The biggest ever HR Tech Meet held in India, SHRM India Tech 2016 witnessed 650+ Attendees, 15+ Knowledge Sessions, 200+ Participant Organisations, 120+ CHRE’s and Business Leaders and 10+ Expert led Tech Demos.
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management, concluded the 2nd edition of ‘SHRM India HR Technology Conference & Exposition’, the most powerful confluence of people, business and technology on April 21 at Renaissance Hotel, Mumbai.
The two day conference and exposition brought together 650+ delegates, including mid and senior level HR professionals and corporate leaders from organizations across all sectors. The gathering also presented an opportunity for delegates to discuss innovative ways to bridge the gap between HR and technology, and how to leverage the best of technology as an effective enabler in HR.
SHRM Tech 2016 lays the stage for not just setting the context of the various technologies that can enhance the intended goals of HR, but also as to how it can be leveraged to the maximum. Global trends like Blind CV’s and Artificial Intelligence were deliberated upon, and a very interesting ‘gamification’ trend was seen as evolving globally. Every aspect of the Technology and HR mix was identified and extensively discussed.
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Jason Averbook, Thought leader and Author presents an interesting session on Innovation in HR
The key focus of the conference was on the rapidly evolving workplaces and exponential technology advancements.
Some of the eminent Global and Indian speakers at the conference included Jason Averbook, CEO, Thought Leader & Author; Viresh Oberoi, Founder CEO and MD, Mjunction Services ltd.; Dr. Sumit D Chowdhury, Founder CEO ‘Gaia Smart Cities’, Business Leader, Author & Motivational Speaker; Yuvraj Baghwala, VP- HR, Genpact; Kevin Freitas, Director, Global Recruiting & Rewards –InMobi; Yashwant Mahadik, Executive VP and Global CHRO, Sun Pharma; Pradeep Mukerjee, Former CEO & Country Head –Mercer Consulting Pvt. Ltd; Unmesh Pawar, Global MD, Talent Acquisition – Accenture; Jaspreet Bakshi, Sr. VP, HR & Regional Head – HR, People Services India; George Oommen, Director – HR, Technology & Process Consulting at Cognizant; Sameer Khanna, VP and Head of HR India – Ericsson India; Manu Narang, VP, HR – American Express; Vikas Joshi, Sr. Director, HR Transformation –PepsiCo’s Asia, Middle East & North Africa; Sunder Ramachandran, Head, Training Function – Pfizer India and Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief Learning Officer, Wipro Ltd.
Achal Khanna, CEO, SHRM India, said, “The last two days of the conference saw a series of engaging and corroborative discussions that intended to enhance our understanding of technology in HR; and how to leverage that technology as an enabler in the rapidly evolving corporate landscape. Each one of us have takeaways from the deep-dived speaker sessions, panel discussions and interactive demos & simulations at the exposition.”
She further emphasised, “While technology has always been considered as one of the tools of the HR domain, the SHRM Tech conference offered a platform to brainstorm and minutely assess the impact of technology on the top line of companies, simultaneously throwing a light on key HR Tech trends shaping up globally. After receiving an overwhelming response from this and the last years’ SHRM Tech Conference, we plan to make it as an annual property event of SHRM and organize it every year.”
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| Making HR technology about user experience’, ‘How technology can be harnessed to build holistic learning environments’, ‘Technology enabled learning and its usefulness in our worlds’, ‘How technology can help can completely re-invent your hiring strategy’, ‘How to build, manage and sustain a Smart Workforce that is constantly Skilled, up skilled and Re-skilled to meet the demands of a Digital World’ were some of the key trends and topics discussed at the event. |
In his keynote address, Jason Averbook shared his views on the rapid rate of technology change and how technology is often seen, misguidedly, as a silver bullet – the solution to all our problems. He also stressed on the need for HR to ‘up its game’ on strategy, process, data and storytelling. There is a need for HR to re-focus on how it looks at itself and its customers and the need for people, processes and technology to work together.
Viresh Oberoi, Founder CEO& MD, mjunction in his session, highlighted how with a focus on problem-solving and innovative use of IT, mjunction changed the way commodities are sold. Using e-commerce to create a transparent and efficient mode for the sale of secondary steel and coal e-auctioning, resulting in incremental revenue of Rs 25,000 crore. Technology not only moved business for mjunction but it is an important lever that the organization uses to manage its people.
The conference also witnessed some expert led demo sessions during both the days. One of the sessions: Redefining Talent Acquisition in an Era of Industry Convergence, showcased IBM Kenexa’s sciences, social, collaboration and analytics backed Talent Acquisition solutions. Whereas Hacker Rank’s automated CodeChallenges gave an in-depth insight into accelerated hiring in a captivating session: Source, screen, and interview the best tech talent.
Eminent panelists deliberating on how to manage a digital workforce: (L-R) R. Mahalakshmi, Director HR at Mondelez India Foods; Unmesh Pawar, MD HR, Accenture; and Sameer Khanna, Head HR, Ericsson India.
Thought-provoking discussions deliberating on the need for “Creating and Managing a Digital Workforce” was moderated by Sameer Khanna, Head HR, Ericsson India along with some eminent panelists on board – Unmesh Pawar, MD HR, Accenture, Vikas Joshi, Senior Director – HR Transformation at Pepsico and R. Mahalakshmi, Director HR at Mondelez India Foods. Vikas Joshi said, “Information is flowing too fast and there is no filter between the front line and the leadership and this has been a big change for us.”
Unmesh Pawar put across his thoughts on preparedness of Accenture to meet the changing demands of the on-mobile workforce and said, “We believe liquid is the next big thing with respect to workforce. What we mean by liquid workforce is – take an example of freelancers, the people who are making choices to sit on the intersection of their passion and aspiration. People don’t want to do stuff because you want them to do. They would rather do stuff that would add value and those they are passionate about.”
He further added, “We’ve actively worked on Accenture liquid platform, wherein we are creating opportunities for people – first and foremost to understand how do you post jobs online, such that people who are interested in can apply for those jobs. We are also working on creating an external cloud such as to enable workforce to function seamlessly across geographies. The value of which we are starting to see is mobility of talent.”
Achal Khanna in her exclusive concluding remarks took us through the journey and how the idea got seeded considering no HR tech event platform was held in India. This was the very reason that made them set up this event showcase for two-exclusive days this year.
As she candidly explains, “We wanted to organise this show for the very first time in November 2014, but it was too short a notice when the idea occurred to us. Hence, the first HR Tech conference in India was held in April 2015 at the Palladium in Mumbai. This one-day event was a grand success that left people wanting for more and complaining on the lack of time to network and enjoy the show. This is why we created two days of the mega HR Tech Fest – SHRM Tech India 2016, because people want to enjoy, network and understand in detail the happenings around the world in the space of technology in HR.”
Also read: India HR Summit 2016
