HR tech has been introduced in the HR sector only a few years ago, but the pace at which it has expanded and intruded into the said business function has been unprecedented. Today, the environment is such that individuals are hired in the HR space only if they possess some kind of HR tech skills. Long gone are the days when HR professionals used to manage administrative tasks offline. Today, every aspect of HR is managed through the use of smart technology, be it attendance recording, payroll management, measuring of employee engagement metrics, gauging employee productivity, or recording the number of hours of work, among others.
As per a 2019 Statista study, 80% of companies worldwide replaced HR-based paper work with HRMS (human resource management system) tech software. The same study concluded that 43% of big companies (in terms of employee strength) have had an existing culture of ‘change management’.
4Steps to Becoming HR Tech Ready
Business Readiness to HR Tech Usage
The first step to automation is determining where the organization stands in terms of tech usage, and assessing the scope of technology deployment in the existing HR processes. As a CHRO, you need to see things objectively to correctly assess the situation. To leverage HR tech effectively as a CHRO, you need to have complete clarity on the existing HR processes. To figure that out, dissect each HR process carefully and seek scope of blending technology with it.
Company Culture & Technology Acceptance
As an individual who is a part ofleadership in HR at an organization, you need to objectively assess your company culture to check that whether it’s ready to embrace technology at the moment, or not. It will be of no use to spend millions on technology when the people in the company are not keen to use it. The biggest possible reason for HR tech to fail at an organization is resistance from the workers. And therefore, it becomes paramount to gauge how welcoming is your workforce towards use of tech.
Some organizations incentivize their employees to help promote use of HR technology, while some companies take strict actions on not using the tech tools made available to the workforce. Although, everything depends on the company culture and its ability to accept and implement change. The best HR leaders would never try to push their workforce against the wall in terms of making employees adapt to the change in an excessively short timeframe.
Identifying What HR Processes to Automate First
Automating all HR processes at once is not only difficult, but impossible. As a CHRO, you need to pinpoint what HR processes need immediate attention. Identifying pain points becomes critical to bettering your HR processes with deployment of advanced HR technologies to specific processes that require immediate improvement. You can start with administrative processes such as attendance and leave sanctions which are comparatively easy to automate by deploying HR tech. Later, one can extend the usage of HR technologies into performance management and talent acquisition.
Shortlisting the Right HR Tech & Software Tool
When choosing an HR technology for your business needs, you must consider the way you work in terms of HR management, which is different for different organizations. Ask yourself questions such as – Will you require an extensive onsite assistance? Will you be needing continuous training throughout the first year of technology adoption? Is the HR software tool you have selected scalable as per your potential growth needs? Automating the HR business function is a sophisticated challenge in itself for the CHROs, as it demands for an extensive preparation in context of getting the organization ready for the upcoming change.
Benedict 
samanvya