#SHRMTech18 - Reflections & Takeaways

Revolutionising HR Technology was the theme of the conference in Hyderabad last week. The above photograph perhaps gives an idea of the #futureofwork. The Emcee for the inaugural session was MITRA the 'experienced' humanoid!! (Mitra has already met Mr Narendra Modi, Ms Ivanka Trump, apart from handling customers in some Banks and Hospitals.)

Well, a lot was shared, deliberated, debated -and discussed, and one can easily get the online footprints if one were to google for "SHRMTech18". Information is passe- for me, the interactions and insights are the ones that make the difference. Here is a summary on twitter!

1) The Employee experience

The keynote address by Vineet Nayar dwelled on "Organisational Transformation", revolved more on how the HR should first be transformed. It was humbling to note -that a person of his stature, and experience impacting not just the corporate world , but also in "frugal innovation led large scale social change", shared some thoughts on how, we, who are perhaps great managers of the "ants" (of the industrial economy) ought to be thinking of managing "butterflies" ( the new generation in the interconnected economy). And would you believe, his preparation involved crowdsourcing of thoughts/experiences on Linkedin-

-What impact an HR person has in an employee’s success. High/ medium/ low/ none?

- What should an HR person do MORE?

- What should an HR person do LESS?

-Will Organization performance increase if they adopt an employee first philosophy?

(please review -#priceless there were over 300 comments from practicising professionals)

2) Content is for sharing. The Context is the king!

Niel Nickolaisen shared a well researched study on creating a workplace culture that attracts, retains and develops talent. And he walked the talk by sharing his email id- for those want a copy of the 40+ slides he presented as well as the 250 page ebook " The Agile Culture".

3) Change is the new Constant.

While most speakers related to how we easily we adopt technology in our personal daily lives, and alluded to the bureaucracy at the work place(" try ordering a pen or a pen drive at office"), the 1000+ audience were enlightened as a bureaucrat, IT Secretary to Telangana Govt Mr Jayesh Ranjan narrated some of the innovative work done in Skilling courtesy TASK. He rattled the way -the paradigm has shifted with the Government intervention in students being taught Tizen (Samsungs OS), setting up training schools to cater to Apple's dev centre, and Wipro admitting the 'trained graduates' now needed just 15 days to be deployed on projects ( compared to 180 earlier!!)!

The variety of topics needed concurrent sessions to cover the entire gamut of discussions across products, services, new forms, Tech talks, Demos, apart from the informal chats across the networking sessions. Guess I cant do any justice trying to convey the charged energies -thanks to Sunita Bhuyan who demonstrated how "Music for Wellness" can be used as an alternative approach to L&D!! And ofcourse an aggressive "safron clad" moderatorPankaj Bansal who got the audience glued to their seats on a Friday evening as he goaded a set of 3 HR leaders and 3 Business leaders to go at each other -about the future of HR- with the buzzer et al!

As a person who has seen the ringside exposure of the disruptions technology has had on business in the last 3 decades,I come back relieved-there is no real need for the gloom and doom around-there is enough and more for those who are sensitive to the changing needs of the ecosystem, and learn, unlearn and relearn. 

Abhijit Bhaduri -who topped the list of 30 HR Influencers in India using social media, attributed his thanks to the 650.000+ follower community- who he calls 'the largest board of advisors' for reading, commenting and advising him !!

Psst..for those who feel threatened by the rise of AI, ML, Bots and others, here is something to reflect..we humans have a little more time to get our act together !

Technology, Millennials and Gig Economy: Will it make HR Obsolete? #SHRMTech18

HR as a function has gone through significant changes over the last few years due to the evolution of technologies/ digitisation etc. Today AI has a huge impact on the way companies hire, manage, and engage with the employees.

Earlier this month, as a precursor to the SHRM HR Tech Conference 2018, SHRM Forum had organised a interesting event.

Nitya Nivali was to have moderated the session along with on the above topic along with industry experts Revathy  Reddy, SravantiChekragari and Asim Rizvi, to deliberate issues like 

· What’s changing in HR due to technology advancements and automation?

· Advent of new technologies,AI,AR,VR,Chatbots,Blockchain etc.shift in the way talent gets managed

· Which part of HR can be replaced and what will survive?

· What role will HR play in the future? How can HR be better prepared?

· What are organizations doing to develop newer, relevant HR skills in the context of digital transformation?

What transpired was a truly 'Design thinking' approach. Given that the audience was a motley mix of HR professionals along with Consultants, and Service providers -or rather practitioners, the esteemed panel decided to instead convert it into a Round Table -to engage and interact with the group.

It was perhaps among the best learning experiences, as all chipped in with different perspectives across the ecosystem .One cannot but not mention that Sunil  sensitised the operational issues, and Ramlal Waghray, a technologist turned entrepreneur, triggered us to think beyond the surface.

Here is a gist of the proceeding as Nitya very succintly summarised the deliberations - 

AI is poised to be and will continue to be a game changer

AI powered technologies like Chat bot, VR etc combined with human experience and judgement will drive companies to success

both humans and machines - the combination would be critical to success - AI powered with human capabilities would bring in more effective and intelligent HR solutions

What is in for HR 

Disinclination towards adopting technology can prove disastrous for business

Train yourselves; be cognizant of the fact that digitisation makes life easy, make yourselves aware what AI as a technology can bring in transformation  - and yes, focus on leveraging AI shift clearly is from transactional HR to transformational HR

Well, the format was so engaging, that quite a few of us participants, stayed back to have private tete a tete, with a promise to network and learn more, offline also :)!

Want to deliberate more on this topic?  We have William Tincup giving the key note on the topic on 27th April,as he shares his view points on how Artificial Intelligence has impacted Human Resources function and more so specific to Recruitment. In this session, he would also bring in the comparisions between the leverage of AI technologies in India and the West.

Its still not too late..Just 3 days to go..Register here :)!

PS : Yours truly is honoured to be amongst the blogsquad -do give me a shout if you are there. Else follow @achyutmenon for keeping abreast.

Weekend Smiles..All in a days work!

Only a recruiter would understand!!

Keeping Organisations Future Ready

Time to recharge, refocus, and renew.

The countdown has begun. The SHRM India HR Technology Conference in Hyderabad has over a 1000 delegates registered to listen to over 70 speakers and engage in a knowledge/breakout sessions.

Shweta has already shared some of the exciting pointers for us to be keyed into. For me, it is a great opportunity to discern between the 'noise' online, and engage a few to get some the insights on what could keep us more relevant in the coming days. (I believe there are at least 15 different personas of "Conference-goers', though I have always found it most beneficial tuning to Kavi for making the most out of conferences!! )

As a person who has had the ringside view of the changing landscape in Talent acquisition, I am keen to know of the approaches/best practices in hiring and retention. And particularly what is being done with respect the first basic step of hiring- Scoping. It is ironic that most job descriptions are at best laundry lists, or even cut paste jobs-hardly in sync with the life cycle of the company's growth-with very little attempt to supplement, (if not complement) the in-house skills. Sourcing and Screening have already seen a lot of changes, courtesy AI and ML, and perhaps speed up the process-but one must realise the difference between commodities and human beings !! Selection and Retention need a personalised touch that can build on the analytics and predictive models -to create a better impact.

What will be the new buzz words this time? Which are the new stalls that will get most footfalls will be interesting. Personally, I have been a little disappointed that the mortality rates of most HR Tech startups has been high-over the past few years. Some of them perhaps, solving the pain points that the promoters grappled with- weren't game changing enough -while a lot of them have been gobbled up by bigger players. I shall be glad to be corrected. ( Will be keen to follow Peoplestrong -they have been growing bigger and bigger every conference!)

Do check out the agenda here.

Should you be dropping by at the event, please do give me a shout. It would be wonderful to catch up over a cuppa coffee and compare notes.

Anyway, please do stay tuned by following some of us, part of the Blogging Squad, on twitter-you can be there will be a lot of bytes being shared on #SHRMTech18.

Let's meet up!!