Lalit is an engineer,he did his masters from NITIE Mumbai with IT major. Worked with tech giants like i2 Technologies, ITC InfoTech, and Unilever IT. Mr. Lalit was onsite with Samsung Electronics in Seol, South Korea for some time too. His initial focus areas have been IT Supply Chain products – SAP SCM and i2 Retail Suite. Later he joined Unilever as Regional IT Project Manager where he led one of the largest migration projects, called U2K2 for Asia Pacific, Australia, Middle East and Turkey (AP-AMET) regions. This was one of the largest projects in the history of Unilever to migrate innumerable legacy systems worldwide – some of them indigenously developed – to One SAP Unified platform. He operated out of the IT regional hubs Singapore and Bangalore, to lead projects in 24 countries falling udder AP-AMET region. This was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity from the scale perspective.
Ever since the pandemic outbreak, businesses had to undergo various transformations. They embraced digital revolution in order to survive and thrive in the turbulent times. The hiring sector was no exception and underwent various modifications to cope with the crisis.
HR teams all across the globe had to come up with a people-first response to the crisis along with minimizing disruption of the usual operations and reducing the worries of the workforce. With the pandemic coming into the picture, there was a paradigm shift as we were trying to adapt to the new normal and embrace technological advancements. The overnight transition from offices to virtual working further pushed the need for digitization of the HR role as well.
The progressive future of HR and recruitment in the post-COVID world
COVID-19 led to the expansion of their job roles and skillsets. As a result, even in the post-pandemic times, the responsibility of HR managers is not restricted to hiring resources. Rather, they are now looking at innovative ways to ensure business continuity, incorporate technology in the organization, as well as bring about transformations in the organizational working especially in the hiring processes. Gartner in its recent report highlights this very trend and states that owing to the wake of the pandemic, HR leaders need to rethink workforce and employee planning, management, performance, and experience strategies. It is anticipated that these innovations are here to stay and will rule the future of the HR domain as well.
Business contingency planning
The pandemic inflicted significant impact on businesses and HR teams across industries. The consequence has been such that even in the post-COVID era, the need to be prepared for unforeseen challenges and be resilient is critical for the survival of both the organization as well as its employees.
Expanding the role of HRs in an organization
The pandemic-induced lockdown and social distancing norms hit the morale of the employees. Ever since then, HR managers have been trying to ensure business continuity as well as boosting the mental health of the employees.
In the present times, the dire need to automate operations is outpacing the process of upskilling employees or recruiting resources and this leads to HR functions facing challenges. The role of HR managers is not just restricted to employee onboarding and talent acquisition anymore! Rather it has now expanded and they have emerged as an anchor for organizations helping them navigate through crisis.
Technology in HR functions
Amidst the turbulent times induced by the coronavirus, firms have been relying on technology to ensure business continuity as well as employee productivity. Even the HR managers are leveraging the power of technology to ensure the HR department functions efficiently.
Be it routine activities such as attendance, timesheet, WFH and leave management, virtual employee onboarding, virtual development centers, performance management, gamified recruiting, leadership training; technology is increasingly foraying into the HR department as well. Innovations such as virtual onboarding, workforce hiring, upskilling employees, performance assessment, analyzing employees’ sentiments, ensuring remote working is smooth and pleasant; every aspect of HR management is now done via tech-savvy tools. As per Gartner, 16% of employers at the global level are already using technology to monitor their employees, track their productivity, and monitor employee engagement and well-being to have a better understanding of employee experience.
AI and automation
HR managers are using software to search for ideal candidate resumes and conduct interviews. Recruiters use AI software to do job-candidate matching which is way different from conventional practices. They are even deploying automated chatbots to offer feedback after interviews and improve the applicant’s experience. The virtual onboarding platforms then enable smooth working in the digital workplace.
Technology is also being harnessed in the virtual development centers so as to up skill the existing employees as well as impart training and conduct the induction of the new joinees. AI enables HR managers to analyze every aspect of the applicant and their resumes effectively right from cultural capabilities to industry experiences thereby selecting the deserving talent. The recruiters are also using new-age methods such as social media, online ads, and video-based recruiting platforms to optimize the recruiting process.
Virtual recruiting
It is indeed an undeniable fact that resuming the way the situation was, won’t be possible. The future of workplaces is the hybrid model. Since digital is the pivot, virtual recruiting will rule the future of the HR domain and hence is here to stay.
Summing up!
Digitization was adopted as a solution to survive and thrive amidst the challenging times. But it has now emerged to be the dire need of the hour for businesses to cope with the new normal and move forward. To sail through the crisis and plan for the future, organizations are re-imagining their HR environment and are changing their talent landscape, especially their recruiting strategy. They are relying on automation solutions to address the paradigm changes. This is further paving the way for incorporating innovations in working, evolving job positions, and a dynamic recruiting market.
The coronavirus brought about various upheavals. It has also pushed the organizations to transition from an efficient approach to a resilient model. However, the post-COVID era is indeed a beginning of a new start wherein businesses would have to modify their job market strategies as per the industry dynamics. Surviving the challenging times would require innovations and organizations would seek help from the renewed HR department for the same. To keep abreast with this increased dependency, the demand for HR technology is surging. Hiring managers are harnessing the power of technology to bridge the talent-skill gap effectively, ensure business continuity as well as bring about innovations in the organizational operation as well as the HR departments. Thus, it would be appropriate to say that digitization is the future of the HR and hiring market!