to use will differ.

Examples of the digital methods that companies use to collect employee feedback include:

• Employee pulse surveys 
• Point-in-time surveys (i.e., the traditional annual survey)
• Topic-driven surveys
• Exit surveys.

3. HR case management 

HR case management refers to the process that a company’s HR department has in place to resolve the questions and inquiries that employees send to them. 

There are many different issues or queries that employees may run into. Some of these may be related to: 

• Benefits
• Onboarding 
• Payroll and taxes
• Performance
• Policies and procedures

A dedicated HR case management software is indispensable, particularly in medium—and large-sized organizations, to ensure reliable HR case management and handle the volume and complexity of the various inquiries well.   

Benefits of working with this kind of software include: 

• Immediate access: The software gives employees immediate access to HR, so they no longer have to wait for a meeting to ask their questions.
• Quick escalation: The HR case management software collects all the relevant information for each query, making it easy to pass the case directly to the right person or team. 
• Status tracking: The software’s ticketing system allows both employees and HR to follow the status of each case. 
• Workflow automation: Common questions are answered in FAQs and in an HR knowledge base that people can easily access. This saves the HR team a lot of time that they can use on more complex queries. 
• Improved employee experience: All of the elements mentioned above contribute to a better employee experience as they improve transparency, access to HR, and overall problem resolution.

4. AI-based coaching

AI-based coaching involves using artificial intelligence to enhance, support, or take over the coaching relationship.

The coach can use AI to get insights into their coachees’ needs and to provide recommendations. In other cases, employees interact only with AI, for example, through a chatbot.

5. Succession planning software 

An effective succession planning process enables organizations to identify, select, and develop the right people for critical roles to ensure business continuity when an individual holding that role leaves.

In the era of digital HR, there exists an array of succession planning tools that companies can use to streamline their succession planning process. 

The exact features differ per tool and provider, but here are a few examples of what is possible: 

• Proactively identifying critical roles 
• Visualizing your bench strength 
• Creating dedicated talent pools
• Focusing on leadership vulnerabilities 
• Creating a short, medium, and long-term succession plan for each key role.

The process of HR digital transformation 

Leveraging digital in HR is not as simple as implementing a few software solutions here and there. It is a complicated process that requires time, effort, and resources.

So, how do we approach a project of this magnitude?

Stages of HR digital transformation

Every organization engaging in digital transformation will go through six stages. Here’s what they translate to in HR:

1. Business as usual: HR acts on the belief that current solutions will remain relevant.
2. Present and active: In this stage, different experiments throughout the company create digital literacy and creativity.  
3. Formalized: Experimentation becomes intentional, and there is more support from leadership.
4. Strategic: In this phase, multidisciplinary project teams execute most digital HR initiatives. Collaboration increases, leading to the development of strategic HR digital transformation roadmaps.
5. Converged: A dedicated digital transformation team guides digital support of HR strategy and operations.
6. Innovative and adaptive: By now, digital transformation has become the organization’s new ‘business as usual’ and a continuous process.

Understanding these stages is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it helps organizations assess their current position in the digital transformation journey and identify the next steps to progress further.

Secondly, it ensures that efforts are aligned with the broader business strategy, maximizing the impact of digital initiatives. 

Lastly, it facilitates a structured approach to change. That way, organizations can adapt to new technologies and practices systematically and ultimately achieve the goals they’ve set.

Best practices for digital transformation in HR 

Starting with such a complex process as digital HR transformation can seem overwhelming. The following best practices are the core of your HR digital transformation and will be the key drivers for success.

Assess your current HR processes

Start with an audit of the current situation. Here are some questions to ask yourself and steps to take:

• What kind of HR software or tools are you currently using to run various HR processes? Do you already use an HRIS and an ATS, for example? 
• If nothing is in place yet, then what are the areas where digital HR will have the most impact? Try to see if you can align here with the company’s business goals.
• If digital tools are in place, create an overview of all the current HR solutions your organization is using and whether these systems can communicate with each other. If they can, how?
• How is each solution and tool maintained? Does HR take care of this? Does this happen automatically?

Based on your audit, you can decide what the priorities are right now and where to start.

Develop digital HR skills within your team 

HR practitioners need the right digital HR skills to drive the company’s digital transformation, starting with digital agility. This refers to the ability to rapidly adapt to and leverage digital technologies and tools to enhance HR processes, improve efficiency, and drive innovation.

Here are a few ways to develop digital agility: 

• Familiarize yourself with different types of technology
• Collaborate with other departments on innovation
• Work on your change management skills
• Dare to experiment
• Get certified in Digital HR.

Define clear objectives and success metrics for the transformation 

As with any new project, you should define clear objectives and success metrics before embarking on your digital transformation journey.

The objectives and metrics will differ per organization. Let’s say that your goal is to improve operational efficiency, allowing HR to complete work at a lower cost, in less time, and with fewer people involved.

You could use the following metrics to measure whether you achieved this objective:

• HR cost per employee: This metric calculates the total HR expenditure divided by the number of employees. A reduction in HR cost per employee would indicate that the digital transformation has made HR processes more cost-effective.
• HR service delivery time: This tracks the average time taken to complete various HR services, such as processing leave requests or resolving employee inquiries. A reduction in service delivery time reflects enhanced operational efficiency and faster response times due to digital tools and processes.
• Employee self-service utilization rate: This metric tracks the percentage of HR-related transactions (such as leave requests, benefits enrollment, and personal information updates) completed by employees using self-service portals or applications. A high utilization rate signifies that employees are effectively using digital HR tools to manage their needs independently, which reduces the administrative workload on HR staff and enhances overall productivity by minimizing time spent on routine tasks.

Adopt a phased approach 

A phased approach to digital HR transformation allows you to correct course where needed. Before digitalizing a particular HR process, start with a pilot project. This will enable you to test and refine your HR digital transformation strategy.

Let’s say your company wants to automate its payroll process. Before making the switch for all the employees in the organization, test the new solution first with just one or two teams, starting with your own HR team, for example.

HR tip

Develop your HR digital transformation roadmap. An HR digital transformation roadmap serves as a guide when implementing digital HR technologies at your organization. This document outlines key milestones, timelines, and responsible parties, facilitating a structured approach to adopting and integrating new technologies within the HR function.

Implement scalable solutions

Whether you implement digital HR software or digital HR tools, you want them to be scalable. The process of selecting, buying, implementing, and launching digital tools is too costly, in terms of time and money, to repeat countless times. So, if the organization grows, you want the software you use to grow with it.

Create cross-functional teams 

It is unlikely that you, as an HR team, will be able to achieve a successful digital transformation on your own. Get the right people on board from the start – think of IT, Legal, and other stakeholders – and build a cross-functional transformation team. 

This collaborative approach not only improves the implementation and adoption of digital solutions but also ensures compliance, security, and alignment with broader organizational strategies.

Prepare a change management plan 

Digital HR transformation impacts many people in the organization. HR should consider creating a digital change management plan to prepare people for upcoming changes. 

Elements to think of in that regard include:

• Communicate with stakeholders to understand how the change will impact your company
• Use the decision-making Cynefin framework to navigate your change project with actionable steps
• Base your change communications on the competing values framework
• Use a stakeholder management template to help you manage your various stakeholders.

Focus on employee experience 

Most of the time, the company’s employees are the ones who will have to use the digital tools on a daily basis. Therefore, it is crucial that the software, apps, and other types of technology you roll out improve your employees’ work experience.

To ensure this is the case, involve them from the start, ask for their opinion, and, most importantly, listen to it.

Build an integrated HR tech stack  

There is a digital HR software solution for virtually every HR process. If we had to categorize the various technologies, we’d distinguish three main categories: 

• Core HR solutions: HRIS, payroll, compensation and benefits management software, etc.
• Recruiting: ATS, pre-selection tools, referral software, etc. 
• Employee experience: Onboarding, LMS, performance management software, rewards, etc.

Most companies use software and tools from each of these categories; this is what we call their HR tech stack. 

Make sure you build an integrated tech stack. This means that all your HR tech stack elements should work together. For example, your HR management system (HRMS) should integrate with your payroll software, allowing for smooth data flow and reducing the need for manual data entry.

A set of tools that can’t communicate with each other will be counterproductive. You also don’t want the inefficiency of separate destinations for every HR process.

HR digital transformation examples

Let’s take a look at some HR digital transformation case studies where organizations worldwide successfully used HR tech to tackle a specific business challenge. 

New Moms: Improving efficiency and transparency using an HRIS

New Moms is a non-profit organization based in the U.S. that supports young mothers who are struggling with homelessness and poverty. 

The organization spent hundreds of hours tracking down personnel information, funding stream data, and other essential documents. 

The non-profit then decided to implement a streamlined HRIS that enabled them to store and access all of their data on one platform. 

As a result, New Moms was able to:

• Find and present compelling data on their daily operations to key stakeholders
• Reduce turnover by 37%
• Secure additional funding for their projects
• Shift from a paper-based annual review to weekly coaching for its employees.

Global energy company: Using digital HR to improve EX 

A global energy firm noticed a considerable difference between its external and internal digitalization. For example, their Learning delivery and Compliance training was extremely outdated and ineffective. 

The company’s Interim HR Change and innovation Director decided to shake things up and use gamification to tackle the issue. 

This led to a new training app that allows employees to collect badges and obtain high scores that are visible to the entire employee base.

As a result, the energy company saw: 

• An almost 100% uptake on the tests
• Their compliance training was completed in 3 months rather than in the 9 months it used to take.

KPMG Belgium: Starting the employee journey right after the signature 

This HR digital transformation case study focuses on preboarding, an important yet often overlooked step towards happy and engaged employees.

KPMG Belgium didn’t have a preboarding process for new hires. For graduates, in particular, this could lead to relatively long periods between the moment they signed their contract and their first day on the job.

To solve this problem and to create a more structured process, the company decided to use an integrated and secure onboarding software solution.

Now, the organization’s onboarding—or preboarding, actually—starts as soon as the candidate signs the contract. The app sends new hires all the practical information they need to know before they start, including contact details of their new colleagues.

After two years of preboarding, KPMG saw:

• New hires rate their experience at 4.45 out of 5
• New hires rate their first week at a 4.12
• An app activation rate of 81%.

Digital HR skills

In order to implement digital HR and execute the organization’s digital HR transformation roadmap, HR practitioners need to master specific skills. Essential digital HR skills include: 

Digital agility

This is the ability to use technology to increase the impact of HR and prepare the organization for the adoption of digital practices.

There are three dimensions of digital agility: 

• Technology empowered: HR practitioners who master digital agility are able to integrate technology to build efficient, scalable, and impactful HR solutions.
• Digital aptitude: Digitally agile HR professionals are motivated to learn and experiment with digital ways of work. 
• Digital adoption: HR professionals who have developed digital agility (co) create an environment ready for digital adoption.

Digital agility is one of the five core HR competencies identified by the Academy to Innovate HR; the other four are Data Literacy, Business Acumen, People Advocacy, and Execution Excellence.

These core competencies form a solid foundation for every HR professional to build on and should, therefore, be part of HR’s skills starter kit. 

If we focus more on specific digital HR skills and technical skills, then there are a few more that come to mind: 

HRIS knowledge

As we saw earlier, the HRIS forms the backbone of a company’s digital HR. In today’s digital world, HR professionals must be familiar with and knowledgeable about an HRIS solution.

Knowledge of relevant HR software

Depending on your role within HR, you will need to know how to use specific software.

As a talent acquisition specialist, for example, you want to know how to use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and how to use different social media platforms.

As someone overseeing the organization’s talent management strategy, you want to familiarize yourself with Talent Management Software (TMS).

Cloud technology

Almost every HR software solution out there is cloud-based. This means that as an HR practitioner, you need to know how to operate a cloud-based HRIS, ATS, TMS, or LMS.

Prompting

Prompting is becoming an essential digital HR skill due to the growing use of generative AI-driven tools in work processes.

These tools rely on clear prompts for tasks like generating candidate outreach messages, creating onboarding plans, and analyzing employee feedback. HR professionals need to master prompting to ensure accurate outputs.

As AI tools evolve, effective prompting enables HR professionals to leverage advanced capabilities fully and strategically.

Digital HR trends

What does the future of digital HR look like? These key emerging digital HR trends will shape how HR works. 

Generative AI in HR 

In the future, generative AI will enable true HR business partnering. 

Until now, HR automation technology has mainly focused on highly repetitive and not very complex work. The issue is that a lot of work in HR is neither simple nor repetitive, and that’s where GenAI comes in.

For example, GenAI can assist in crafting personalized employee development plans, analyzing complex workforce data to provide actionable insights, and generating tailored communication for diverse employee needs. This enables HR to become a more strategic partner within the organization.

Personalized employee experience 

Employees today expect to have access to what they need when they need it at the tap of a screen. They want a personalized experience tailored to their needs. In many organizations, this is not yet the case.  

This is why there will be an increased focus on employee experience design, and HR technology will play an essential role in facilitating this.

AI bias awareness 

As the use of AI in HR continues to increase, so will people’s awareness of bias. In hiring, there are some examples of how AI bias has affected decision-making due to biased training data, algorithmic design, or biased human involvement. 

HR will have to mitigate AI bias as much as possible. This can be done using fairness-aware algorithms and improving overall data collection and human oversight.

HR chatbots and virtual assistants 

HR chatbots offer two main advantages. On the one hand, they save HR teams from answering frequently asked questions and providing commonly requested information.

On the other hand, they can significantly improve the employee experience by responding 24/7 to employee queries about, for example, leave policies or benefits.  

Therefore, it is no surprise that the HR chatbot market is expected to grow significantly between 2023 and 2030.

Automating onboarding tasks

Recent employee onboarding statistics show that HR practitioners see technology as the missing piece in their onboarding toolkit, with 68% planning on using it in the near future.  

According to the statistics, organizations with a formal onboarding process have a 50% higher retention rate than those without. This percentage increases by another 16% when specific onboarding tasks are automated. 

Thus, further automation of the onboarding process is likely to occur in the near future.

Digital HR certification 

Completing a digital HR certificate program will help you develop the skills, expertise, and experience needed to lead the digital transformation of HR in your organization. 

If you want to learn about the impact of digital on how, when, and where we work and how HR can capitalize on this to remain relevant and effective, AIHR’s Digital HR 2.0 Certificate Program can help you with this.

The program will teach you how to create a digital HR strategy that delivers an excellent employee experience and efficient HR service delivery.

You will learn:

• How to design effective and memorable employee experiences by applying design thinking methodology
• How to effectively implement digital projects, minimize resistance to change, and drive digital adoption
• How to analyze, optimize, and automate HR processes to increase efficiency and reduce errors
• How to develop the expertise to become a digital innovator and drive digital HR initiatives. 

The benefits of this program are:

• It is self-paced – you can learn when and where it suits you best
• Access to a global HR practitioners community to connect with peers and HR professionals from all over the world
• Real-world projects and case studies to develop practical skills
• Competency assessments that help you track your learning progress and fill your skills gaps
• Resource library full of templates, toolkits, and checklists to help you apply what you’ve learned in your work 
• Accredited, globally recognized education
• Your own personal coach who will be your point of contact at AIHR throughout the program.

FAQ

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In this article, we’ll explore what generative AI (artificial intelligence) in HR looks like, how it works, its impact on HR as a whole, generative AI tools for HR, and how to start integrating generative AI in your HR department. 

Contents
What is generative AI in HR?
How generative AI is used in HR
Top 5 generative AI tools for HR
5 generative AI in HR examples
How to start using generative AI in HR

What is generative AI in HR?

First, let’s explore generative AI and, specifically, what it means for HR. 

What is generative AI?

Generative AI is a subset of AI that primarily focuses on content creation, data analysis, and generating programming coding that mimics human-like creativity and output. 

Traditional AI mainly analyzes and processes existing data to make evidence-based decisions or predictions. Generative AI, on the other hand, produces new content through learning patterns and structures obtained from large datasets. This data can include text, images, videos, music, and more.

What is generative AI in HR?

Generative AI’s application can have significant implications for four main areas of HR:

1. Content: HR professionals can use generative AI tools to increase efficiency and value in various stages of employee life cycle — from creating engaging job descriptions based on skill profiles and writing personalized emails to job candidates to drafting HR policies and creating training content.
2. Data: Generative AI tools can summarize and extract key insights from data. For example, it can help HR analyze and aggregate performance ratings, salary data, and more.
3. Communication: Using generative AI chatbots, HR can improve employee engagement, increase access to the HR knowledge base, and offer individualized learning recommendations based on skills gaps. You can also use these chatbots to improve efficiency and the individual employee growth and development experience. 
4. Coding: You can also leverage generative AI to compile various data sources and analyze large datasets for organizational analysis and planning. Examples include determining the probability of attrition rates, identifying high-potential employees, and pinpointing future skills gaps. 

How does generative AI work? 

In a word, generative AI uses neural networks, which are systems inspired by the human brain. These networks are trained on large datasets to recognize patterns. They then use these patterns to generate new content.

For example, if trained on a large number of images, a generative AI can create new images that resemble the originals. Similarly, for text, it can write new paragraphs based on the style and structure of the text it has learned from.

How will generative AI impact HR?

Generative AI will have a major impact on HR as technology continues to evolve and businesses rely on it more. According to a Gartner survey, 76% of HR leaders believe their organization must adopt AI solutions within two years to ensure organizational success, while 38% have already explored or implemented such solutions to increase process efficiency. 

The more technological advances arise, the more administrative tasks will be automated. However, more administrative HR roles are at higher risk of replacement compared to less repetitive and more complex specialized roles. 

Generative AI holds much HR potential, including greater productivity. A LinkedIn survey suggested it could increase HR productivity by 30% while creating a more strategic and knowledgeable HR organization.

AI will reduce low-level administrative tasks, and many key roles—including HRBPs—will pivot toward storytelling and high-value insights that help drive the business forward. It will also streamline HR processes, including the use of language learning models (LLMs) to craft job descriptions, interview questions, and communication with candidates and employees.

How generative AI is used in HR

Recruitment and hiring 

Some applications, such as ChatGPT, can help create accurate and compelling job postings or generate customizable screening questions tailored to specific roles and candidate profiles for a more targeted and effective interview process.

HR and talent acquisition professionals can also use generative AI to draft various types of emails in the recruitment process, for example, outreach emails and rejection letters.

What’s more, some talent intelligence platforms are now incorporating generative AI functionality that enables you to search within their databases with a question instead of a complex Boolean search string. You can also analyze candidate profiles relative to the job descriptions of your vacancies.

Onboarding 

During onboarding, AI-powered chatbots can act as virtual onboarding assistants to provide new hires with real-time support, answering questions related to company policies, compensation and benefits, requesting leave, and other vital information. This support can enhance the onboarding experience and help new employees settle in more quickly.

Training and development

Combining generative AI and HR can positively impact employee growth and development. For example, generative AI can provide customized learning and development suggestions for employees by analyzing their skills, performance data, and career aspirations.

AI-based coaching is also growing in popularity. AI coaching tools can mimic the benefits of in-person, one-on-one coaching by offering employees real-time feedback, answering questions, and offering insights.

Generative AI technologies are also useful in updating and adapting training materials in accordance with industry requirements. This means learners have access to the latest content, and organizations remain compliant. Generative AI can also be used to create realistic, varied training simulations that operate dynamically based on user decisions. This would facilitate experiential learning and boost decision-making skills. 

Employee engagement

As an HR professional, you can use generative AI to brainstorm employee engagement survey questions that will allow you to gather actionable insights into how you can improve workplace satisfaction, enhance productivity, and address specific areas of concern within your organization.

You can use the already mentioned AI-powered chatbots to engage not only new but also existing employees. They can handle routine employee queries regarding essential company information (such as benefits and policies) and enable HR to offer employees more intuitive self-service applications. This gives HR professionals more time to spend on more valuable face-to-face interactions.

Policy and document generation

Generative AI for HR solutions can be immensely helpful in creating and updating policies and documents. It can help speed up document drafting, provide foundations for contracts and agreements, and accelerate research and writing by drafting documents based on company policy. At the same time, generative AI can help accurately complete forms, reducing typically tedious administrative tasks and paperwork for HR personnel.

HR data analysis

Generative AI can analyze large datasets and uncover key patterns. It can also create visually appealing data insights and images that convey complex information in a simple and engaging way.

An example of using generative AI for analyzing HR data would be looking at anonymized salary data for any trends and anomalies or exploring unusual patterns in employee attendance or performance, which may indicate potential issues that you need to address, such as dissatisfaction or poor management. You can also create scripts for more advanced data analysis with generative AI.

Internal communications 

Generative AI allows you to quickly generate content tailored to the organization’s and its employees’ needs. This includes determining a voice and tone that aligns with company values, personalizing messages to resonate with the individual, and using inclusive language. This helps HR ensure all communications across the business are consistent in tone, inclusivity, and engagement.

Gen AI can also customize messages based on factors like role, interests, location, and professional development stages. Whether you’re engaging with candidates or existing employees, generative AI can help ensure every aspect of your communication is deliberate and effective. 

Speeding up tasks 

If used properly, generative AI enables HR professionals to finish many tasks faster, freeing up a significant amount of time. This allows them to focus on more strategic and value-added activities such as employee development, talent management, and organizational planning. Not only does this help HR teams feel more valued and purposeful, but it also makes them more integral to business growth. 

HR tip

Invest in a course or training workshop to accelerate your AI knowledge if you want to learn more about leveraging popular generative AI tools like ChatGPT to increase HR productivity and business impact.

AIHR’s ChatGPT for HR online and entirely self-paced course is a great example of a practical application course to take.

Top 5 generative AI tools for HR

HR software providers are increasingly incorporating generative AI into their solutions. Here are some AI software and tools examples.

5 generative AI in HR examples

Let’s look at how companies are successfully applying generative AI in HR.

Example 1: Large transport & logistics company

A large company in logistics and services struggled with the scale of HR policy documents that were often difficult to understand. They needed an effective policy retrieval system that would reduce HR’s workload and boost efficiency.

Using generative AI, it created the HR Policy Document Query Assistant. The company used an LLM model to convert text from PDFs and simplify the content of policy documents. Advanced techniques and an orchestration framework (LangChain) improved the HR assistant’s intelligence and responsiveness,

The company saw a 30% decrease in HR queries and a 20% decrease in compliance-related incidents. This led to a more positive employee experience at work, time and cost savings, and improved compliance. 

Example 2:  RingCentral

RingCentral — a cloud comms and collaboration software business —  knew their talent search wasn’t fast enough to meet recruitment targets or DEI goals. Enter Findem’s talent search solution: a generative AI approach to deliver detailed talent insights and trends by combining external and internal data, and automating candidate matching and outreach. 

The advanced talent data cloud with attribute-based search enables RingCentral to find and hire the right talent and create highly targeted and diverse talent pools. They’re also able to gain insight into what could motivate each candidate to consider taking the job, then create targeted outreach campaigns based on their findings. 

RingCentral increased their pipeline by 40%, their pipeline quality by 22%, and increased interest in their vacancies from underrepresented groups by 40%.

Example 3: Manipal Health Enterprises

Manipal Health Enterprises wanted a solution that could provide 24/7 support to nurses, doctors and other employees for all their HR queries. Using Leena, MiPAL was born — a virtual assistant that automatically answers all queries relating to payroll, taxes, leave management, benefits, and more.

This has saved the HR team over 60,000 hours in time manually replying to repetitive questions, reduced the average response time for employees to 24 hours, and reduced the annual new hire attrition rate by up to 5%.

Example 4: Straits Interactive

Straits Interactive is an organization that creates data governance solutions. The company wanted to improve data privacy and governance. Before partnering with Foundry for AI by Rackspace (FAIR), their software helped users to access information relating to data privacy and summarize legal texts. However, trained data privacy experts were needed to interpret the output.

Using GenAI, FAIR created an AI-driven Data Protection Officer assistant to guide global data governance and compliance. Now, anytime anyone has a law-related question, the DPO assistant is available 24/7 to help, no matter how complex it may be. 

Example 5: Heluna Health

Heluna Health — a champion of public health and innovation — was struggling to communicate, collaborate, and engage with a workforce spread across a vast range of projects. By implementing CloudApper’s hrGPT, a personalized communication tool, Heluna Health could deliver targeted, customized messages and updates to specific groups of employees. 

hrGPT is able to mimic human interactions and engage in natural conversations with employees, which retains the quality of human touch without the need for actual human input. This helped improve communication and engagement across the company and create a stronger sense of belonging. Additionally, many HR tasks have been automated and the company has seen improved information consistency, and minimized delays.

How to start using generative AI in HR

Here are some best practices to familiarize yourself with before you begin using generative AI in your HR operations:

Step 1: Start small and experiment 

ChatGPT is one of the amazing free tools you can use to dip your toes into the world of generative AI. Try using it to brainstorm employee survey questions or interview questions, draft emails to candidates, or update a job description. This is a solid way to test the waters of gen AI and get familiar with it before making a significant investment into a generative AI tool.

Step 2: Learn how to prompt effectively

There are three key elements to keep in mind when creating a prompt for ChatGPT:

• Objective: The purpose of the prompt. It clarifies what you want to achieve with your query.
• Context: Any relevant background information that provides a framework for your query. This might involve specifying the topic or including necessary details that can guide the response.
• Format: Specifying any particular formatting requirements (e.g., list, essay, summary).

An example of a prompt would be “Draft a job description for the role of HR Administrator at Mastercard covering responsibilities and what we offer”. Enter different types of prompts for the same purpose to see which prompts result in the most suitable results.

Step 3: Evaluate and refine based on the AI outputs

It’s important to remember that generative AI is always evolving. Review the AI-generated responses, gain insights into the effectiveness of your queries, and identify areas for improvement in prompt crafting to get more accurate and relevant information.

Also, when using AI-generated content, lean on your own knowledge, expertise, and industry standards to assess the correctness of the outputs.

Step 4: Integrate AI gradually

Integrate AI into your workflow at a slow and steady pace. For example, you can start by using it to draft policy documents, then for a simple data analysis a week later. This approach will soften the learning curve for the whole HR team. 

Step 5: Always keep data privacy in mind

As discussed, data privacy is one of the primary concerns when sharing data with gen AI tools. HR professionals have a huge responsibility here, as they frequently deal with sensitive employee information. Ensure that you comply with data protection regulations and maintain confidentiality at all times.

As GenAI becomes more widely used within your HR department and the organization, consider developing a generative AI policy to guide how you work with technology.

Step 6: Collaborate with IT

The final step is to work with your IT team to better understand the technical aspects of GenAI tools. Not only will this help you integrate them properly into your existing HR software and systems, it will minimize technical issues and facilitate smooth operation.

To sum up

As generative AI continues to evolve, it will become an even more integral part of the work landscape. Stay ahead of the curve by implementing generative AI tools and software in your HR operations to help you reduce your team’s admin workload so they can spend more time on work that truly matters.

The post Generative AI in HR: Examples & How To Successfully Start Using AI appeared first on AIHR.

In this article, we take a closer look at the Human Resources Information System, share best practices for HRIS management, and provide ideas to take your HRIS analytics efforts to the next level. 

Let’s dive in! 

Contents
What is an HRIS?
HRIS vs HRMS vs HCM
HRIS functions
Benefits of an HRIS
HRIS examples
HRIS implementation in 6 steps
HRIS management best practices
How to get the most out of your HRIS data
The HRIS analyst role
HRIS certification
FAQ

What is an HRIS?

A Human Resources Information System, or HRIS, is a software solution that is used to collect, manage, store, and process an organization’s employee information. Essentially, HR teams use an HRIS to work more efficiently and make more data-driven decisions.

In most cases, an HR information system includes the basic features needed for end-to-end HR management. This system helps companies manage and automate core HR processes, such as: 

• Employee data management
• Benefits administration
• Payroll processing
• Time and attendance management
• Reporting and analytics
• Employee self-service

In the past, HRIS software used to be on-premise, meaning that it ran on the company’s own technical infrastructure. Nowadays, it’s almost always cloud-based, making it much easier to update, among other things.

HRIS vs HRMS vs HCM

The terms HRIS, HRMS, and HCM are often used interchangeably. And while there is some overlap in core HR areas that run on basic employee data, they aren’t the same thing. Rather, they build upon one another and offer increasingly sophisticated features as the company’s needs evolve.

Put simply, an HRIS offers basic data and workflow automation. An HR Management System (HRMS) offers all the functionalities of the HRIS and, on top of that:

• Recruiting & applicant tracking 
• Onboarding 
• Performance management
• Employee engagement

A Human Capital Management (HCM) system offers all the functionalities of the HRIS and the HRMS, as well as additional features. It offers a complete suite of HR applications to improve the employee experience and is focused on strategy and planning. 

As such, it usually includes: 

• Learning and development 
• Compensation management 
• Succession planning 
• Industry data and benchmarks 
• Advanced data & analytics 
• Business intelligence 

Bear in mind that the exact features and functionalities of an HRIS, HRMS, and HCM differ per provider. The ones listed in this article are just a basic example of what the different types of HR software can look like.

HRIS functions

Depending on the HRIS provider, the exact functionalities of the system will differ. For clarity and consistency, we will discuss the features listed in the section explaining what an HRIS is, which are the core HRIS functions.

Employee data management

Employee data management refers to the collecting, organizing, and storing of employee data and is arguably the number one feature of any HR information system and the reason why so many organizations use one.

It allows businesses to reduce paperwork, keep the information up to date, as well as enhance searchability and accessibility of information.

Benefits administration

Another feature of the Human Resources Information System is benefits management. Employee benefits are an essential aspect of compensation and are also managed in this system.

HRIS simplifies benefits management by automating enrollment processes and tracking employee eligibility. It serves as a centralized platform for managing various benefits plans and enables employees to easily access and modify their benefits selections.

Payroll processing

The payroll feature automates the pay process of an organization’s employees. Contractual data and information about new hires is often entered into this module of the system – sometimes combined with time and attendance data – and at the end of the month, payment orders are created. 

Time and attendance management

This module gathers time and attendance data from employees. These are especially relevant for shift workers who clock in and out. 

Back in the day – and as we’ve seen earlier, in some companies still today – employees often wrote down their working hours on a piece of paper. Their manager would then manually enter the data into a time-tracking system. Based on this data, payment orders were generated and paid to all employees. 

In today’s more digitalized work environment, workers often check into work by fingerprint or with a card synced with the company’s HRIS. This gives an exact time for people’s arrival and departure. Any issues with lateness can easily be detected.   

Reporting and analytics 

This feature enables the creation of automated HR reports on various topics like employee turnover, absence, performance, and more. Analytics involves the analysis of these insights for better-informed decision-making. 

Employee self-service

As we’ve mentioned above, companies are increasingly focusing on having employees and their direct supervisors manage their own data. 

Employees can, for example, request PTO themselves. Once approved, these requests are then immediately saved into the system (and registered to track for payroll and benefits purposes).

Benefits of an HRIS

Using an HRIS has multiple benefits for the organization, HR, and the employee.

Working with this kind of software typically becomes interesting when the company has between 30 to 50 employees. Managing the basic employee information in Excel becomes cumbersome at this point and simple procedures like approving employee time off need to be standardized.

Using an HRIS is especially beneficial for large organizations, which typically use more advanced HRIS systems to support different HR functions. Small businesses would suit a more basic HRIS.

Let’s look at some of the main benefits of working with an HRIS:

• Improved record-keeping: An HRIS is a record-keeping system that keeps track of changes to anything related to employees. As such, the HRIS can be seen as the single source of truth regarding personnel data.
• Compliance: Some employee data is collected and stored for compliance reasons. Think, for instance, of material for the identification of employees in case of theft, fraud, or other misbehaviors, first contact information in case of emergency, citizens identification information for the tax office, and expiration dates for mandatory certification. Organizations can store all this information in the HRIS. Data must be stored safely and securely, in line with GDPR regulations.
• Efficiency: Having all this information stored in one place benefits accuracy and saves time. Some companies still keep a lot of data about employees as physical paperwork. Finding the correct folder and locating the right sheet can take up a lot of staff time. In the US, for example, around 38% of employees still use paper timesheets and punch cards. In Canada, this is 58%.  
• HR strategy: The HRIS permits the tracking of data required to advance the HR and business strategy. We’ll discuss examples of how to leverage HRIS data later in this article. 
• Self-service HR: Another benefit of the HR information system is its ability to offer self-service HR to employees and managers. This enables employees to be more autonomous and manage (most of) their own affairs, like updating their information or requesting leave.
• An improved employee experience: When done right, the self-service opportunities and easy access to HR information that an HRIS offers can positively impact your digital employee experience and, with it, your overall EX.

HRIS examples

The HRIS software market is fiercely competitive. There are many vendors to choose from depending on your organization’s needs.

Gartner lists the most popular Human Capital Management suites for organizations with 1,000+ employees. These include:

• SAP SuccessFactors
• Workday
• Ceridian Dayforce
• Oracle
• UKG

Other well-known HRIS vendors for large companies are ADP, Cornerstone, and Cegid.

Examples of Human Resources Information Systems for small and medium-sized businesses include: 

• BambooHR
• Paycor
• TalentHR
• Zoho People 
• Personio

HRIS implementation in 6 steps

HRIS implementation is a complex process that involves not only a lot of research and multiple stakeholders but also requires a significant amount of change management.

We’ll have a look at a high-level, 6-step overview of the HRIS implementation process.

1. Search

Find out what your different stakeholders need from an HRIS. Based on these requirements – and after you’ve checked out our HRIS requirements checklist, you can shortlist potential providers.

You can then ask these providers for a proposal. Ideally, you’ve chosen a suitable HRIS provider at the end of this phase. 

2. Plan and align

In this phase, you select an implementation partner and create a steering committee and an implementation team. The steering committee usually consists of senior delegates from your chosen HRIS provider, the HR director from your organization, the internal project manager, and preferably a senior user from your business.

The implementation team’s primary responsibility is working on the day-to-day tasks that come out of the implementation.

3. Define and design

At this point, you need to specify your user groups and map out your processes and workflows. Define the functional and technical requirements for your HRIS infrastructure and security.

Also, note that you might need to build an integration between your HRIS and other existing systems during this phase. This is why it’s essential to have an HR Information System with integration capabilities to accommodate existing and future systems.  

4. Configure and test

In this phase, you need to create a core test team to test your new HR Information System and provide feedback for potential improvements. After this, you should also create a user acceptance test, where you can bring in a number of users to provide final feedback.

5. Train and communicate

Before the go-live, you will need to prepare training for your technical staff, a communication plan, a Frequently Asked Questions page, and other support documents. 

6. Deploy and sustain

Once all your support processes are in place, you can officially launch your HRIS. Remember to constantly collect feedback and update your training material in line with the evolving systems. Constant, accurate communication is key here.

HRIS management best practices

Once you’ve implemented your HRIS, you need to make sure that it continues serving its users effectively. Let’s take a look at some best practices for HRIS management. Think, for example, of: 

• Customization for organizational needs: Customize the HRIS to align with the specific needs and workflows of the organization, such as configuring fields, forms, and workflows to accommodate unique processes and reporting requirements. Some systems (and vendors) will allow for more customization than others. This is something to keep in mind and ask about when selecting providers. 
• Regular data maintenance: Implement regular data audits and clean-ups to ensure the accuracy and integrity of HRIS data, including employee records, payroll information, and performance evaluations.
• User training and support: Provide comprehensive training sessions and ongoing support to HRIS users to maximize utilization and ensure employees are proficient in using the system for tasks such as time tracking, benefits enrollment, and performance management.
  This, too, is something to be mindful of when selecting an HRIS provider. Ask them what support will look like once the system is fully implemented, i.e., will there be a dedicated person you can reach out to for support, or will you have to first talk to a chatbot or go through a customer service team?
• Continuous data security: Implement robust data security measures, including encryption protocols, user access controls, and regular security audits, to safeguard sensitive employee information stored within the HRIS from unauthorized access or breaches.
• Performance monitoring and optimization: Regularly monitor system performance metrics, such as response times and user satisfaction surveys, to identify areas for improvement and optimize system performance through enhancements or upgrades as needed.
• Regular system updates and maintenance: Stay current with system updates and patches provided by the HRIS vendor to ensure optimal system performance, access to new features, and compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. Regular maintenance tasks, such as database and system backups, should also be performed to prevent data loss and system downtime.

How to get the most out of your HRIS data

Beyond easier workforce administration, HR departments can (and should) leverage their HRIS data to create more proactive talent management and retention strategies. Here’s how:

• Integrate your HRIS with other relevant systems, such as performance management, learning management, and recruitment systems, to consolidate data and gain a comprehensive view of employee life cycle data.
• Use historical HRIS data to identify patterns and trends in employee turnover, engagement, and performance. Analyze factors contributing to turnover, such as tenure, job level, department, and performance ratings.
• Leverage HRIS insights to develop personalized interventions for at-risk employees, such as targeted training, career development opportunities, or adjustments to workload or job responsibilities.
• Encourage collaboration between HR and line managers in leveraging HRIS analytics for talent management and retention strategies. Provide managers access to relevant HRIS data and insights to support data-driven decision-making at the team level.

The HRIS analyst role

In terms of job functions, there is one role in particular that involves working with the organization’s HRIS a lot: the HRIS analyst.
The HRIS analyst occupies the unique position of being the IT and data expert in the HR field.

Other job roles related to HRIS are HRIS manager and HRIS specialist.

What does an HRIS analyst do?

The HRIS analyst provides support for the HRIS. This includes researching and resolving HRIS problems and liaising with other parts of the business, like finance and payroll. 

Analysts also generate standard and ad-hoc HRIS reports and improve HRIS processes. This means improving the employee experience using the system, coming up with user-friendly adjustments, and implementing new policies to be reflected in the system. 

However, in today’s work environment, knowing the basics of working with an HRIS is an essential skill for all HR employees. This is especially relevant in small and medium-sized organizations without a dedicated HRIS team.  

HRIS analyst salary

The expected HRIS analyst salary differs based on location and seniority.

For example, a junior HRIS analyst in New York (NY) will have a salary ranging between $49,000 and $84,000, with an average of $70,300, according to Payscale. An experienced HRIS analyst will earn somewhere between $64,000 and $108,000.

Ziprecruiter reports that the average annual pay for HRIS analysts in the U.S. is around $90,000.

HRIS certification

If you want to learn more about HRIS implementation and building and managing a digital HR strategy, we recommend looking into our Digital HR Certificate program, which will provide you with a solid understanding of these topics. 

Depending on the HR information system your organization uses, at least one person in the HR team (and IT department) will probably want to opt for a vendor-specific certification. 

People interested in specializing in HRIS systems may consider studying IT and HRM. It is useful for understanding the complexity and particularities of the system, while HRM helps understand the processes that the HRIS is supporting. 

Combining both enables you to make better decisions regarding system implementation and operation. 

FAQ

The post HRIS 101: All You Need To Know in 2024 appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is AI-based coaching?
Types of AI-based coaching
What are the benefits and limitations of AI-based coaching?
5 HR considerations for implementing AI-based coaching

What is AI-based coaching?

AI-based coaching is the use of artificial intelligence to support, enable, augment, complement, or take ownership of the coaching relationship. To get slightly more technical, researchers define AI in coaching as the “machine-assisted, systematic process of helping clients set professional goals and construct solutions to achieve them”.

As practical applications of AI in HR continue growing, so do challenges concerning bias, lack of transparency, and ethics. A case in point refers to New York City incorporating new legislation to regulate the use of AI within hiring practices. To overcome these challenges, we need to become familiar with the different uses of AI in HR to make the most of it in an effective and ethical way.

In our video series HR Dialogues, we discussed the future of coaching with Dr. Glenn Wallis from a business coaching company Exigence. See the full interview below:

Types of AI-based coaching

There are three different types of AI-based coaching based on the role AI plays in the coaching relationship. Let’s take a closer look at these.

AI-supported coaching

What is it? AI-supported coaching means that coach uses AI to gain insight into coaching needs and provide recommendations to inform the coaching relationship.

Example: A coach utilizes AI-based assessments and asks the coachee to engage with AI-driven tools to provide information to the coach. This data improves the quality and effectiveness of the coaching process.

Vendor example: Coachhub

AI-augmented coaching

What is it? AI-augmented coaching refers to the practice where coachees engage with AI-based tools between formal coaching engagements with a human coach. AI plays the role of a guide to promote further development and helps the coaching process continue beyond face-to-face sessions.

Example: A coachee engages with their coach once a month for a 90-minute session. In between, they access an AI-driven journey of developmental tasks that pushes content to the coachee based on assessments and priorities and tasks that their coach identified. The coach can also access these insights and uses the AI-driven journey to complement the human-led sessions.

Vendor example: Exigence, Centrical

AI-as-the-coach

What is it? AI-as-the-coach is a practice where AI is the coach and individuals only engage with AI. There is no or limited interaction with a human coach, and the coaching relationship sits between AI and the coachee.

Example: A coachee uses a recognized AI coaching system to improve their current level of self-awareness. 

We believe that “AI-as-the-coach” approaches will become more commonplace in the future with the development of AI tools with more advanced language generation capabilities. Still, the research on the effectiveness and ethics of “AI-as-the-coach” without human oversight is not yet conclusive.

Given the shortage of coaches and the increasing need for coaching services that are affordable and scalable, coaching will likely become more democratized in the future.

Vendor example: Coach Vici, Replika

What are the benefits and limitations of AI-based coaching?

All three applications of AI coaching have different benefits and limitations. It is essential to understand these when incorporating AI into your coaching practices.

When used effectively and in the right way, organizations can gain significant value from introducing AI-based coaching practices. But where do you start? And what guidelines can help you consider what is the right fit for your organization?

5 HR considerations for implementing AI-based coaching

We propose five considerations for HR to identify whether AI-based coaching is a good fit for your organization and how to approach it ethically and responsibly.

1: Clearly define the purpose of coaching and the scope

The first guideline is to be clear on the purpose of the coaching process, its scope, and its boundaries. Organizations can benefit from using AI for coaching objectives related to leadership development, personal growth, and performance, to mention a few examples.

AI is unsuitable for dealing with serious mental health challenges and should not, in any event, form part of your practice. Certified healthcare practitioners should always design and implement clinical matters interventions. While a certified healthcare professional could potentially benefit from AI support, AI should not be used for direct engagement with the coachee.

2: Consider the complexity and potential risk for harm

Once you’ve identified the purpose of the coaching engagement, evaluate the complexity and potential risk for harm.

Simply put, this refers to the potential risk to the coachee if something goes wrong with the AI interaction. A registered coach works from the perspective of “Do no harm”; yet this is not necessarily true for AI.  For example, dealing with mental wellbeing challenges poses a higher risk of potential harm than managing a career transition.  

Using these two criteria, the figure below helps you understand how and where to apply the three approaches.

• AI-as-the-coach is applicable in low-complexity and low-risk situations as it struggles to understand context and nuance. It is, however, effective in dealing with “narrow” and predictable situations. We see great applications of this practice for general developmental purposes for entry- or mid-level individuals.
• AI-augmented coaching is suitable for dealing with low/medium complexity and low/medium risk situations, given the oversight of a professional that complements the engagements with AI. This can be very useful for mid to senior-level general development.
• AI-supported coaching is best for dealing with high-complexity and high-risk situations, as the traditional oversight and principles will guide the coach/coachee relationship. The role of AI here is based on improving the quality of the coaching relationship through data and evidence-based practice. However, the limitation is that this approach is time-intensive and not scalable. Senior/executive-level coaching practices could benefit most from this approach.

3: Create the appropriate awareness, oversight, and controls

When using AI-based coaching approaches, it is crucial that all parties clearly understand how AI will be used as well as its limitations.

For example, the coachee needs to be aware of what data shared with the AI will be visible to the coach, how the data will be used to inform the coaching relationship, and the purpose of their interaction with the AI tool. Similarly, coachees need to understand how AI complements the relationship with the human coach and that the principles of maintaining clear boundaries, confidentiality, safety, and avoiding harm still apply. 

In addition to clearly defining roles, it is also essential to implement appropriate oversight and controls.

For instance, if an individual being coached by “AI-as-the-coach” expresses suicidal thoughts or discusses topics that require the expertise of a mental health professional, there has to be a mechanism in place that escalates this matter for intervention. This is similar to what organizations such as Meta use to identify keyword content that could require the attention of a healthcare practitioner on their platform.

4: Ensure using a recognized coaching model with transparency on what data is used

When deciding on an approach, you need to assess the credibility of the coaching models and frameworks. Considering the quality of the data that will be used to inform the coaching process is also key. Incorporating AI into coaching requires an understanding of the coaching model that the AI is drawing from to produce its responses.

When working with vendors, ensure that they are able to supply sufficient evidence of the coaching framework and approach used. They should also explain how these are integrated into the sources that the AI utilizes to learn and respond. 

Similarly, it is important to understand how AI utilization is validated over time. For example, how frequently does the vendor assess the quality of the AI responses?

In other words, to make an informed decision, you need to have confidence in the coaching approach and understand how AI works within its context. By assessing the credibility of models and frameworks, the quality of data, and the AI validation process, you can ensure that your coaching program is effective, efficient, and reliable.

5: Treat AI-based coaching as a complement to your other people development activities

Lastly, AI-based coaching needs to be incorporated into the organization’s larger development philosophy and activities. This sounds logical, but it becomes a lot trickier when we start evaluating the existing content and development paths within the organization.

At a minimum, you should be able to highlight how and where coaching is used in conjunction with other developmental activities. At best, the actual content should have a similar theoretical foundation to ensure consistency and alignment with your internal leadership and competency models.

As AI gets more advanced, this will become easier. However, for now, it is key to help coachees understand how AI-based coaching fits into the broader employee development plans and activities. When using AI-supported coaching, it is a good idea to brief the coach on the internal philosophies and how they can leverage those as part of the practice.

A final word

As we move forward, AI will start to play a more significant role in democratizing, scaling, and making coaching accessible to more people around the world.

By adopting a responsible approach to AI-based coaching, using it appropriately, and adhering to set guidelines when integrating it into wider people development practices, HR can capitalize on a valuable opportunity to bolster its impact on professional and career development.

The post AI-Based Coaching: 5 Considerations for HR appeared first on AIHR.

Research by CIPD shows that organizations with effective feedback strategies build more trust with employees, are more innovative, achieve higher productivity levels, and improve employee retention. 

More recently, organizations have effectively utilized employee feedback to craft hybrid working strategies or to discover the sentiment about return-to-office approaches.  Uber is a prime example, where employee feedback guided their decisions about how to structure their hybrid working model. Similarly, an African insurance business used employee feedback to inform their decision to continue allowing employees to work remotely.

In this article, we explain five approaches you can adopt to implement your employee feedback strategy.

Contents
What is employee feedback and why is it important?
The challenges with employee feedback strategies
5 approaches toward employee feedback and listening
Deciding on the best employee feedback approach for your organization

What is employee feedback and why is it important?

Employee feedback can be defined as an employee’s ability to authentically and safely express their views and provide suggestions to influence decisions at work. Employees who feel heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform their best work, and 89% of HR leaders agree that regular and open feedback contributes to achieving organizational performance and outcomes.  

A robust employee feedback strategy can increase employee levels of collaboration, increase employee engagement, and improve innovation. Employee feedback is also an important building block to establish a culture of trust, transparency, and a leadership philosophy that encourages co-creation through debate.  

However, many organizations still struggle to leverage the benefits of employee feedback strategies. The Workforce Institute surveyed 4,000+ employees across 11 countries and found that a staggering 86% of employees don’t feel all people are equally heard. This has damaging consequences for inclusion and culture, and instead of encouraging trust, it negatively influences organizational morale and climate. Some leaders are not open to employee feedback, with a CEO recently referring to it as “going to the dentist and getting a root canal.” 

The challenges related to employee feedback and listening strategies range from deep-seated challenges about trust, how listening strategies are implemented, and how feedback is utilized.

The challenges with employee feedback strategies

Even though the challenges with employee feedback strategies are numerous and well-studied, we can group most of the challenges into four distinct categories:

1. Employees do not feel safe enough to speak up

Authentic employee feedback can only happen in an environment where employees feel safe and do not fear the consequences of sharing a contrasting perspective.

Often, organizations send out surveys as a way to “fix their culture”. Yet, this feedback is inauthentic and can do more harm than good. We have also seen serious situations of employees being victimized for speaking up. These included the sexual harassment incidents at Uber or the events at SpaceX when employees spoke up about the actions of Elon Musk at Twitter.

Employee feedback strategies cannot be the proverbial silver bullet to fix toxic cultures and account for bad leadership behavior. A foundation of mutual respect, trust, and dignity needs to exist for any employee feedback strategy to be effective. Feedback should never exist in isolation. A robust employee feedback strategy always forms part of the overarching people strategy in a meaningful way. 

2. Feedback does not lead to action

An often-cited criticism around employee feedback is that organizations spend so much time gathering it, yet once they receive the feedback, they’re unable to turn it into meaningful action. Collecting feedback is not about the data dashboard or report with the red, yellow, and green risk indicators but should be about what you do with the insights.

A CEO of a multi-national employee engagement listening platform business confessed in an interview that most of their clients do not even make feedback results available to managers. Furthermore, they also don’t provide managers with access to survey results and the individualized recommended actions that the algorithm is able to provide to them to act upon the feedback for their own teams.

As organizations grow and become more complex, it is impossible for HR to take ownership of all actions identified by employee feedback. We need to stop safeguarding the data for fear that managers will act inappropriately based on the feedback. We should rather ask the question: Why are they managers if we do not believe that they are able to act in the best interest of the teams they lead?

Feedback that does not lead to tangible action is quickly discredited. Even worse, employees start feeling as if they are not heard. If you are not prepared to act, why are you prepared to ask for feedback?

We discussed how HR can use employee listening and feedback data to make decisions with Loes de Boer, the co-founder of DL Network Analytics. See the full interview below:

3. We ask the wrong questions and use the incorrect methods of inquiry

Very often, employee feedback strategies are extraordinarily rigid and do not allow for the “wisdom of the organization” to guide the conversation. Don’t get us wrong; employee feedback should be based on scientifically validated models of inquiry. Yet, being too prescriptive leads to a superficial understanding of employee feedback. 

Organizations should be more open to continuous dialogue that shapes feedback and inquiry. Organizations are open and living systems, and our employee feedback strategies should reflect this. They cannot be too rigid and inflexible to only ask the questions that the model dictates for the reasons of validity and reliability. Hiding behind survey models and not allowing employees to help guide the conversation is limiting.

4. It’s more about tools than about methods

Employee feedback strategies often tend to be tool-driven and focused on “how we will listen” as opposed to “why we want to listen”. Listening platforms and toolsets are invaluable to your feedback strategy, but this should not be the guiding principle.

The last decade has seen a significant amount of vendors enter this space. At times, it feels as if we are debating features and license fees instead of understanding the best-fit method of inquiry that suits the organizational context.

When most organizations think about employee feedback strategies, they immediately think about employee surveys. Even though surveys are a vital part of any employee feedback strategy, they are often overused in organizations and only represent one method for gathering feedback. There are multiple methods and approaches to effectively gather employee feedback, including social media, discussion platforms, and dialogue-driven methods. The best method for your organization will depend on a variety of factors we discuss later in this article.

Given these challenges, how can you ensure a best-fit employee feedback strategy for your organization? Let’s have a look at five approaches you can consider when choosing your employee feedback strategy.

5 approaches toward employee feedback and listening

Approach 1: Point-in-time surveys

Although this approach has declined in popularity in recent years, many organizations still use the traditional annual employee survey. This means that an employee survey is run every year or two; feedback is consolidated, interventions identified, and actions implemented.

Even though it is possible to combine both quantitative and qualitative methods in this approach, the tendency is to steer toward traditional quantitative employee surveys that can be rolled out at scale across all levels of the organization.

Approach 2: Interval employee surveys and focus groups

This approach uses employee surveys at set intervals to measure specific topics. Follow-up focus groups are utilized to dive deeper into some of the identified areas within the initial survey, as well as a mechanism to co-create interventions with participants. This method combines quantitative and qualitative methods and aims to benefit from both breadth and depth of insight.

Approach 3: Pulse surveys and check-ins

In this approach, shorter pulse surveys are used, with immediate actions being taken based on the feedback. It works well in controlled environments, yet it can be challenging to keep the cadence of measure, action, and re-measure at scale.

This method requires a high level of business ownership for actions and, over time, even independently analyzing their feedback. It is best suited in environments where listening is a continuous process and not a point-in-time solution.

Approach 4: Employee lifecycle measures of moments that matter

In this approach, listening opportunities are aligned with key employee moments. It’s popular for measuring defined employee experiences and contains both a continuous action component as well as the opportunity to look at data over time to optimize experiences.

Approach 5: Continuous dialogue and analytics

An approach that is becoming more popular relates to continuous listening, dialogue, and co-creative problem-solving. In this feedback collection method, employee dialogue guides action, and employee sentiment is continuously monitored and analyzed. These approaches often rely on continuous conversation platforms and technologies to be able to scale effectively. More recently, it has become popular to include in-house social media type platforms as sources of qualitative data.   

Deciding on the best employee feedback approach for your organization

All the approaches mentioned above are valuable in their own right and yield a lot of value when used at the right time within the right context. So how do you decide which approach is the right fit for your organization? The model below guides you through 5 questions to help determine the best-fit approach for your organization:

Let’s break it down.

Why

First, you need to ask “why” you have a listening strategy and what the benefits are that you want to leverage. Importantly, your listening approach cannot stand isolation, and it should be clear how this fits into your overall people and experience strategy.

What

Next is the “What” question. What do you want to uncover with the listening strategy? Are you interested in general feedback or more targeted feedback on a topic that is relevant at the moment or an event in time?

Who

Depending on the topic, you should consider “Who” the population is that’s in the best position to give you the feedback. Is it the entire organization, or should you focus on specific groups? You also need to be cognizant of whether there will be direct participation, implying you get feedback from the actual employee, or will it be through a representative body which is often the case in unionized environments. 

When

Next, consider “When” is the best time to ask for this feedback. Do you want to follow a continuous listening approach that is “always on”, or for this topic, is a point-in-time solution more relevant? 

How

Lastly, the “How” should be informed by the previous discussions. During this step, you have to consider practicalities such as budgets, capacity, and platforms. It is, however, important that these considerations do not lead the conversation.

This is not a rule of thumb and will differ in terms of organizational context, but the table below tries to help you decide on your approach based on the relevance of the approaches discussed above in terms of the “What, Who, and When” conversations:

Over to you

Employee feedback is a key component of any people and employee experience strategy. In the modern world of work, we can expect the voice of the employee to become even more critical as organizations become more distributed with a higher need for collaborative work. Organizations will have to rethink the most appropriate listening strategy for their context to ensure that they involve employees in organizational decision-making and build a culture where people want to work, participate, and stay.

The post Employee Feedback Strategy: 5 Approaches to Consider appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is an employee listening strategy?
Why do you need an employee listening strategy?
How do you develop an employee listening strategy?
A critical note

What is an employee listening strategy?

An employee listening strategy is an orchestrated effort to better understand the people in your organization and hence improve the employee experience. It’s purposefully designed to gather real-time feedback and ideas from your employees throughout the entire employee life cycle.    

Let’s unpack this definition. 

The goal of an employee listening strategy is to learn about your people’s wishes, concerns, and other things that matter to them so that you can act upon these as best as possible. This, in turn, helps the organization to better achieve its purpose and goals.

A systematic process of uncovering employee concerns is the Voice of the Employee program, which is the base of your employee listening strategy.

In terms of focus and priorities, the employee listening strategy is informed by both the organization’s people and business strategies and goals. More on this in the ‘How do you develop an employee listening strategy?’ section below. 

What kind of feedback are we referring to?

Employee listening goes beyond regular employee engagement surveys and annual surveys. Or at least it should. Think, for instance, of pulse surveys, candidate feedback, onboarding feedback, stay interview questions, exit interviews and surveys, etc., to include in your continuous listening strategy. 78% of organizations use more than one employee listening channel.

An employee listening strategy should also involve a continuous conversation between managers and their team members. This continuous conversation includes both in-person meetings as well as online chats. It can be facilitated by, for instance, talent management software that enables managers and their teams to always have the possibility to speak with one another via chat. They can save these conversations in one place so that it’s easy to go back to them later.

Continuous dialogue between a manager and their team members is a useful source of information because often, a manager is the first to hear about an employee’s concerns, wishes, and needs.

It’s important to note, however, that it’s not an either-or situation; employee listening technology should always go hand in hand with human interaction.

Another interesting tool to include in your employee listening strategy are focus groups. Employee focus groups offer a unique way to uncover valuable information while directly involving employees in the process of decision-making and business solutions.

Why do you need an employee listening strategy?

As mentioned above, the main reason why it’s important to have an employee listening strategy is to continuously receive feedback from your workers about their employee experience.

Analyzing the feedback enables you, where possible, to gain actionable insights, improve your EX, and better achieve your organization’s purpose and goals.

But there are other, more specific reasons why it’s good to have an employee listening strategy in place:

Becoming an employee-centric organization

A company with an employee-centric culture is a place that welcomes open communication, encourages feedback, provides psychological safety, and inspires innovation. These are all things that can be stimulated and positively affected with an employee listening strategy. 

Employee-centric organizations make their employees a focus in their decision-making. They work hard to make changes based on their people’s feedback. Such organizations experience lower turnover, as well as greater engagement, productivity, and performance.

Being able to take action quickly

Perhaps this is where most of the value of having an employee listening strategy lies. Continuous employee listening offers managers, HR, and organizations an opportunity to really listen to their employees on a regular, frequent basis. Not just twice a year during a usually rather generic employee survey or the dreaded annual performance review.

No, employee listening done well is like giving your employees a feedback option on speed dial (do people actually still know what that is these days?). They have the possibility to share their ideas, concerns, needs, or whatever it is that is on their mind, almost in real-time.

And that is where the value lies. This gives you a chance to take action if and when necessary.    

Understanding your employees better

A natural result of the above is that you’ll be much more aware of what your employees think and how they perceive various aspects of your organization (culture, leadership, compensation and benefits, etc.).

This will enable you to create an effective people strategy that empowers, engages, and motivates (future) employees.

How do you develop an employee listening strategy?

Let’s take a look at some things to consider when developing a solid employee listening strategy.

1. Consider your business and people strategy

As you probably know, your business strategy and goals (should) help you define your people strategy. This, in turn, determines your employee listening strategy. 

In other words, your employee listening efforts need to make sense within your wider business and people strategies. For example, do you want to equip managers with insights to better lead and motivate their teams to work more efficiently? Or do you want to evaluate the success of various milestones throughout an extensive workforce transformation?

Reviewing your business goals will help you gather the right feedback and data and make improvements that truly help you achieve these goals.

2. Identify your key stakeholders

As with every strategy you want to develop, you need to identify your key stakeholders – and get them on board – before you start. Without their full support, chances are your employee listening strategy will dramatically fail.

So, who are those stakeholders? Apart from the HR department, which owns the listening strategy, there is:

• The organization’s leadership – or at least a few of the business leaders – so that you have several sponsors who endorse your strategy;
• IT to provide support for the technology side of things;
• Legal to provide guidance on privacy and data protection/management issues;     
• Line management to role model and encourage participation; 
• Corporate communications to monitor existing employee sites for insights;
• Marketing to work with HR on branding related to external candidates.

This is not an exhaustive list of key stakeholders as there might be other departments to involve depending on the organization you’re in.

3. Ensure privacy and confidentiality

If you want your employee listening strategy to be a success, it’s crucial that you make sure your employees (and other types of workers involved) feel comfortable sharing their opinions without fear of retaliation. 

Ensuring privacy, data protection, and confidentiality further assures your employees and protects you legally. We discuss this in more detail in the ‘Critical note’ section below. 

4. Choose and implement the right technology

Depending on your organization’s needs and your employee listening strategy, you’ll probably need to add a couple of tools to your HR tech stack to conduct and analyze surveys.

Think about what features you need: real-time, dashboards, survey options, a focus on DEIB or wellbeing, etc. Then, explore solutions with those desired features. A few popular employee listening tools are Effectory, Leapsome, and Perceptyx.

5. Involve a wider workforce

Yes, it’s called an ’employee’ listening strategy. Yet, it’s wise to also gather insights from people who are not your full-time employees. Think of independent contractors, gig workers, freelancers, etc. 

These types of contingent workers have been – and will continue to be – an increasingly important part of the workforce in many organizations. As such, we are moving towards a more holistic definition – and treatment – of a workforce. In more concrete terms: include your contingent workers in your employee listening efforts to improve your overall people experience.

6. Overcome survey fatigue

Regardless of how many different tools you use for employee listening, surveys will be a (large) part of it. And so the last thing you want is for your employees to get fed up with surveys.

If you send out too many of them, or if they are too long, your employees will quickly grow tired of them. This is even more true if they see that you don’t act on their feedback. So, be smart about the format of your surveys and about how frequently you send one out.

An interesting example of how to go about this comes from Nexans. This global company is the largest supplier of cables and accessories in Sweden. Employees at the Swedish Nexans branch anonymously answer the same four questions every week. The results of this mini-survey are then put into a report that is being shared with the entire branch.

The key to success here, however, is that managers then talk about the survey responses with their team members weekly. As a result, the response rate is 93%, employees feel listened to and valued, and the company as a whole gets a boost from increased job satisfaction.

7. Conduct in-person or virtual focus groups

Employee focus groups will help you gather qualitative feedback to complement your survey data.

They can be the next step in your listening process to dive deeper into the issues identified through surveys and:

• Provide more in-depth insights to reveal workplace trends and fresh ideas.
• Uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your organization as well as actions for addressing or amplifying them.
• Paint a more comprehensive picture of how your workforce feels about your organization through qualitative insights.
• Provide an additional opportunity to show your people that you value their feedback and are genuinely dedicated to improving their EX.

8. Be open and transparent

This might very well be the single most important aspect of a successful employee listening strategy. We’ve already mentioned it, but we can’t stress this enough: sharing the results of your listening activities is so important.

As we saw in the example from Nexans, this can have a positive effect on the participation rate but also boost engagement, job satisfaction, and so many other things.

At the very least, be transparent about the insights you gain through your employee listening efforts and share them with your people. If you have an action plan, that’s fantastic – share that too.

If you don’t, be honest with your employees, tell them you’re looking into what you can do (if you really are doing that), or even better, ask them for input. Try doing this consistently – like we also saw in the Nexans example – so that your employees know what to expect.

9. Have a communication plan

With the challenges like survey fatigue and privacy concerns, think about how you are going to continuously communicate about your employee listening activities. This includes:

• information about the survey results and what you plan to do with them;
• addressing privacy concerns (if there are any);
• sharing success stories.

When developing your communication plan, keep all of your employees in mind, both frontline/deskless workers and office/knowledge workers.

How you can best reach them and ensure that they actually get the information will most likely vary. While office-based employees might religiously read your weekly email newsletter, people in the field might be more likely to check out the big screen in the canteen, for instance. 

As we saw in the Nexans example, managers also play an essential role in this.

10. Take action

The whole point of your employee listening strategy is to turn employee feedback into a meaningful action to create a lasting change in your organization.

Many companies are already on the right path here. According to a survey by Perceptyx, 60% of organizations can now produce action plans within four weeks of receiving their listening results.

Also, make sure that you show your employees that you’re actually doing something with their input. 90% of employees are more likely to stay at an organization that gathers and acts on employee feedback.

Let’s say that a pulse survey shows your employees are unhappy with the new time-tracking software. You can then follow up with some employees to find out what exactly it is that they find frustrating. If they find it difficult to navigate, you can prepare a short video training session where you show employees tips and tricks about how to use the software effectively.

A critical note

Employee listening can be a truly great way to improve your EX. If done well, it can contribute to creating an employee-centric organization where every employee feels valued and listened to. A place where employees actively contribute to the success of the business.

However, a critical note is in order.

Organizations are utilizing a wide range of methods to understand how their employees feel and what they think. Some companies already use methods like calendar scraping and sentiment analysis of internal communication. The productivity monitoring software market has boomed with the rise of remote work during the pandemic.

Here, the line between employee listening and ‘big brother is watching you’ potentially is a fine one. Who says companies won’t use the data they (secretly) gather from their employees against their employees? Whether it be an employee sharing with a colleague that they’re mentally not very well or perhaps that they’re interviewing elsewhere, what if the company decided to let these people go because of this? 

Or, let’s take things one step further even. Imagine if companies use the data they gather from wearable devices such as a Fitbit against their people? What if some people don’t get to those infamous 10,000 steps a day for a certain period of time? Will they then end up in a database of employees ‘at risk’ because, according to their Fitbit, they’re not active enough? And what consequences will this have for them? 

There are some serious concerns with these kinds of employee listening techniques simply because the interest of a (large) organization isn’t always aligned with that of its people. And because there are countless examples already of how large corporates abuse people data or, at the very least, aren’t fully transparent about what they do with it.

When you’re developing an employee listening strategy, make sure to consider the ethics of employee listening. Ask yourself: How do we ensure an organization doesn’t misuse the data it collects from its employees? How can we protect employees from this?

A final word

Having an employee listening strategy is key to driving a positive change within your organization and retaining your employees. By putting a strategy in place, you’re turning feedback into a valuable resource for improving your workplace.

The post Employee Listening Strategy: 10 Actionable Tips for Success appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is digital change management?
What are the stages of digital change management?
Challenges of digital change management
HR’s role in driving digital change management

What is digital change management?

Digital change management is the process of applying change management principles in the context of digital transformation. Change management navigates the course of adaptation and helps people welcome, accept, and execute change. 

A digital transformation initiative is bound to underachieve if it isn’t implemented well. You can’t just install new tech and hope your employees will receive it well. Digital change must incorporate the varying expectations and priorities of numerous stakeholders. 

Check out our Deep Dive to learn everything you need to know about Change Management!

This is where change management and HR come in. HR needs to help create a mindset within the organization of being open and receptive to digital adoption. When employees have the resilience and tenacity to harness new technologies and ways of working, their effectiveness is enhanced. We’ll dive into HR’s role in leading digital change management later in this article.

What are the stages of digital change management?

A change management plan lays a foundation for effective digital change and guides leaders through the transition phases, helping employees adapt along the way.

Here is an overview of a six-stage change management process adopted from the 7Summits Way: 

1. Prepare

Before you get into the logistics of the digital change, it’s crucial to have a realistic picture of current workflows and what’s productive or ineffective about them. Then you can decide what needs to happen to take your operations where they need to go. Preparation activities should include:

• Listening to team members about how work actually gets done.
• Considering your business goals and change readiness.
• Assessing the current digital maturity of your organization and which areas you need to prioritize.
• Identifying executive stakeholders to build advocacy.
• Creating a vision for the change with goals and strategies.
• Ascertaining the types of hurdles and resistance that you will need to face.

2. Define

You need to be clear about the requirements of the digital solution, what it needs to achieve, and how it will be an improvement. The following actions can help you in this stage:

• Interviewing stakeholders to think through the impact on the current reality and what would have to change.
• Identifying who will be impacted and how this will change the current way of working.
• Determining the resources you will need.
• Finding individuals who have the right expertise and are effective communicators to lead and facilitate the process.

3. Design

This phase is where you take all the information you’ve gathered and assemble a thorough digital employee experience and training plan. It should include:

• Goals that the change will support.
• Scope of the project by naming what it will and will not include. 
• Skills that need to be built to embrace the digital solution
• What the success metrics will be.
• Adoption strategies.
• Accounting for unknowns or potential barriers that may arise and have plans for preventing or mitigating them.

4. Build

Now it’s time to make the change happen and implement the solutions with a pilot program for a small user base to get their feedback and input. Here are some ideas for this part of the process:

• Set initial targets that are easily achievable to celebrate wins early on. 
• Schedule regular meetings with leaders and developers to collaborate and monitor the progress. 
• As employees begin to learn the new processes, remind them how the change will be beneficial when fully implemented.
• Incorporate employee feedback into a viable solution and roadmap of what future enhancements will entail

5. Launch

Here is where you make a full introduction of the solutions to a broader audience and scale. Actions that management can take during launch include:

• Progressing from a project management mindset to a program management one.
• Putting all the digital adoption strategies that empower employees to execute the changes in place. 
• Presenting frequent communication to reiterate the organization’s vision and remind everyone why the change matters.
• Using positive reinforcement to connect employees to the changes and welcome them as the new normal, so the new processes stick. 

6. Monitor adoption

Even if the digital transformation has gone smoothly, you must review your organization’s progress and analyze the results. This can provide valuable insight that can be considered for future change efforts. Ways to monitor the adoption include:

• Gathering feedback to find ways to increase adoption and assess whether you are meeting the intended goals and objectives.
• Determining the root causes of any resistance and devising ways to address them. 

Challenges of digital change management

A digital workplace initiative is a complex experience, and there will be some barriers along the way. Trying to handle situations you weren’t expecting can be stressful, but anticipating and preparing for some of these obstacles will help you respond proactively and minimize risk.

Here’s a look at some challenges you may encounter:

Resistance from employees and leadership 

Humans have a natural tendency to want to maintain the status quo and resist, or even fear, what is unfamiliar. Hesitance to change can be found in every part of an organization.

Executives need to be supportive sponsors of change, and they have the power over the budget. Even if their buy-in is there at the start, it can wane over time if they don’t see the payoffs. This can set a lukewarm tone that affects employee engagement.

For employees, resistance can stem from the lack of trust in the leadership and an assumption that the disruption in their routines will actually make their job harder. It may also be an emotional response connected to the fear of failure and technology taking over their roles.

Additionally, department heads may think their systems work fine as is and don’t consider the broader needs of the organization. 

Digital skills gaps

Due to a competitive talent market or existing position duties that haven’t relied on technology, some employees might lack the digital skills they need to adopt new tools and behaviors.

Depending on the organization, you may not be able to just assume that all current staff will easily accept or learn the skills necessary to function in a digital capacity. Some employers may have to offer extensive training throughout the digital transformation.

No definition of success

There must be an understanding of what the organization wants to achieve with digital adoption. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t know when you get there. Employees need to be able to visualize the direction they’re going to stay on track with the new tools. Otherwise, they can lose sight and resort to using former methods. 

Lacking a clear vision of what you’re striving for can make it tricky to implement and track metrics that will define the success of the digital change. 

Communication breakdowns

Communication with all stakeholders is at the center of successful digital change management. People need to know what’s going to happen and what to expect when it does. Sometimes there is a great deal of emphasis on communicating with customers but not enough with employees. When communication fails at any point in the process, it can cause frustration and delays. 

Consistent messaging from leaders and the change management team about goals and progress is crucial to preventing uncertainty. In addition, there must be channels for leaders and team members to share their ideas and needs with upper management. Otherwise, there is the potential for rumors or the wrong information to spread.

Speed of change 

Managing a change process can feel like a juggling act. Without a good tracking system and harmonized processes, it’s hard to keep up with multiple, simultaneous projects and all the changes that continually occur within the world of work.

Employees can also become fatigued by dealing with constant change, which can affect their engagement and performance. If you fail to address this, it can impact the project’s outcome. 

Technology expanding jobs

Technology has created novel tools and workflows, dramatically shifting the way people work and adding new dimensions to their responsibilities. Sometimes this can feel disruptive, even though automation is meant to simplify work. 

If your focus is to get new digital tools up and running as fast as possible, it’s easy to omit important steps in the process. Not providing adequate training or reducing testing and transition time is more likely to end up decreasing productivity since employees aren’t fully ready.  

HR’s role in driving digital change management

Contemporary HR has proven its value as a key strategic function that brings competitive advantages to organizations. This allows HR to take its place in handling a great deal of responsibility for managing digital change. 

It’s the people behind the technology that make it work. Every organization needs to create a favorable environment to support its employees, which is what HR is all about. 

Let’s review six areas where HR can steer digital change:

1. Creating a digital adoption strategy

Every stage of your digital transformation efforts must include methods for adopting digital change. The goal is for employees to fully embrace and use all the features of the new tools with ease.  

HR should outline the digital adoption strategy that includes:

• An awareness of users and their needs.
• Defined responsibilities for every level of the organization. 
• Training and ongoing support in multiple formats. 
• The pilot program and implementation. 
• Techniques for inspiring users.
• Tracking of usage and user progress.  

2. Positioning digital solutions in the organization through effective communication

People don’t take to transformation just because they’re told to. Employees want to know the meaning behind the new tools and how the technology will affect them. It’s HR’s responsibility to showcase and explain the benefits and value of the digital solutions in a way that speaks to the workforce personally. 

It’s important to include how the change should have a positive impact on each of these:

• The business as a whole: Engage employees by tying them to what the company is trying to accomplish and how it will set you apart from competitors.
• The workplace: Describe what will be different about the work environment and how things get done.
• The employees: Give details on how their tasks will become easier.

3. Removing barriers to adoption

As we’ve already mentioned, there are always obstacles to digital adoption, such as fear, resistance, skills gaps, etc. HR should strive to overcome these barriers by creating an environment of openness to learning and sharing new ideas. 

Employees should feel like they have a voice. You need to listen to and alleviate their concerns. Achieving employee buy-in is possible with sufficient training, transparent and two-way communication, and a clear message about the significance of the digital initiatives.

4. Promoting behavioral change and building resilience

Digital change is more than just switching the tools you’re using at your organization. It’s about changing the behavior of the people and helping them think about and do work in a new way. 

Executing behavioral change doesn’t happen overnight, but investing in helping employees gain a new mindset will improve productivity and reduce resistance and resentment. 

HR should focus on fostering the following qualities of a thriving digital culture:

• Innovation
• Collaboration
• Agility
• Courage
• Data acumen

As your organization adopts digital change and new ways of working, you are creating a resilient workforce that will be better prepared for the next adjustment or transformation that is likely to be around the corner.

5. Managing risk

Digital transformation introduces potential risks as the organization implements unfamiliar technology. Left unmanaged, these threats can impact your business functions and legal compliance. 

HR should pay specific attention to these perils. Consider ethical and privacy issues, as well as temporary loss of productivity and other situations of uncertainty. A digital change management plan should include the governance and capture of metrics needed to mitigate risks.

6. Practicing what we preach

HR needs to lead the way and start with building their own skills and ambition for technology before they can help the organization transform. It’s far more effective for HR to promote a digital dexterity plan if the team has already seized the opportunity to apply new tools. Setting this standard will inspire other departments to follow.

Ultimately, employees will realize technology’s benefits when they utilize and tap into digital HR solutions, such as HR apps, chatbots, and digital service delivery.

Final overview

A successful digital transformation isn’t just announced and then enforced. To be well-accepted across the workforce, it must be deliberately communicated and thoughtfully developed. Organizations that want to succeed in the digital era have to ensure effective digital change management.

HR plays a key role in managing the transformation from within, speeding up the technology adoption process of their employees and ultimately changing the way they work.

The post HR’s Guide to Digital Change Management appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is the Voice of the Employee?
Why is Voice of the Employee important?
Voice of the Employee best practices

What is the Voice of the Employee?

Voice of the Employee (VoE) is a systematic process designed to uncover and assess employee concerns or problems that impact the total employer-employee relationship.

In this process, employees can honestly air their needs, wishes, hopes, and preferences, without facing the negative consequences in the workplace.

Organizations collect VoE data through employee surveys, feedback systems, employee engagement software, as well as one-on-one conversations and discussions. Then, they analyze the data to identify issues and points of improvement.

In other words, the aim is to act upon the findings to improve work relationships, business processes, and the whole organization.

Why is Voice of the Employee important?

Creating a Voice of the Employee program may be a significant undertaking but consider the benefits of having one: 

Understanding the work environment from the point of view of your employees 

Employees learn more about their role, team, and the organization when they ask questions. However, this also works vice versa – employers learn about the employees’ perception of the work environment when they ask questions.

That’s why you must empower your employees to say what’s on their minds. For example, they should be encouraged to make suggestions that they think will help them perform better at work or improve team productivity levels.

VoE emphasizes building communication channels between managers and employees to enhance employee experience. 

Boosting employee engagement 

One of the significant benefits of having an employee voice program is enhanced employee engagement. 

Employees who feel that their feedback is taken seriously and contributes to creating a better workplace are more engaged. Employee engagement improves business performance. Sales increase, revenues grow, and company culture is enhanced. What’s more, engaged employees are five times less likely to be involved in a workplace accident.

Increasing employee retention 

Employee retention increases when there is a high employee satisfaction rating.  

Employee satisfaction can rely a lot on their having a voice and being listened to, whether it’s about an idea they have had or about a complaint they need to make.

Plenty of research cites that businesses with healthy communication practices (healthy dialogue between managers and direct reports) reduced their employee turnover rates.

Making processes more effective

Feedback from your employees enables you to discover inefficiencies and redesign your processes to be more effective.

Whether it’s recruitment, onboarding, performance management, career advancement, or other HR activities, employees can provide valuable observations about what’s working and what’s not.

Let’s say that your Voice of the Employee program includes a post-onboarding survey where you ask your new hires about their onboarding experience. The analysis of the survey results shows that your employees find the first-day job orientation confusing and providing insufficient information. That’s a signal for you to review your job orientation process and implement changes.

Improving customer experience

Employees directly interact with customers in different ways. And these interactions provide insights into customer wants, expectations, satisfaction, etc. 

Collecting these insights from employees can help organizations understand their customers better, and they can equip their employees to adequately serve them.

Voice of the Employee best practices

When you’ve made the decision to start your own VoE program, keep in mind the following best practices to get the most out of it: 

1. Set the goals for your VoE program 

Before setting up your VoE program, you should set your goals first. 

Ask yourself what you want to achieve.

For instance, you might want to improve your employee benefits strategy, or your goal might be to design interventions to enhance your organizational culture. Based on that, the way you collect the data and the questions you ask will differ.

2. Determine how to measure employees’ voice

How do you collect the data for your VoE program?

An employee survey is the most common method of gathering and analyzing the employee voice with quantitative data:   

• Employee engagement surveys pose questions that determine how committed employees are to helping their companies achieve their goals.
• Employee satisfaction surveys analyze the state of a worker enjoying their job. 
• Employee exit surveys help employers gather and understand why employees leave the company. 

Aside from (employee) surveys, you can also gather quantitative and qualitative data via engagement platforms.

There are several ways to gather qualitative data.

For example, you can conduct employee focus group discussions and interviews to collect more qualitative feedback highlighting key issues. You can also organize one-on-one meetings with the leadership team. Such interactions enable managers to understand an individual deeper and make personalized recommendations based on their own experiences.

An airline logistics company developed an employee voice forum “where staff representatives could raise issues directly with members of senior-level staff.“

Another option is to create an employee board with rotating memberships where suggestions are placed. You can also set up a staff task force to search for current challenges your business faces.  

Ideal for small teams, managers can also allow the best performers to join management team meetings. Encourage such employees to present their innovative ideas to upper management. It can also encourage others to do well at work to get involved in such a high-level business process. 

You can add text-based feedback from other channels like social media posts, Glassdoor reviews, emails, and even internal communication channels like Slack data. Don’t forget to anonymize the data while you’re at it!

3. Prepare relevant questions 

You can use both open-ended and close-ended questions in your VoE program. 

Using close ended-questions with a numerical scale (e.g. 1-5) generates quicker and more straightforward insights. It also helps in getting measurable and quantitative data. 

On the other hand, open-ended questions deliver a clearer picture of the thoughts and feelings of your employees that no/yes answers couldn’t provide. 

Combining both types of questions is recommended to get the best results. 

As mentioned, there are different types of employee surveys. Check out the following examples of employee survey questions: 

Employee satisfaction: 

• Do you find purpose in your work? 
• Do you think your company provides enough opportunities for promotion and career development?
• What tools and technologies do you think you need to do your job well?
• Do you feel like your job uses your skills and abilities as much as possible?
• How happy are you at work?

Employee engagement:

• Does your supervisor commend you when doing a good job?
• Do you feel the employee assessment process is fair?
• Are your peers/colleagues receptive to your suggestions?
• Do you feel the amount of work assigned to you is just and fair?
• How does your company support a healthy work-life balance?

Employee exit:

• How much did the job role change after you got hired?
• What were the best and worst parts of your job?
• How did you feel your total compensation package (pay + benefits + any equity) was compared to other companies?
• Why are you leaving the company?
• On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend the organization to your family/friends?

4. Collect your data regularly

Your VoE program shouldn’t be a one-time initiative. Instead, plan the data collection in regular intervals, ideally quarterly or every six months.

For instance, the Swedish office of Nexans, a global company in the cable and optical fiber industry, conducts a weekly four-question survey. The results are compiled into a report, which the management discusses on a weekly basis. This VoE program has helped them increase employee satisfaction.

To put it another way, it’s essential to consider your business and goals whenever you conduct surveys. For example, you have to ensure that having weekly or monthly surveys won’t lead to survey fatigue.  

Also, you’ll want to know what your employees think after you’ve implemented something based on their feedback.

5. Encourage employees to participate

Answering surveys after long hours in the office can be taxing for employees. 

This is where you explain why it’s important that they take part and incentivize them to participate. 

Incentives don’t just mean cash money. A simple way to reward the feedback process is by showing employees that managers are taking action based on the survey responses.

When employees realize that the leaders are acting on their concerns, they recognize the result is worth the effort, and they will be more motivated to participate the next time.

Nexans shares the weekly survey results with the whole branch, which has helped them to get their survey response rate to 93%.

6. Analyze the data 

Once you’ve collected the data, conduct your analysis. 

As we’ve already mentioned, VoE programs use various processes to gather and analyze employee feedback. Data sources include surveys, employee NPS, performance evaluation, employee forums, social networks, focus groups, and exit interviews.

You can use Excel to work with quantitative data from close-ended survey answers to compute percentages and statistics. Check out our detailed guide to employee engagement survey analysis to learn how to analyze your survey results.

If you’re analyzing unstructured, text-based information, consider the Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology that automates the processing and analysis of text content to make it manageable and structured. Analyzing qualitative data generated from open-ended questions like complaints, opinions, and sentiments generates a deeper and more nuanced result.

The NLP technology uses topic extraction, classification, sentiment analysis, clustering, and profiling to listen, analyze and measure employee feedback.

Using an NLP-powered VoE analytics software like Lexalytics Intelligence Platform empowers you to analyze such text-based employee feedback in minutes with so-called sentiment analysis. HR can use this software to make better decisions around training, compensation, work environment, etc. 

Another VoE tool, WorkTango, allows managers to respond to employee comments to continue the conversation. They also provide suggestions based on employee survey scores on key questions. Their data-powered tool also gives employers an idea of which categories of questions significantly influence the company’s overall score.

If you want to develop your digital dexterity and learn how to implement HR technology that adds value, check out our Digital HR Certificate Program.

Example

One example is the analysis of reasons for turnover from exit surveys. In a survey, it’s typically an open field where employees explain the reason for moving on. Most HR departments don’t analyze this type of unstructured properly.

However, that’s precisely where you find the most relevant data that can help you reduce employee turnover. Because it’s anonymous, the only fields included in this survey are tenure in a company and positive and negative aspects of staying with the company. Both areas are open responses.

A text analytics company MeaningCloud set out to analyze the causes of employee turnover or ‘talent flight’ within a company based on exit interview data. Some of the questions the company wanted to be answered included:

• Is the company unfriendly toward new arrivals?
• Do people leave the company after having spent several years with the company, and they don’t see their career progressing as they had expected?

MeaningCloud used a classification model where they assigned a text to one or more categories within a predefined taxonomy. Essentially, they were able to categorize the reasons to leave as follows:

JobOffer
JobOffer>BetterSalary
JobOffer>ProfessionalImprovement
JobOffer>BetterWork/LifeBalance

NewExperience
NewExperience>LanguageLearning
NewExperience>WorkAbroad

Workload
Workload>LackOfWork

LeaveOfAbsence

WorkEnvironment
WorkEnvironment>Conflict

Policies&Practices

PersonalReasons

Here are a couple of insights MeaningCloud was able to yield from the analysis:

• The employees who have been in the company for less than 12 months complained about the absence of communication within teams and the organization.
• The employees who had been with the company for one to three years cited salary and growth opportunities as negative factors.
• The veteran employees in the company said weak points were employee motivation, co-worker expertise, and salary.

7. Take action 

After analyzing the results and drawing conclusions, it’s time to take action. 

Come up with ideas and start implementing them. For example, based on the results of the analysis above, the company in question can design employee retention strategies for different stages of the employee life cycle. This could be focus on internal communication especially with new hires, and improving growth opportunities for experienced employees.

Then repeat the process – conduct your VoE analysis and design new improvements based on your findings.

A final word

Voice of the Employee is an excellent tool for uncovering your employees’ needs and preferences, resolving workplace issues before they have a serious impact, and creating an inclusive, productive work environment. That’s well worth the effort you need to put in.

The post Voice of the Employee: All You Need to Know appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is an HR tech stack?
Why you need a solid HR tech stack
HR tech stack: The common software categories
How to build an HR tech stack

What is an HR tech stack?

An HR tech stack is a set of integrated software, platforms, and apps that improve and expand HR functions. These tools digitalize certain tasks to help HR professionals better manage their workloads across different areas of Human Resources, such as recruitment, benefits administration, and performance management. 

Why you need a solid HR tech stack

Leveraging technology is a necessity in today’s business world. An HR tech stack provides the following benefits:

• Being more effective in your job as an HR professional – When you save time by automating previously manual tasks, you will be more productive in your role. You will also be able to collect and analyze data to generate reports and make data-driven decisions. These efficiencies allow you the time to focus on more strategic tasks and better serve employees and management. What’s more, the saved time also translates to cost savings.
• Enhancing digital employee experience – Just like in their personal lives, employees expect the technology they use at work to make everything easier. Having access to digital HR tools with streamlined, useful, and efficient interactions contributes to overall employee satisfaction. It helps engage employees, boost productivity, and ultimately improve your customer experience.
• Minimizing mistakes – Digitalizing complex processes and automating administrative tasks that require precision will reduce inaccuracies made by human error. For example, payroll errors can happen when you have to enter deductions or pay rate changes manually and in multiple places.

HR tech stack: The common software categories

Building a successful tech stack requires finding the right combination of tools. A technology solution exists for almost every HR responsibility, and there are plenty of vendor options. You just need to find what works best for your HR team. 

Listed below are three main software categories, their subcategories, and examples of vendors in the space. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as the HR tech space is booming and new solutions are emerging every day.

Core HR solutions

These solutions enable comprehensive management of fundamental HR information and processes. They are the backbone of your Human Resources technology stack.

Human resources information systems (HRIS) and human capital management (HCM) platforms

HRIS and HCM platforms are a set of technologies that standardize, maintain, and manage employee information and HR policies and procedures.

• Bamboo HR is an all-in-one HR software for small and medium-sized businesses. It integrates well with other tools and is very user-friendly.
• Sapling has an intuitive platform with modern features primarily for mid-sized organizations. It’s distributed internationally and focuses on uniting remote teams. 

Payroll solutions

Payroll software automates and manages on-time payments to employees while ensuring accuracy and compliance with applicable tax and financial regulations.

• Rippling can coordinate with all your HR data and run payroll in 90 seconds. It works internationally and handles all deductions and forms of payment.
• ADP offers payroll processing globally for organizations of all sizes and also integrates with other HR systems.

Compensation and benefits management software

This type of software helps develop and manage pay structures and increases with data-driven information. It also ensures that employee pay and benefits are appropriate, equitable, and competitive.

• ChartHop has a dynamic platform that generates compensation review plans based on the metrics of your choice. Managers, as well as HR, benefit from it, and the software has built-in controls to protect sensitive employee data.
• Payscale is an easy-to-use software that offers choices based on company size for small businesses to global enterprises. This customizable solution houses your survey data and provides quarterly updated salary market data.

Recruiting

Recruiting technology automates and streamlines processes for finding, attracting, and hiring talent.

Applicant tracking systems (ATS)

An ATS helps log and monitor job applicants. Recruiters can filter and analyze these records throughout the hiring process.

• Lever is enterprise-grade software with an accessible platform that centralizes the processes of finding, interviewing, and hiring candidates. It syncs with Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar and offers flexible reporting and advanced analytics. 
• Breezy has an intuitive, visual interface and simplifies recruiting with a comprehensive range of functions that automate tedious tasks. It integrates easily with other HR tools and systems and works well for small and mid-sized organizations.
• Recruitee is on a mission to empower teams with the best tech tools to hire better together. The collaborative hiring platform offers multiple functions that help organizations source, identify, and hire the best candidates.

Pre-employment assessment and selection tools

These tools help you conduct consistent assessments of candidates’ skills beyond just their resume to hire the most qualified person for the job.

• Vervoe is an AI technology-driven platform that offers customized assessments based on real-world scenarios for all industries. Tests include multiple choice and free text questions, and candidates are ranked by their skills that align with the position. 
• Pymetrics combines behavioral science and AI technology to vet and assess candidates’ soft skills without bias. Algorithms measure your top performers’ qualities and create a custom, ideal profile for each position. This benchmark determines which tests applicants take and provides insights into how their behavioral data matches up.

Video interview platforms

Platforms for video interviewing allow hiring managers to conduct interviews remotely and save valuable time. Video interviewing can be done in real-time or be pre-recorded.

• VidCruiter can be used as a live video conferencing platform, or candidates can record their responses to predetermined questions. Questions are displayed in a written format or through an audio recording of the interviewer. This product integrates with multiple HR tools and systems, and the interview format and schedule are customizable.
• Willo is an easy-to-use interface for pre-recorded video interviews with a variety of features and plans to suit businesses of all sizes. With interviews accessible 24/7, candidates can respond at their convenience. People in over 130 countries use Willo, and the platform is fully GDPR compliant.

Employee referral software

This is a tool for managing employee referral programs and encouraging staff to participate in this advantageous method of sourcing candidates.

• Teamable incorporates gamification to engage and incentivize users. Team members stay plugged into the hiring pipeline with the ability to track their referrals. It also provides detailed, customized reports and analytics. 
• Boon offers three different plans and can be set up quickly and used without any training. It’s designed for any type of business and operates as a stand-alone or to supplement existing hiring tools. Employees and candidates stay up-to-date with automated, customizable messages throughout the process.

Recruitment marketing platforms

A recruitment marketing platform augments businesses’ talent acquisition strategies with digital marketing. It helps develop employer branding and promote job advertising with content marketing, social media, etc.

• SmartDreamers is state-of-the-art software that consolidates and automates all aspects of candidate sourcing and employer branding for data-driven results. Products are scalable, and multiple sub-accounts can be configured for global teams to access. It’s equipped with enterprise-grade security and is GDPR compliant.
• Cliquify helps companies showcase their culture with storytelling to connect with potential candidates through social media. It equips HR leaders with templates and AI-powered content to attract talent and diversify hiring. Applicant tracking system integration is supported but not required.

Employee experience

Building a strong, affirming culture by engaging employees through positive experiences.

Employee onboarding software

This type of software automates the process of welcoming and training new hires.

• Sapling can import all your recruitment information, and it integrates with other HR tools and IT systems. It allows you to create different employee lifecycle workflows and builds individualized employee record templates.
• Enboarder is a versatile, easy-to-use platform that works for both in-house and remote employees. It’s fully customizable and can transition employees at every level. A report center allows you to track the success of your onboarding program with the right metrics. 

Employee rewards and recognition software

Employee rewards and recognition platforms promote well-being and appreciation by acknowledging employees’ achievements and granting rewards for special occasions.

• Nectar includes peer appreciation and traditional top-down recognition and allows employees to acknowledge each other within Slack or Microsoft Teams. It also incorporates award options that can be selected directly from Amazon. 
• Workstars offers a highly customizable platform so businesses of all sizes can create their own reward systems. International organizations can add various languages and currencies with no set-up fees. 

Employee engagement solutions

An employee engagement solution helps build a healthy culture that draws employees to your organization and motivates them to invest their best effort.

• Empuls supports continuous communication with a social intranet to connect distributed teams. Its modern interface is easy to adopt and includes features such as recognition, pulse surveys, and people analytics. 
• Leapsome joins performance, learning, and engagement in one intuitive platform for office-based, hybrid, or remote workplaces. Its customizable questionnaires and surveys are developed with data science, psychology, and best practices.

Performance management software

Software for performance management supports the routine of conducting regular performance reviews with optimal methods and a view of how employees make an impact on the company.

• Betterworks is intuitive software for performance management and goal-setting with customization options for dashboards and administrative access.  It offers feedback, coaching, and recognition methods and helps your workforce discover professional development opportunities.
• Small Improvements runs self-service software with multiple options for ongoing performance management. Its lean, 360-degree feedback and performance reviews help organizations create and achieve results without having to micro-manage employees.

Learning management systems

These systems offer training opportunities on various topics and skills and a way to track employees’ participation.

• Lessonly is designed to help mid-sized companies train, coach, and enable employees. It has several specialized features for areas such as continuous training, personalized coaching, and training content support.
• Go1 is a subscription service that provides access to a comprehensive learning and development library of learning resources. It has solutions for small to enterprise businesses and offers personalized service to help customers find the right content in the correct format. 

HR chatbots

Typically, HR chatbots use AI and natural language processing to handle HR functions and promptly answer many of the questions employees and candidates have while using an HR interface.

• Espressive provides automated employee self-help with conversational AI. Its virtual support agent delivers personalized responses to resolve employee requests, questions, and issues. As an open platform, it allows customers to make their own updates or retain fully managed service.
• Paradox offers a conversational virtual assistant product called Olivia to assist recruiting teams, hiring managers, and candidates. Olivia automates many functions, including screening, scheduling, and onboarding. Organizations of any industry can use this technology for both hourly and professional recruiting. 

How to build an HR tech stack

Building an effective HR tech stack takes time and involves numerous steps. Here are some ideas to help you along the process:

1. Audit your HR processes

Start off by finding out where you need to make improvements. Meet with the various stakeholders inside and outside your HR department to review current processes and workflow in each area. Assess the technology that is already in place and identify any gaps and time-saving opportunities that exist. 

2. Prioritize what you need

You may discover more HR technology needs than your budget will cover and have to go about it incrementally. If you can’t implement everything at once, you’ll have to think through what is the most urgent, weighing in senior leadership’s priorities. 

For instance, it might be an attendance management tool if you’re losing track of your spreadsheets or an applicant tracking system if you’re hiring a lot. 

3. Deliberate “must-have” versus “nice-to-have” features

With a limited budget, you’ll want to focus on the core components required and leave out the add-ons and unnecessary features. This will help you create your RFPs and guide your research in the right direction.

Check out our HRIS requirements checklist to learn about the process of choosing an HRIS.

4. Do your research

With so many tools available, you need to narrow down your choices to the most relevant for the size and scope of your organization and your price range. You can begin with reading reviews and seeking input from peers. 

Once you’ve shortlisted a few options, schedule demos or free trials to see what the features can do and how user-friendly they are. You want to find solutions that truly save time and will be accessed enough to justify the cost.

5. Consider integrations

A set of tools that can’t communicate with each other end up being counterproductive. You don’t want the inefficiency of separate destinations for every HR process. All the elements of your HR tech stack should work together.

When researching or talking to a vendor, mention the tools you’re already using and check if the integrations are already there or if they can build custom integrations for you.

6. Focus on ease of use

Since the goal of an HR tech stack is to improve efficiency, it must run smoothly and be easy to navigate. A good user experience for both HR and employees is critical. It will make adoption easier and enrich your organizations’ digital employee experience.

You also want to make sure that adequate support is available when users need more information or run into problems. If you don’t have in-house IT expertise, confirm that the vendor provides assistance.

7. Address security, compliance, and ethics

HR has a vital role in ensuring that business activities are ethical, sensitive information is safeguarded, and employee policies comply with applicable legal authorities. Your technology solutions must be able to support this. 

For example, if you have work being done remotely, company data must be protected. If you operate in Europe, your chosen vendor must be GDPR-compliant. Additionally, make sure that the algorithms the vendor uses are regularly audited and transparent.

8. Develop your own digital dexterity

Being tech-savvy and having a decent level of digital dexterity is a real advantage in building a solid tech stack. Understanding how technology enables HR and employees to do a better job and the ability to quickly embrace new tools puts you in the position to lead the way.

Seeking out how other departments throughout your organization use digital tools is one way to work on your digital dexterity. You can also learn by reading up on the latest trends and innovations. If you want to dive in further, earning a Digital HR certification is a great way to broaden your skills and help champion a digital culture at your organization.

9. Continue updating your HR tech stack

Once your tech stack launches, you’ll need to periodically gauge how well it’s functioning for your business. As your organization grows or diversifies, your needs will change. 

For example, your company might increase how many people are working remotely, and your tech stack should reflect that. Also, you’ll want to consider the emerging types of technology that can improve your systems.

In summary

Building a solid HR tech stack takes a lot of effort in terms of research and implementation. However, once you have the tech stack in place, it will be rewarding in many ways. 

The main advantage is that the right tools will make it easier to manage your workload. Then you will be free to focus on more strategic tasks and build stronger connections with your HR team and other employees.

The post HR Tech Stack: A Practitioner’s Guide appeared first on AIHR.

Contents
What is HR case management?
Types of HR cases
Benefits of HR case management software
HR case management best practices

What is HR case management?

HR case management is the process by which the HR departments resolve submit inquiries and questions that employees submit to them. Typically, the inquiries and requests are submitted to and managed within an HR case management system, which is a technological solution to improve case management efficiency. Within such a system, employees are able to track how their queries are being resolved and by whom.

Having a good Human Resources case management process is a part of effective HR service delivery, and HR shared services.

Types of HR cases

HR cases are queries or issues employees may encounter that they need HR to resolve. Some of these can be related to:

• Onboarding – New employees often have many questions about the organization, key HR processes and procedures, policies, and benefits as they begin their journey into a new organization. HR case management software is a great tool to answer their questions and provide a positive employee experience as their journey commences.
• Benefits – This function also becomes more efficient using case management software. There are many questions that arise, ranging from Open Enrollment to processing claims and changing dependents. Investing in case management software will help HR and benefits specialists have standard questions answered easily and quickly, so they can focus on resolving more complex issues.
  • Leave – Managing leave can become complicated as each employee’s life situation is unique and can change without notice. However, with case management software, the HR team members can address each employee’s unique needs promptly and in compliance with statutory requirements.
• Employee grievances – Employee relations cases can also be complicated. Employees are usually trained and coached, so they collaborate professionally and cordially with their peers. However, there are still instances where Employee Relations specialists or the HR function must intervene to resolve disputes between employees. Case management software is a critical tool for ER specialists to manage and resolve grievances in a timely and professional manner.
• Policies & procedures – There are always questions from employees that sound like, ‘What should we do in this scenario?’ and “How should we do it?” There are usually policies and guidelines that can answer these questions. Case management software can help provide the answers or guide employees to FAQs stored within the system.
• Performance – Employees may want to know how their performance is being measured and if there are compensatory benefits associated with their performance, like merit increases and bonuses. This is another type of query that your organization can quickly address through case management software.
• Payroll & taxes – HR case management system helps payroll specialists focus on payroll administration by providing some documented responses. It also creates pockets of time for them to resolve those complex problems that do arise and need special attention.

Benefits of HR case management software

One of the critical functions of HR is to provide excellent service to employees. Some of the queries and problems that come to HR are simple, and some are quite complex. As a result, these issues often have different prioritization levels and different anticipated resolution dates.

In large organizations, managing the volume and complexity of queries coming to HR necessitates having HR case management software to ensure consistency and accuracy in resolving the cases. We’ve summarized the benefits of HR case management software in the table below:

HR case management best practices

1. Choose a reliable HR case management software

Your choice depends on your needs. However, there are a couple of universal features and capabilities that you should consider for your system. Look for systems with easy-to-use UI, scalable, allowing for integrations and different levels of access. It is a key part of your digital employee experience. Which are the best HR case management solutions? Here are some you can look into:

• ServiceNow – This platform may eliminate frustration and improve employee satisfaction with efficient, intelligent services. It provides efficient service to employees with ServiceNow HR Service Delivery. It may use fewer resources to serve more employees by minimizing repetitive tasks with automated workflows and case management. The platform manages lifecycle events like onboarding and offboarding across multiple departments. ServiceNow enterprise-wide workflows increase efficiency and provide full visibility of the entire process. 

• HR Acuity – HR Acuity is a technology platform specifically built for employee relations and investigations management. Organizations can build a better workplace by easily performing thorough and comprehensive fact-finding into allegations of employee conduct, minimizing legal and financial risks. The platform includes tools for consistent documentation, search and reporting, and post-hire and exit interviews.

• AdviserPlus – A cloud-based technology solution that revolutionizes the management of employee relations processes for HR, line managers, and employees. An innovative technology that provides HR, line managers, and employees with easy access to the right ER tools at the right time to support taking the necessary action with confidence, delivering efficiencies, reducing risk, and capturing data to feed actionable insight.

• Leena AI – This software offers an AI-powered HR assistant providing instant responses to employee queries, improving employee experience. Leena AI is available on multiple platforms and channels of communication. It uses standard platform UI to minimize confusion and the best user experience. The tool can communicate with multiple employees at the same time and eliminates the waiting between asking a question and receiving an answer.

• Mihi – Mihi meets all your global Human Capital Management (HCM) needs in one system. It is a unique HCM solution where country-specific labor, HR, benefits, and data privacy requirements are pre-built to keep you compliant with local laws while giving your employees a robust self-service tool to manage leave, time and attendance, and more. Mihi’s user-friendly modules make it easy for employees to manage their day-to-day needs while the system logs all critical data and makes it available to HR.

• iCasework – iCasework allows your HR team to effectively log, manage and analyze their casework, ensuring processes are handled consistently and within time scales. The solution also enables employees and line managers to log and track a wide range of HR requests, from general inquiries to requests to retire. Intelligent use of the solution’s self-service features through web-based staff portals as well as mobile devices enables significant efficiency gains.

You need to have a good understanding of digital HR to effectively leverage technology in your work. AIHR’s Digital HR Certification Program will equip you with the right skills to drive digital HR transformation at your organization.

2. Onboard your employees properly

If you’re changing your HR case management system or when onboarding new employees, you need to adequately train your workforce to use the system. If you don’t, employees will be bombarding HR with questions; questions may go to the wrong person or remain unresolved.

Proper onboarding empowers employees to make use of the system for self-service, for raising questions/cases, and empowers HR to provide quality customized service. 

3. Ensure different levels of access

Users should only be able to see what they really need. This helps ensure confidentiality and data protection. HR professionals, likewise, should have different levels of access. The most complex cases should be automatically escalated to the most experienced HR professionals.

4. Create comprehensive and accurate documentation

You should have an auditable trail for each of the cases for compliance and transparency purposes. HR needs to continually ensure:

• The processes are aligned to statuary regulations like HIPAA,  
• Processes and responses are standardized and not resulting in disparate treatment.

5. Identify frequently occurring issues

When you have all your HR cases in the same place, you can review the types and frequency of cases and employee interactions. That enables you to spot potential problems and/or trends, which helps you make better, data-driven decisions.

For example, if you repeatedly receive grievances from the same unit, ER Specialists may want to investigate the management style and competence of the managers in that unit and can even conduct an engagement survey for that unit to gather more information.

Summing it up

A solid HR case management process will enable you to quickly resolve issues and answer questions but also help your organization stay compliant and able to provide a better employee experience. It is an investment with returns like retaining employees and obtaining predictive analytics to strategize. It also provides valuable insight into pockets of employee populations that may be dissatisfied with their employee experience. 

The post HR Case Management: Benefits and Best Practices appeared first on AIHR.