9 Must-Read Digital HR and HR Tech Articles of 2017

First of all: Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a wonderful end of the year and I wish you a very happy, healthy and successful 2018. And what better way to start the year than with an overview of the most popular digital HR and HR tech articles of 2017, right?! We’ve selected some of last year’s most read articles and listed them in a single blog post for you. So sit back, relax and enjoy these must-reads.

#9. The HR Technology Trends for 2018: Ten Disruptions Ahead

Surely this one doesn’t come as a surprise. As an analyst following the HR tech market for about 20 years, Josh Bersin’s yearly HR Technology Trends article is probably one of the most anticipated write-ups of the year among the HR tech community.

For 2018, Bersin expects to see the following disruptions:

1. A massive shift from ‘automation’ to ‘productivity’
2. Acceleration of HRMS and HCM cloud solutions, but not the center of everything
3. Continuous performance management is here: and you should get with it
4. Feedback, Engagement, and Analytics tools reign
5. Reinvention of corporate learning is here
6. The recruiting market is thriving with innovation
7. The wellbeing market is exploding
8. People Analytics matures and grows
9. Intelligent self-service tools
10. Innovation within HR itself

You can find the entire article here. 

#8. How HR Analytics Can Transform the Workplace

In this article, Carlos Mendoza explores how workforce analytics can increase productivity and transform the workplace. Some of the benefits he mentions include:

• Strengthens recruiting
• Streamlines hiring
• Reduces turnover
• Optimizes employee engagement
• Identifies patterns

Mendoza also explains that the collection of data about your (future) employees comes with certain legal issues. Therefore, companies should keep the following in mind:

• Make sure that they’re following legal and ethical procedures
• Make sure their technology supports their data collection
• Practical needs of data analytics 
• Hire experts to analyze data, extract insights and present to the company

Carlos ends his article by stressing that HR analytics is a necessary tool in today’s business landscape and that its benefits are obvious, but that it remains a tool and not a replacement for human decision-making.

Read the full article here.

#7. 300+ Women in HR Technology Worth Watching

Needless to say, this article gives an overview of 300+ women in HR Technology worth watching. But rather than simply listing hundreds of names, William Tincup, President of RecruitingDaily, talks about how various women at the intersection of HR and technology inspire him.

He shares several specific examples of what exactly led him to create this article – among which a speech by Adrianna Huffington – and says he hopes this list will be the end of conference producers, event organizers, angel investors, and what not using bullshit excuses like “we’d love to find more kick-ass HR Technology companies owned or led by women, but we just couldn’t find any.” Hear hear!

Read the full article here.

#6. The Employee Experience is The Future Of Work: 10 HR Trends For 2017

Another well-known writer in HR land is Jeanne Meister. In her article ‘The Employee Experience is the Future of Work’ she writes how 2017 was going to be the year to prepare for ‘transforming HR to be agile, consumer-focused, and digital.’

According to Meister, these 10 trends would matter most:

1. Focus on creating a compelling employee experience
2. Use an agile approach to recruit and develop employees
3. Partner with real estate to create spaces that promote culture
4. Apply a consumer marketing lens to HR
5. Pilot chatbots in HR
6. Plan for a blended workforce
7. Develop career mobility options
8. Invest in employee wellness
9. Focus on team development, not just individual development
10. Prepare for new roles in HR

You can find the whole article here.

Related: 5 Key Ingredients for a Successfully Blended Workforce

#5. 2017 should be about a Digital Mindset – not HR Tech

An interesting perspective from Abhijit Bhaduri. In his article, he says he’s not ready to announce 2017 as the year of HR Tech. He illustrates his statement with Peter Diamandi’s 6D model of exponential technology. According to this model, the growth of technology from digitization to democratization takes place in 6 steps:

1. Digitize any product or service
2. Deceptive phase
3. Disruptive phase
4. Dematerialize
5. Demonetization
6. Democratization

Bhaduri continues by writing that HR tech is somewhere in-between phase 1 and 2. Most organizations are still trying to digitize their data and HR professionals often need to change their mindsets. They have to stop playing the ‘HR is about the human touch’ veto card as a reason not to learn about technology.

He gives 3 ideas to redesign HR experiences in 2017:

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1. Invest in Artificial Intelligence.
2. Create a team of 5 people from different functions to redesign HR experiences.
3. Stop benchmarking industry peers and best practices.

Bhaduri ends his article by saying once more that going digital is about the right mindset and that finding the right HR tech is the easy part.

Read the full article here.

#4. How to prepare for employment in the age of Artificial Intelligence

Strictly speaking perhaps not an HR tech article, but it talks about how to prepare for employment in the age of artificial intelligence and since future- proofing employees will be on the agenda of many HR departments in 2018, it certainly has its relevance.

In this article, Ben Dickson talks about how we can smooth the transition into the age of Artificial Intelligence. He starts by saying we need more focus on computer science in schools and academic institutions followed by an explanation of how AI can assist humans in tech jobs.

Other industries also benefit from AI in creating jobs. Dickson names recruitment as an example: Interviewing applicants has become more streamlined and organizations can process more applications in a shorter time span. 

He ends his article by saying that although we’re still years away from it, there will eventually be a day where robots will perform most tasks and the role of human beings in the production cycle will be marginal. And while we can’t predict the future, we can (and should) prepare for it as best as we can.

You can find the entire article here. 

#3. HR Must Make People Analytics More User-Friendly

Why has HR analytics progress been so slow? That’s the question John Boudreau and his colleague Wayne Cascio ask themselves. In this article, the former discusses 4 factors – using the LAMP framework – that can effectively “push” HR measures and analysis to audiences in a more impactful way:

• Logic
• Analytics
• Measures
• Process

On the “pull” side, Boudreau and Cascio suggest 5 factors that can effectively lead others to pull that data for analysis throughout the entire organization:

• Receive the analytics at the right time and in the right context
• Attend to the analytics and believe that the analytics have value and that they are capable of using them
• Believe the analytics results are credible and likely to represent their “real world”
• Perceive that the impact of the analytics will be large and compelling enough to justify their time and attention
• Understand that the analytics have specific implications for improving their own decisions and actions

• Boudreau concludes his article by saying that a more user-focused perspective is required to put HR data, measures, and analytics to work more effectively.

Just like every website, application and online product out there is constantly optimized in response to user data, HR metrics and analytics should be improved by applying analytics tools to the user experience itself. That is if you want to be able to attract and retain the right talent to move your business forward.

For the full article go here.

#2. In Unilever’s Radical Hiring Experiment, Resumes Are Out, Algorithms Are In

This article by Kelsey Gee talks about Unilever’s tech-fueled hiring experiment. The company has ditched resumes and traditional campus recruiting and uses a process that relies, among other things, on algorithms to select applicants instead.

A sampling of the digital tools Unilever uses to hook young workers and broaden their candidate base:

• Facebook to spread targeted job adverts
• Online games to assess skills like concentration and short-term memory
• Video interviews
• AI to filter candidates

An in-person interview with HR-executives and managers is the last step of the process. According to Unilever hiring has become faster and more accurate with 80% of applicants who make it to the final round getting job offers.

Although it’s too early to say whether the new hiring process leads to stronger employees, the company is rolling out its digital recruitment program worldwide, hiring for entry-level roles.

You can find the entire article here.

#1. “Investing in HR Technology is not the same as Digital Transformation”

The final article in our must-read digital HR and HR tech articles of 2017 list is an interview by Evgenia Bereziuk. She interviewed Soumyasanto Sen, millennial leader, advisor, evangelist, and investor in HR technologies. They spoke about matters such as how to integrate technology across the business, what Digital Transformation requires, and why digital goes beyond technology.

Here’s a sampling of the questions asked during the interview:

– What stages does the digital transformation consist of?

“Based on research by companies such as Cognizant and Altimeter there are 6 key stages companies go through in their Digital Transformation:

– Why do you think so many implementations of new HR technology, which cost tens of thousands, fail?

“The most important issues as of today are:

• Adoption is the key to the success of products and services.
• User experience matters the most today.
  

These reasons for an unsuccessful transformation should also not be ignored:

• Unengaged stakeholders or owners
• Lack of relevance to the business
• No measures or agility

– Does a company need to bring technical people into its HR department before starting a Digital Transformation?

“In respect to the strategy, to compete successfully in the new digital economy, HR should – among other things – use technology effectively to execute business imperatives and extend collaboration with other departments, incorporating mobile technology, analytics, social media, and the cloud to ease the transition to a strategic role.

Most of the successful Digital Transformation projects involve HR and technology people together within one team. Lack of collaboration between them leads to failure for sure.”

For the full article, go here.

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Wishing you once again a great start of 2018!