Recruitment and Hiring Process in Digital Human Resource Management
Digital trans formation of the human resources in the modern business scenario has the potential to make the workforce more organized and effective. The companies are using the digitalized human resource management strategies in order to achieve their business objectives. This essay is written to analyze how the organisation in modern business world are adopting to the digital transformations in Human resource management. The benefit they are getting though implementing the digital human resource practices will be evaluated. Lastly, the recommendations for adapting technology to leverage the benefits will be provided in this essay.
Digitally Transformed Human Resource Functions and their Impact
Recruitment and hiring process is the primary level of relations building and resource development in the human resource management. The talent search is not only limited to traditional platforms anymore. In the present-day scenario, the organisations are using the digital technologies and social medias to recruit the new employees in their organisation. As the HR management strategy of Anchor Group concentrates on developing positive experience of the candidates, this company gets a competitive advantage in talent development. The use of the technologies like Chatbots along with targeted social media campaigns has bring the required outcomes in the recruitment process.
The technologies that has been used for attracting the talent to the company has increased the engagement with the new people. The analytics feature of Facebook has been used for analyzing the most effective message that can be used for the hiring purpose. The impact of these strategies and technologies have a positive effect on the recruitment efficiency and conversion rate. The Anchor Group has been benefitted through these technologies as they reach to their target audiences for recruitment with higher accuracy and outcomes.
Some of the organisations have already made their places in the technological implementation in their business operations. Human resource management is one of the major parts where the technological implementation can bring high performance. Deloitte has their training programs for the employee skill development that is functional through the Deloitte Leadership Academy. The application of the gamification in the training program has increased the interests of the employees towards the training programs of the organisation. The company has successfully applied the gamification strategies for making the learning process interesting.
The gamification of the learning process has enhanced the interest of the employees towards the training session within the organisation (Silic and Lowry 2020). Human resources trainings in the Deloitte is becoming popular because of the technological implementations. Therefore, the digitization has made the number of employees coming to the learning sites of the company in more number. The impact of training in the employee performance enhancement is undeniable. Gamification of the training sessions has increased 37% traffic on the training site of the company.
The human resource recruitment process is incomplete with the onboarding process. Companies in modern business scenarios work on the onboarding process in order to make the employees work effectively in the new work environment (Ju et al. 2021). The digital technology can help in the effective onboarding process as well. As done by the KPMG, the onboarding process of the company has developed an integrated onboarding software that has better organizing effect on the onboarding process. This software automatically sends all necessary information to the new hires like the policies and contact details of the employees that they might need.
Implementations of Technology in Training Programs
The impact of this technology in the onboarding process has reduced the waiting time between the contract signing day and the first day at organisations. As the software securely send all necessary paper work and information to the new hires, they can go through the details and join the organisation without much longer waiting times. Therefore, the employees have rated the company high in their work experience within few days of joining the organisation.
Use of automation in the retail industry has been increased in past few years. The convenience and impact that the automation can have on the functions of the retail organisations have influenced the companies to apply it (Verma and Rana 2021). The retail giant Walmart is no exception in it. The company has worked for implementing innovative strategies in their functions to achieve leadership in the market. The company has implemented digital technology of automation in their customers and employee experience enhancement. Shopping assistance software and the virtual reality implementation are one of such strategies that the company uses in their organisational function.
The SMAC is the acronym for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. These are digital that are used for the transformation of organisational operations through digital technology. These four technologies are driving the convergence of the HR strategies in modern times. According to Varadaraj and Al Wadi (2021), human resource is gradually turning into a product and the consumerism of the HR is the new term defining this transition. People in different sectors are looking for an experience while working with a company. The high competition for capturing the talents in the organisational background is creating the need for digitalizing the HR practices. The work experience in an organisation is the compilation of emotional, physical, intellectual and virtual experiences. Therefore, the companies hare trying to build the HR practices that can fulfill these needs of the employees as much as possible with minimum wastage of resources. The SMAC is the approach for enhancing the use of digitization in achieving these HR goals.
The use of social media is not new in the organisational goals achievement, but in the context of HR, the usage of the social media is continuously changing. This is not limited to the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (Vaze 2020). In present day, many new talents are using ‘social’ to virtually avail the career needs. The use of LinkedIn has increased by the fresh talents as here they get the chance to explore their job opportunities. The organisations, on the other hand, are using these social platforms to reach to their target people more effectively. Through the profile’s searches in the LinkedIn and other job searching platforms, the company is reaching to the global talent base (searchcio.techtarget.com 2021). The employers are being able to narrow down their searches through the profile evaluation of the basis of skills, location, experience and recommendations in these profiles. Other ta that the application like Facebook Workplace are being used by the internal employees of an organisation for sharing ideas with the colleagues. These the becoming a strong tool for the official communication and chats in the workplace at present times.
Digital Technology in Onboarding Process
Smartphones or mobile devices are the new tools that is making the use of desktops obsolete in modern workplaces. The use of the mobile devices for communication, information sharing, Social media usage and exploring the options has increased. Therefore, HR strategies are also being impacted by the use of these mobile devices. Companie are developing their applications that can be used in the mobile devices more effectively than the huge desktops. The convenience of the mobile is creating the environment where the official mails and documents are also stored and shared through the mobile devices (Verma, Kumar and Sharma 2020).
Predictive data is the medium for helping the business with their future trend identification. The data prediction helps the organisation to understand the needs in their mainstream human resource management and work with them for better outcomes. HR Predictive Analytics are used for the performance management and workforce production management (Sengupta et al. 2021). The Analytics uses the data to identify the potential of the employees through their past performance. There is software that can be used for analyzing the employee performance and therefore, setting the goals for future operations. The HR analytics are also used for designing the training programs of the employees. The gap between the expected performance and the real time performance are analyzed in order to understand the weakness in employee management. The analytical tools are also used for the learning development and the pre- selection process easement.
All the above technologies are supported with the bog data that are stored in the Cloud. This technology is actually the lever for all other digital technologies mentioned above. The HR management would have been critical without the help of the Cloud technology. The information of the organisational performance are fueled by the data sets stored in the cuds. It is the base for the interconnectedness within the organisation. the Cloud technology enables an individual to access the data from any medium and anywhere. The innovations in the HR strategies are supported by the Cloud data sets. The machine learning, HR analytics and the predictive capabilities within the organisation will be based on the Cloud Software (Mazurchenko and Maršíková 2019). The Cloud computing technology keeps the devices used in the process updated. The employees would not be able to access any data from anywhere they stay without the help of the cloud software. These are the example of the usage of Cloud computing and software in the HR management.
The SMAC is definitely adding to the efficiency of HR performance and evaluation in different levels. These levers of technology can be used in the transformative outcome development in present day scenarios.
Integrating the digital technology in the HR strategies can enhance the business transformation impact. Human resource is the most important part of the organisational operations. Managing the human resource effectively can result in competitive advantages for the companies. Most of the organisations have a tie up between their IT and Humna resource for making the digital trans formation smooth and effective. Technological implementation is a continuous process that evolves with time (Gupta, Fernandes and Jain 2018). Developing a flexible organisational strategy for adjusting the change in the HR management is the primary requirement for this process. Some of the popular technology that can be used for the HR operations are Artificial Intelligence, employee self-service tools, virtual reality and HR analytics. The recommended strategies for integrating these technologies in the HR management are suggested below.
Automation in Retail Industry
AI technology can be used to increase the accuracy in decision making and targeting the right audiences. The Humna resource management through AI can be multifaceted. The organisations can implement the AI technology to reduce operational costs, employee pressures and reducing the time of the operations. Artificial Intelligence is the technology in which a robot or a computer performs the work that the human is capable of doing (Saddique et al. 2021). The requirement of human diligence and intelligence are necessary for performing such functions. The innovation of the Artificial Intelligence is helping the organisations to add a disruptive impact on the human resource management. The organisations can use the AI through strategic application of this technology. AI implementation could be done in five stages-
The first step in the AI implementation is the identification of the areas where the AI can be implemented. The AI can be used in the hiring and recruitment process pf the HR management. This is the primary step of the HR strategy development. According to the business reports, almost 55% of the organisations are already using the AI for their HR department projects (Aggerholm and Andersen 2018). The software for predicting the HR performances are being used by the companies. Therefore, the recruitment process can be speed up through the AI implementations. A matrix can be developed by the companies to mar up the urgent and important tasks. This matrix will guide the organisations where they can implement the AI according to its relevance.
Figure 1: example of Classifying important HR needs for AI designing
(Source: getapp.com, 2021)
The second stage is to deploy the time line according to the matrix that has been developed in the first stage. The tasks should be categorized on the basis of the priority and needs. The third stage in the process is to estimate the cost of the implementation of AI in the HR system. For example, if a company wants to automate their candidate searching process through AI technology, they need to estimate the cost for the software development, implementation and evaluation process. The fourth stage is the timeline setting for this AI implementations in finally, the fifth stage is training the employees to cope up with the AI changes in their HR practices.
Virtual Reality can be useful for the enhancing the communication and productivity of the human resources in an organisation. The VR or Virtual Reality adds agility to the HR services in an organisation. VR can be used from the recruitment, onboarding to the experience building. This process is cost effective and practical in its implication. Through the VR, the companies can increase the interests of the new employees within the organisation. In order to convince the new talents to apply for the job opportunities in an organisation, the company can present their workplace opportunities in an interesting way through the VR technology (Krithika, Venkatraman and Sindhujaa 2019). In the human resource management strategy, the companies include virtual campus tours. For example, Toyota has implemented virtual reality in order to show their campus to the applicants of the company jobs.
SMAC: Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud Approach for HR Strategies
Through the information sharing features in the VR, the companies can easily convey their messages to the new employees. This way UR can be used in onboarding process of the new hires. Use of VR in the new employee training are implemented in the HR management process (Manaf, Sulaiman and Rambli 2021). Other than that, the VR technology can be used in the communication process. The usage of Email and video messaging is becoming boring for the employees. Other than that, these mediums are considered to be less interesting and their less attention grabbing. Delivering message through VR instruments can be more interesting and complete attention grabbing. This contributes in the effectiveness of the message that is delivered through the process.
The application of VR or the 360 technology is handy and required less investments for the company. The efficiency of the HR practices can be increased by making the process more attractive and interesting through VR applications. It is recommended to the organisation to us ethe VR technology for their organisational HR improvement strategies and cost efficiency.
HR analytics is the used for enhancing the performance management and diversity and inclusion context. The implementation of technology like automation. AI and ESS has reduced many unnecessary steps from the HR process. Adding to this is the HR analytics that can contribute in data analysis and performance management. The raw data that is used through the software to analyze the performance of the employees are an effective way of unbiased and data-based employee performance management (shrm.org 2021). The HR analytics is used for the monitoring of performance, employee reviews collecting and supervisory feedback collection. The data driven promotions and decisions could be made through the implications of HR analytics (Scapolan 2018). Therefore, it is recommended to the organisations to use the HR analytics for their performance management.
The organisation can also include the HR analytics to get the idea of their diversity impact. This means, through the data, the companies can how much inclusive their culture is. The gap in the pay or the discrepancies can be denoted through the process (Diez, Bussin and Lee 2019). This will lead to the fair human resource management through defining inclusive workplace and fair salary structure. The digitalization through HR analytics can place an organisation politically higher through such strategies.
Employee need to be given the autonomy to manage some of their organisational aspects by themselves. This need in the companies is the basic application of the Employee Self- Services or ESS systems. The ESS is the technologies that can be used for helping the employees to manage their HR and IT needs of their own. Through the application of the ESS, the employees can facilitate their common administrative tasks by themselves (Chen et al. 2021). This reduces the complication in the HR management. Through the ESS portals the organisations enables the employees to manage their benefits and insurance plans as well.
In the traditional days, the HR administrative works were usually managed by the paperwork. This includes huge time and resource needs. The self- services portals are now saving this money and time for the companies. The ESS portals are the amalgamation of the knowledge data base and interactive web applications (Ioannou Katidou and Sakalidou 2020). The main two components of the ESS should be the content and delivery. In a retail sector organisation, the content for the ESS portal could be the employee leave balance and the delivery could be the organisational HR. These portals are the self- service gateway that helps the employees for specific page or set of information. The companies must take care of the security aspects for these gateways. The ESS systems can be used for keeping track of the employee’s performance as well. The logging in and logging out system is the mostly used HR strategy that is done using the ESS system. Other than that, the organisation can also use the ESS portals for directly communicating the individual information with the employees. The ESS can be empowering for the employees and it can contribute in employee satisfaction as well.
Use of Social Media in Human Resource Management
Conclusion
The above discussion indicates that the application of digital technologies in human resource management can have positive impact on the functional speed and effectiveness in organisations from different sectors. The digital transformations through the automation, AI, Virtual reality and HR analytics are in trend. Designing the HR strategies to adjust new technologies in their operations and functions are one of the major business objectives of these companies. Technological levers in the HR management are mostly diversified in social, analytics, mobile and cloud technologies. Application of these technology not only improves the organisational effectiveness, at the same time, these digital technologies enhances the effectiveness and outcomes for the company.
References
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