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Technology Centric HR & Evolving to the Next Level – Event Recap

Published on : Jun 22, 2017

Category : Events

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It was my pleasure to be a part of yesterday’s program on ‘Technology Centric HR – Evolving To The Next Level’ organized by NASSCOM at Gokulam Park, Coimbatore. I strongly believe in ‘Empowering and Transforming Lives Of People Through Knowledge Sharing’. So, I take this opportunity to humbly present the gist of whatever I could acquire from the distinguished speakers during the program.

Takeaways From The Session Of Mr.Rajesh Balaji, Standard Chartered Global Business Services:

The session gave a bird’s eye view on the positive impact of technology in our day to day life both on the personal and professional front. It also emphasized the need to make the choice – ‘Disruptive’ or ‘Disrupted’, which is an eye-opening point for every organization as the former stands to mean being a ‘Change Agent’ and the latter being a ‘Forced Follower’ of the change. The technological advancement and its influence in all walks of life are inevitable and one needs to cope up and capitalize such changes to create positive impact. The way Robots are influencing medical and manufacturing space is amazing; the precision of surgery done by Robot is at the far higher level compared to a doctor. The introduction of Maker-Checker Robots in financial institutions is again proving to be an example of an application of AI to effectively manage the business activities. The present day business ecosystem is categorized under 4 heads – Brick & Mortar, Click & Mortar, Virtual Enterprise, and e-Market. Some light was thrown upon two broad categories of HR namely Transitional and Non-Transactional. The former may take the route of shared HR services and organizations would take charge on the latter to become more strategic. The speaker concluded his presentation with a familiar story of a King and a Doctor to drive the moral – Everything Happens For Good. Hope you have guessed the story by now, if not, reach me, I’ll tell the story in person. To be precise, though technology gallops to grab the jobs performed by humans, it cannot totally replace human element as morals, values, ethics, and emotions can’t be demonstrated by technology.

Takeaways From The Session Of Mr.Gaurav Vasu, HCL Technologies:

The session centered around ‘Analytics’ and the speaker provided insight on how analytics impact HR decisions, in turn, the overall business decisions. Analytics helps one to move from one-dimensional perspective to multi-dimensional perspective while making decisions. The analytics parameters help decision makers to understand the impact of a particular decision on business both in short term and long term horizon. The concept was well articulated using the example of how the withdrawal of transportation services provided by the organization impacted the business in long run. Though it looked like saving a good amount of money, it had a severe impact on gender diversity, the morale of employees, opinion about the organization by potential employees and in turn the profit margin of the organization. The speaker also touched upon the various facets of analytics – Descriptive Analytics, Diagnostic Analytics, Predictive Analytics and Prescriptive Analytics. To be precise, analytics is a pathway to facilitate ‘Data-Based Decision’ as organizations are heading towards the transition from mere intuition or judgment based decisions to data based decisions from a multidimensional angle.

Takeaways From The Session Of Mr.Ravishankar, Zoojoo.Be:

The session had a focus on ‘Gamification’ and how it has positively impacted the business and also the society. The speaker has started the presentation with ‘Extrinsic Motivators’ (Paycheck, Bonus, Promotion – Simple and Repetitive) and ‘Intrinsic Motivators’ (Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose – Complex and Diverse). Gamification is basically the application of game elements to non-game applications to actively engage users in solving problems in an interesting way. The central concept of gamification is ‘Behavioral Modification / Habit Formation’. The speaker substantiated the central concept with an example of how rash driving was controlled in Sweden by gamification. He has also recommended the book titled ‘Power of Habit’, he just quoted the title, when I explored I found the author to be Mr. Charles Duhigg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMbsGBlpP30). The speaker has highlighted the 4 elements of gamification – Measurement, Behavior, Reward ( S.A.P.S – Status, Access, Power, Stuff ), Mechanics and 4 engagement motivators – Express, Compete, Collaborate, Explore. In a business context, gamification exercises have energized the employees to scale up their performance automatically. The speaker quoted examples highlighting how different organizations made use of gamification in their business activities – McDonald using it for skill development of employees (it was quite amazing to know about the 400-page document of McDonald for making a burger), Siemens using it for the induction program, PwC is using it for recruitment. To be precise, gamification can be looked upon as an avenue to engage employees in a very active and interesting way to perform their tasks. This would also excite ‘Millennials’ to happily anchor in their work.

Takeaways From The Session Of Mr.David Nallathambi, CMA CGM Shared Service Centre:

The speaker had reinforced the points discussed by the earlier speakers. He had also nailed his point very lucidly on the transition that is happening now from ‘Technology Intrusion’ to ‘Technology Invasion’. The power of data in making the decisions was highlighted using the diagnostic method employed by doctors of today vis-à-vis the doctors of yesteryears – today prescription is given by doctors only after thorough reading of various reports like a blood test, scan, et al vis-à-vis the prescription given based on symptoms by yesteryear doctors. The role of analytics in catalyzing the right and quick decisions in business was well reinforced by the speaker. To be precise, ‘Technology Centric HR’ is becoming more significant today and it would have much influence in future impacting business organizations in a massive way. Mr.Senthilkumar, NASSCOM gave a warm-up note in the beginning followed by the welcome address by Mr.Daniel Victor, Vitae International. Mr.Venkatakrishnan, Standard Chartered Global Business Services had played the role of the moderator. Finally, the program concluded with the felicitation of all the speakers followed by lunch.

Feedback:

The program was informative. I got the opportunity to network with the people from HR community.

Roadmap:

I have imbibed the essence of the program and would definitely reflect on it to explore the ambit of implementing the viable ideas fitting the context of our organization with the support of every one of you.