HRD Best of 2019: Digital HR and HR Technology

What a year it’s been for People Leaders across the globe. Businesses have become more aware of HR’s strategic value in business, effective corporate social responsibility and purpose have become key to talent attraction, employee engagement and corporate culture, and inclusion has gone beyond quotas and keynote sessions, to discussions around whether unconscious bias is a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ and stronger initiatives supporting the business value of a more diverse workforce.

With 2019 winding down to a close, we’ve taken a look back over the months to cherry pick the most inspiring articles, interviews and podcasts, featuring our incredible roster of thought leaders and contributors, about digital HR and HR technology. Enjoy!

Is it right for leadership to ‘spy’ on employees? With Dave Ulrich

“One cannot delegate navigating technology paradoxes to government legislation or corporate governance policy”

22% of global organisations are now using employee-movement data to track their employees’ movements around the office. HRD Connect and Dave Ulrich examine the growing trend of employee observation technology and ‘navigating paradox’ as an essential skill for business leaders in the digital age.

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HRD Live Tech: Richard Doherty, Workday and Chris Murray, PwC

The HRD Live Tech Podcast brings together the users and providers of HR technology to break down the challenges and rewards of selecting, implementing, and making the most out of the right technology for your organisation.

David Clift, CPO, Contentive, and his guests take a use case of HR Tech and break it down, covering everything from vendor selection to implementation, onboarding to offboarding.

In this edition of HRD Live Tech, David is joined by Richard Doherty, Senior Director Product Marketing EMEA, Workday, and Chris Murray, Global HR Transformation & Technology Consulting Leader, PwC, to discuss PwC’s implementation of Workday as their core HR system.

David, Richard and Chris also discuss the secrets of continuous innovation, the importance of a strategic imperative in selecting tech, and ‘the human difference’ in the future of HR technology.

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Enabling technology to transform employee wellbeing: HRD Live Podcast with Josh Hart, Co-Founder and Chief Product Technology Officer, Yulife

It is apparent that there are many positives to prioritising the health of employees, however, is there a specific way that HR and tech can transform employee wellbeing? This week, Michael Hocking, Editor, HRD Connect, was joined by Josh Hart, Co-Founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer, Yulife, an insurtech provider with a difference. They had a fascinating discussion about the role of tech in enabling HR to transform employee wellbeing.

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Man vs Machine – who is actually more biased?

“While we tend to focus on the fears of an autonomous future, there has been little discussion about how machines are actually benefiting industries and augmenting humans.”

A recent study by Oxford Economics estimates that robots could take over 20 million jobs by 2030. This has been the prevalent narrative in the media for a number of years and is only going to grow as we head deeper into the fourth industrial revolution. Dr Nathan Mondragon, Chief Industrial Organisational Psychologist at HireVue compares the biased nature of humans against Artificial Intelligence.

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Digital is putting the human back into HR: Addie van Rooij, HPE

I believe that the HR function will have the opportunity to refocus on the personalisation of the employee experience, and therefore become more focused on individual employees rather than being more mass-oriented, as it has been for the last decade.

Ahead of his appearance at the HRD Summit in Amsterdam June 19th-20th, Addie van Rooij, Vice President People Operations, L&D services, M&A HR services and Labour Relations, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, spoke to HRD Connect about the importance of the digital future in HR, and how the essential digital leader can, and must, be created.

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HRD Live: Brent Pearson, Founder & CEO, Enboarder

When adopting a major new HR system, the HR professional of yesteryear was highly risk-averse – wary of spending too much time, and cash, on an implementation that wouldn’t see the return on investment that the business needed. But smaller systems are now offering businesses greater impact, and are allowing the HR function to realise its full potential as an essential partner in business.

In this episode of the HRD Live Podcast, David Clift was joined by Brent Pearson, Founder & CEO of Enboarder to discuss the future of HR systems in transforming talent acquisition and development.

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How microlearning is transforming employee empowerment: Guy Van Neck, CEO and Founder, MobieTrain

“The world has gone digital. Everything has to go faster, more efficient and more effective. In the mobile revolution, the way that we consume content has changed. We consume a vast amount of content every day, on the go, across multiple devices. Our brain can only retain a certain amount of information at a time, so our L&D training has to compete for attention.”

In this installment of our HRD Tech Founders Q&A series, Guy Van Neck, CEO & Founder, MobieTrain, explains how microlearning is taking learning to the next level, putting career development in the hands of employees through technology.

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Improving hiring and retainment through AI

“AI in its simplest term is a way to get something done, a replacement of a traditional method. But it won’t make something better by itself; it needs a clear framework from a human. So take note, if an organisation has been heading in the wrong direction, for example, with candidate assessments before, it’ll make bigger and faster mistakes with AI.”

AI can mitigate bias and enable valid and reliable predictions. And it’s legally defensible – because it’s explainable. As every good hiring decision should be. Richard Justenhoven, product development director, Aon’s Assessment Solutions, ponders how A.I. is changing the talent management market.

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Psychometrics are changing our understanding of people in the workplace: Rob Newry, CEO & Founder, Arctic Shores

“The psychometric industry has barely changed in 40 years! The last major innovation was to move paper-based questions to an online format. As a result, the recruitment process was boring and overly reliant on cognitive tests, many of which disadvantaged certain groups in society. With the typical female graduate having to make almost twice as many applications as a male one, we felt there had to be a better way for companies to find the right talent and for people to identify careers they were best suited to.”

In this installment of our HRD Tech Founders Q&A series, Rob Newry, CEO & Founder, Arctic Shores, reveals how neuroscience and new technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of how people and business function together, and paving the way for a new generation of workforce optimization.

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HRD Live: Ross Tracey, Managing Director, Ceridian Europe

How does technology change the way we work? Within our organizations, HR technology can be an enabler for leaders, a helping hand for employees, or provide better ways to both engage with each other a workforce. And, looking outward, technology can help organizations to seek and bring on board the talent who will transform their future.

In this episode of the HRD Live Podcast, Michael Hocking speaks to Ross Tracey, Managing Director, Ceridian Europe.

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