How to make human resources transformation seamless

What is the most important factor to consider during human resources transformation?

Many workplaces are embarking on the journey of human resources transformation, but the first question to ask must be: “Why are we transforming HR, and how will this help our organisation succeed?”

It is important to pin down why the organisation needs to transform the human resources processes and how the change will positively impact the business. Many organisations commence a human resources transformation just because others are undertaking this same activity. However, unless these ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions are answered and the business needs clearly identified, a transformation will have little impact on the organisation.

To answer these questions, it is important to know what the CEO is thinking and what business problems they are trying to solve.  The people-related responses to these business problems can then be incorporated into the human resources transformation strategy.

Human resources transformation is therefore only a means to an end – a way to transform the HR business function to better support the organisation as it addresses its business challenges and takes advantage of opportunities as they arise.

When HR understands and is aligned to the CEO and the organisation’s business challenges and opportunities, it can express its strategy in a way that is consistent with the rest of the organisation. In this way it can become commercially relevant.

What new trends do you see in the field of HR that companies should leverage?

Today most organisations are developing their corporate digital strategy, often starting with a one developed by the marketing team to engage with and service their customers. It is important for human resources to have its own digital strategy to engage with and improve the productivity of the workforce. The HR digital strategy should incorporate technology that is personalised, connected, insightful, mobile, purposeful, secure, talent-centric, social and agile.

An immediate opportunity presented by an HR digital strategy is to adopt and utilise more sophisticated human resources analytics.  At the highest level of sophistication, predictive analytics can be utilised to look at workforce behaviour. The data can then be used to develop predictions so that HR practitioners can understand and address future talent challenges such as unplanned attrition or performance degradation.

A lot of age-old performance motivators are now seen as defunct. How is Neuroleadership transforming thinking on workforce interactions?

Dr David Rock coined the term Neuroleadership. He is the director of the Neuroleadership Institute, a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together to help organisations leverage neuroscience research in order to develop better leaders and managers, and thus more effective organisations.

Neuroleadership is essentially the science of why people behave the way they do in an organisation – what motivates and de-motivates them. Research in this space is extensive, and its implications are illustrated by the following two findings:

1. Social issues are a primary concern for employees – Science has proved that social pain triggers the same part of the brain as physical pain. This tells us that social interactions are more important than we give them credit for.
2. The brain is a ‘prediction machine’ that analyses every stimulus as a threat or a reward – This analysis is occurring multiple times each second, and as a default treats stimuli as a threat unless the opposite is indicated. Research has shown that, in an organisational context, many of the stimuli presented in the workplace will be perceived as a threat by employees, even though they are well-established practices in the organisational context.

Performance management is an example of a business process that presents a threat stimulus, even though it was designed to engage employees, enhance their performance and help them develop inside the organisation.  In spite of this intent, performance management has become almost universally derided by employees, deemed ineffective by many organisations, and more recently abandoned by many organisations.  In this case, Neuroleadership is providing a context for re-thinking how we manage performance, develop employees and create a more engaging workplace.