To create strategic value for businesses there is an ever-increasing need to transform HR. As a function, it has dramatically changed over the last two decades. From a value added administrative function, HR has evolved to a value creation function, where it contributes to the strategic direction of a company.

There are many dynamics to this progress, however prominently the changing state of markets, talent shift and the rise of technology are the main reasons. Initially, companies used to adopt strategies that focused on the transactional components of HR operations – payroll, time recording and recruitment. Today, the goal of HR professionals is simple – to create value by realizing efficiency.

True Transformation is More than Automation

Automation projects alone, although add significant value to the business, do not generate insights required to enable HR departments to play a leading role in the formulation of the company strategy. These projects have helped change companies, but they have fallen short of creating true transformation.

True transformation happens when a company’s business needs and directions, their HR processes and functions are all streamlined against HR’s best practices. This alignment when automated with HR software has the potential to radically impact on real business results and drive total organizational success – both top line and bottom-line.

Manu Khetan, CEO of Rolling Arrays, Asia’s leading HR transformation company, with a high number of software implementations under their belt and with an intimate knowledge of what can and can’t be achieved with the platform, shared his expertise about “what does a great HR transformation strategy look like?”

A Great HR Transformation Strategy

During the process of helping organizations in transforming their HR processes from being cost-center to being strategically aligned profit-centre, Manu Khetan suggests two most important factors of a great HR transformation strategy:

• Map your requirements

No two businesses require the same solution – each company has unique challenges to solve. To create a strategy that will deliver on transformation, you need to have a very clear understanding of exactly, what it is that you want to achieve and, this is critically important, how technology can be implemented to enable you to achieve that desired outcome.

Every technology has limitations. Being aware of those limitations and how they will impact your project is often the difference between success and failure.

• Define your performance processes

Knowing how to structure your compensation scheme to get the most from your workers is difficult. We’ve seen, through the work we have done with clients, a plethora of different approaches. Some work better than others.

Through observation we have identified the starting point for all successful schemes is the same – begin the process by developing a comprehensive competency framework, which will enable you to achieve three things:

1. The alignment of rewards to the skills and behaviors that will help the company deliver on the overall strategy
2. To implement a performance management solution that tracks and reports on the progress that each team member is making.
3. To implement succession planning that is informed not only by the skills required to do the job but also, on whom in the organization has those skills.

When a company invests efforts to get these two things right by correctly mapping requirements to the capabilities of the platform and creating a competency framework that accurately defines the required skills and behaviors, they have already put themselves in the best possible position to achieve true HR transformation.

See: 10 Global HR Trends in 2016 HR Professionals Should Know

Executing an Organization’s HR Transformation Journey
Transform | Align | Automate

HR Moving Forward

HR is being viewed as an integral part of a business. Hence, organizations must adapt to reflect this change – namely in IT, workforce and performance management. New approaches can be adopted to not only improve HR processes, but also ultimately change the way we work in the future.

Intelligent Services

Technology will continue to have a significant impact in the transformation of HR. Capabilities like service delivery will move from a series of individual and isolated self-services into easily implemented and adoptable end-to-end intelligent services that cross software modules and integrate processes.

Total Workforce Management

Today’s global workforce is diversified than ever. It is experiencing rapid growth in non-traditional, contingent labour, and hence it is crucial for companies to adapt their strategies to this new-age working trend.

Total workforce management aligns business needs and projects with the required expertise. In doing so, companies are able to optimize their workforce by having an overview of their people and better connect the top talents across businesses.

Performance Management

Gone are the days of the simple performance appraisal approach. Companies need to adapt to the newly reformed performance management process, that provide a comprehensive, flexible and continuous process of setting objectives, assessing progress and providing on-going support to ensure that both the organization and its employees meet their objectives and career goals.

Also read: Strategies for Integrating HR Tools on the Cloud

Content attribution:

Rolling Arrays, a leading provider of end-to-end HR solutions that enable customers to attract, develop, and retain the talent best fit for their businesses. Headquartered in Singapore with offices in 5 countries; having 50+ clients across Asia and proven expertise having successfully executed more than 100 projects, Rolling Arrays is premier HR management solutions consulting firm.