HRD Summit/EU 2017: Digital identity and the HR transformation

The second day of HRD Summit/Europe 2017 delivered 13 hours of high level discussion and thought exchange, led by speakers including Renee Atwood, Former CHRO, Twitter, and Former Global Head of People & Places, Uber Technologies, Mairead Maclure, VP Reward and HR Operations, TomTom, and Stijn Nauwewelaertz, HR General Manager, Microsoft.

Key parts of the discussion included LinkedIn’s project of the economic graph, digital identity and upskilling.

The Power of Purpose & Economic Graph at Work

Director of LinkedIn, Raymond Huner spoke about using the economic graph – a way of digitally mapping the global economy to connect talent with opportunity at massive scale. The discussion aimed to assess key value elements across the company, which included developing professional gaps and the power of purpose.

Raymond went on to explain that HR can use LinkedIn’s data source to help produce Economic Graph data. Through this, HR’s role is to maintain an idea of purpose by connecting people with work that matters to them, and to companies that are driving meaningful impact. This is one of the key drivers of business success.

The presentation allowed delegates to reflect on the importance of a continued mixture of data and emotive purpose, which is key in helping the future organisation to make smarter choices, become more fulfilling places to be, and give more sense to the reason the company exists.

Building your Digital Identity

Martin Wilken, Senior Executive for HR Digital and Innovation at Deutsch Telekom highlighted that “Digital” is arriving as a revolution into the workplace – it is already in our everyday lives and in the workplace in more ways than we imagine. He suggested that HR has a key role to play in shaping how digital technologies will impact on work.

HR must become more tuned into what emerging technologies are and understand their impact towards HR and work. For the future, a tech savvy HR is an HR that is more helpful and prepared to help the people in its business to adopt, adapt and advance their work using the next wave of digital workplace technology.

Read about Day 1 HRD Summit

HR Effectiveness

Mairead Maclure, VP Reward and HR Operations shared TomTom’s transformation journey. TomTom had the perfect storm with an economic declining market, debt onboard, and a loss of faith, yet developed a new vision by converting the HR department into a product unit and by reverting back to working in small teams.

Delegates learnt that employee experience is main thing, and the importance of restructuring HR to lead the way sales becomes talent acquisition.

Transforming the way we work

Leading Expert in digital disruption and capability upskilling, Nicola McAdam from Avado highlighted that we are in the midst of a digital skills deficit and we need to skill up more of our people to understand the digital tools, platforms and environments.

She suggested that HR needs to lead the charge in equipping themselves and their business colleagues to be more digitally skilled from a strategic, tactical and practical point of view.

As a key function in sourcing and delivering the right kinds of learning programmes HR requires a culture to boost the digital skills needed across the organisation to prepare it for more digital disruption. This can be achieved by acknowledging that IT and digital aren’t the magic bullet departments – we all have a responsibility.