What does Digitization mean for HR?
Our everyday lives are digital - why not in the workplace too? Digitization is already permeating our everyday lives - apps make numerous tasks easier and many things more efficient. However, this development often seems to lag behind in the workplace. Old-fashioned tools and paperwork still dominate many processes. This makes workflows unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming, which has a negative impact on employees' work experience and weakens companies.
Digitization, our friend
Digitization can help - tedious processes can be simplified or automated and valuable time can be saved. Companies should therefore act responsibly and take advantage of the opportunities offered by Digitization in order to avoid being left behind and, above all, to satisfy their employees, attract new skilled workers and retain them in the long term. Digitization means a more attractive work experience for employees - the talents of tomorrow also want a future-proof and modern workplace. Digitalised HR already improves a company's image. So that applicants don't remain the only tech-savvy ones.
However, modernisation does not stop at contemporary recruitment, but extends to digital and simple administration of personnel data, a modern service desk with ticketing system and precise analysis of employee data for more competent decision-making. Artificial intelligence will also find its way into the HR of the future and can help to carry out tasks more professionally - for example, free of bias in Recruitment - and handle processes faster. HR processes are dynamic, and in the future this dynamism will only be required even more.
What needs to be done?
We should not be afraid: Digitization will eventually overrun precisely those people who are afraid and suppress change instead of embracing it. Nobody claims that facing up to Digitization is not a challenge. Companies should therefore establish a learning culture and provide employees with targeted support for their digital skills. This will enable everyone to help shape the company in the long term. It is also important to assess which technologies are strong and future-proof and which can be dispensed with. Knowledge is power - so the handling of new technologies should also be learnt. Ultimately, people and their skills will still take centre stage, but processes can be improved by adding artificial intelligence and automation. Humans are not infallible, nor are machines: a symbiosis of man and machine can increase the quality of HR.
HR as a shaper of digitisation
HR also has a special role to play in digitisation: not only is HR itself undergoing digital transformation, but it also plays a decisive role in shaping the transformation of the entire company. HR has the opportunity to help shape the future and this opportunity should be seized and embraced. Digitization must be used to anticipate trends, remain agile and adaptable and recruit the right professionals. HR is at the heart of this rapid change brought about by Digitization and must therefore be able to keep up with the pace of developments. Modern and efficient HR makes processes more transparent and the entire company more successful.
Focus on people
Ultimately, Digitization should not be understood as simply scanning old files: It involves profound social and structural change. This change cannot be resisted, which is why it is all the more important to recognise it as an opportunity and play an active role in shaping it. Even with Digitization, people remain the success factor in the company.