How COVID transformed HR

More peo­ple have moved to online shop­ping and learn­ing in the last five months than in the past ten years.

2020 was the year HR changed for­ev­er. In HR tech­nol­o­gy terms, it tur­bocharged the shift to online. The pro­fes­sion has endured a glob­al cri­sis, one unheard of in our life­time and for which the future eco­nom­ic, social and human impact is still unfold­ing. The events of 2020 have rein­forced in me that the future of the work­force is chang­ing more dra­mat­i­cal­ly than any­one can pre­dict, and it has led to fun­da­men­tal changes in our labour force and econ­o­my. 

That’s why see­ing the sta­tis­tics behind our in-depth research this year on Why HR Projects Fail is both scary and heart­en­ing. HR has been sto­ical in this cri­sis, the unsung hero and the super­hero on the lead­er­ship team, lead­ing remote work­ing, con­tin­gency plan­ning and repeat­ed busi­ness trans­for­ma­tions.

HR lead­ers recog­nise all mod­els were bro­ken: busi­ness, lead­er­ship, strat­e­gy, cul­ture, engage­ment, com­pen­sa­tion, learn­ing. The radar organ­i­sa­tions flew into this cri­sis with hasn’t worked and will not be the one they need when fly­ing out of the cri­sis. This is why some of the research we are work­ing on behind the scenes is fun­da­men­tal as chief HR offi­cers (CHROs) and the C‑suite rethink how they do busi­ness and retool their organ­i­sa­tions for the real-time COVID econ­o­my.

At UNLEASH, we’ve always asked our indus­try to call out the truth for full clar­i­ty and integri­ty; to clear­ly define what is work­ing, what isn’t and explore the direc­tion of trav­el for HR.   

Our Why HR Projects Fail report for­mu­lat­ed 8 Gold­en Rules for suc­cess­ful HR projects that enable lead­ers to get the best out of the sys­tems they com­mis­sion over the next 12 months.  

We gath­ered per­spec­tives from over 1,000 glob­al HR lead­ers, rep­re­sent­ing an esti­mat­ed $4 bil­lion of man­aged HR tech bud­get. 

Based on our analy­sis, we have iden­ti­fied that project excel­lence cor­re­lates with atten­tion to eight crit­i­cal fac­tors. I am hap­py to share one and five.

1. Focus on outcomes  

Ask the ques­tion, what do we need to achieve? Lead­er­ship teams must under­stand their objec­tives before sign­ing expen­sive con­tracts. Organ­i­sa­tions that have clear goals and stick to their vision are more like­ly to achieve trans­for­ma­tion­al out­comes. 

Imag­ine the con­tract has been signed with the ven­dor or ser­vice provider. Think of the ques­tions you now need to ask your­self, your team, and your organ­i­sa­tion.

Do not sign a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar HR tech­nol­o­gy con­tract and start ask­ing ques­tions on busi­ness strat­e­gy, resources, finance, IT, user adop­tion, lan­guage, cul­ture, data man­age­ment, inte­gra­tion, train­ing and return on invest­ment after­wards. 

5. Build on solid data  

Data that is not clean or ready is the most fre­quent­ly encoun­tered chal­lenge  for HR tech projects.

Pre­dic­tive became redun­dant in this cri­sis. It was not designed for this lev­el of chaos or a virus turn­ing the glob­al econ­o­my on its head with on-and-off lock­downs. That said, HR ana­lyt­ics can serve a much big­ger pur­pose over the next six to twelve months.

Think of the skills your organ­i­sa­tion will need to match your busi­ness strat­e­gy in 2021. This cri­sis has put strat­e­gy firm­ly into the hands of the CHRO. In a world of nev­er nor­mal, busi­ness and front­line lead­ers need to be armed with HR report­ing that enables us to under­stand who’s com­ing back to the office, who’s  stay­ing at home, and the hybrid work­er who loves both, and when. 

HR hack for 2021: if you don’t have data sci­en­tists in your HR depart­ment, steal them from IT.

HR and work­force tech is com­ing of age under the spot­light. Get­ting it right means HR can become the busi­ness val­ue dri­ver it has always aspired to be.

Writ­ten by Marc Cole­man, Founder and chief exec­u­tive, unleashgroup.io