How HR Can Drive Business Success: 10 Essential Tips

COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation in many business areas, including HR. Adapting to social distancing rules, quickly transitioning to remote working and dealing with new regulations such as short-time working have been on the to-do list of many HR departments in recent months, all while continuing to support the company. Without a doubt, HR has played a key role in the digital transformation.

However, to be successful in this process, HR needs to find a balance between ensuring the smooth running of day-to-day operations and participating in the development of the company’s digital strategy.

Simpler, faster, smarter, more efficient. Following these four principles will help you successfully transform your HR department to better meet employee expectations. Here are 10 tips to transform your business processes and create value across your organization.

1. Optimize your organization

Break down silos and foster connections between departments that work together at the same time. Use tools that facilitate collaboration and communication, wherever your employees are. With so many organizations moving to virtual communication due to COVID-19, it’s important to keep all your company’s energy focused on creating value for customers.

2. Change the way you work

Change is not easy to achieve. To inspire and drive new changes in your company, talk to key stakeholders in your organization and try to introduce a “test and learn mode” that drives new work patterns that meet employee expectations. To achieve this, companies must not be afraid of failure and drive true cultural change. Instead, failure should be seen as a source of progress. Be inspired by this famous quote: “Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”

3. Optimize HR processes

If you want to transform your company, you need to rethink your HR processes. According to IDC research, 87% of UK companies see digital transformation, including digitizing their HR processes, as a business priority. These processes include areas such as talent and skills management, training and development, succession planning and introducing a lean management approach to HR. Focus on the highest value tasks, but don’t be afraid to experiment.

4. Get involved in the strategy

Many HR processes can either pose a threat to the business or have a positive impact on it. We know how to create clear and effective global strategic plans on career development, employee expectations and technology. This is the value HR can bring to companies today, and it is especially important as companies continue to navigate the waves of the coronavirus. If company performance is closely linked to its ability to adapt to ever-changing environments such as the digital age, HR must anticipate how these changes will impact the organization and propose proactive measures to take advantage of them.

5. Get closer to management

There are only four meetings a year between HR and managers. It is important to build relationships with management and not only discuss strategy formulation but also provide effective solutions and approaches. When it comes to digital transformation, it is especially important for managers who need to anticipate the impact on the market and their teams while finding ways to gain a visible competitive advantage. HR can support this process by recruiting new talent, retaining key players and managing team benefits.

6. Meet the needs at the right time

You need to keep pace with your industry. Of course, this means you need to give your employees the right tools so they can collaborate quickly and efficiently. But you also need a solution that lets you track trends and correct them at the right pace. For example, the average time it takes to hire a manager is currently nine weeks, but four in ten hires take much longer. Social networks, talent pools, videos, recommendations and more optimise the hiring process and respond more quickly to employee needs.

7. Leverage the power of analytics

HR data requires accuracy, not intuition or guesswork. The volume of data is huge, so data management skills must be built to meet the future needs of employees and the business. Big data can help with many processes, such as: optimizing candidate search, streamlining the recruitment process, employee retention, tracking trends, improving employer branding, and more. Leveraging comprehensive HR data allows companies to make better HR decisions.

8. Invest in data security

90% of data breaches in the UK are caused by human error, and the impact of a data breach on market share and reputation can be significant. Since HR is responsible for employee data, it is important that they invest in data security to avoid security breaches that could undermine employee trust. In the age of GDPR, companies’ control over personal data is more important than ever.

9. Be proactive

To gain leadership support, show that your vision is forward-thinking. Use analytics tools to track trends and drive your business forward. Predictive HR streamlines the hiring process and helps you uncover skills gaps, leading to better timeline management. Our recent acquisition of Clustree, the industry-leading AI-powered competency engine and comprehensive competency ontology, is designed to help companies match employee skills to specific roles.

10. Adopt a culture of ROI

Your attitude towards change determines how it impacts your business. Justify your decisions and model your projects. Understand the challenges of other departments in order to specifically address their needs and achieve concrete results. At the same time, apply these principles to your own HR activities by defining performance indicators (number of planned hiring dates, number of interviews, candidate pool, delays in the hiring process, satisfaction with hires, etc.). You will be able to calculate the return on investment of your HR functions.