A Gartner survey of HR leaders reveals that 76% say their managers are overwhelmed by the growth of their job responsibilities. In addition, 73% say their leaders and managers are not equipped to lead the change that organisations are undertaking.
FutureCIO spoke to Joey Woo, partner for HR & talent transformation in ASEAN for IBM Consulting on the challenges and opportunities HR leaders must face in 2024 and beyond.
Critical challenges that ASEAN HR leaders face
Woo says the challenges that HR leaders in the region are driven in part by the changing business environment, technology-led disruption and new business models or operations. These challenges, according to Woo, can be grouped into three areas:
Driving the workforce capabilities and skills: How can HR support the business to identify the skills gap and help them close the skills gap so that the employees will stay relevant and excel in the evolving business environment?
Align HR services to business needs using technology: How do you ensure and demonstrate the value delivered to the business as it is the HR operation cost number?
Attracting, recruiting and retaining top talent: It is about defining a positive and unique culture to attract the talents to join the organisation. Also, how do we retain them and develop the future leaders of the organisation?
What HR transformation is (and isn’t)
HR transformation is about how HR serves employees, creating a delightful employee experience. It is not merely a technology implementation of a chatbot, a mobile app or a cloud HR system. No doubt technology is the enabler for HR transformation.
“There are other components to be considered and investigated as part of the transformation. This includes the HR operating model, like the service delivery model which comprises processes, policies, HR competencies, and HR leadership. However, I do want to emphasise that organisations don't need to tackle all of these components together to define themselves as an HR transformation initiative.”
Joey Woo
Woo suggests that organisations focus on a couple of the components that will have the most impact on their organisation when they transform and focus on those components.
How are ASEAN leaders approaching HR transformation
Gartner says 41% of HR leaders say employees’ connection to culture is compromised by hybrid work. For culture to succeed in a hybrid world, leaders must work intentionally to align and connect employees to it — equipping teams to create vibrant and healthy microcultures.
According to Woo, many of them will approach HR transformation using technology as an enabler to drive the changes that they want to see in HR. “Many of them will start from the implementation of an HR cloud solution or a technology-enabled GenAI as a catalyst to drive the changes aimed at changing the way they serve the employees,” she continued.
What are the potential benefits of AI in HR transformation
A Gartner survey of HR leaders reveals that 38% have explored or implemented AI solutions to improve process efficiency within their organisation.
Woo believes that the benefits (of AI in HR) will come in four dimensions, starting with streamlining and standardising processes, enhanced efficiency given that these days HR services are rendered 24x7, objectivity, and personalisation.
GenAI use cases for HR
Specific to Generative AI or GenAI, use cases can be seen across the talent (management) lifecycle from attract, hire, engage, retain, develop, grow and serve, according to Woo. “There are a lot of interesting use cases in each of the talent life cycles developed and we have implemented them in IBM,” she continued.
“My personal favourite is the career coaching where GenAI can be deployed to interact with employees at a personal level. For example, an employee thinking about the future can use GenAI to explore new opportunities within the company, what skills will be needed in those roles, and what opportunities are suitable for the employee.
“For applicability of GenAI, I would suggest that the HR leader evaluates the technology based on their current operation challenges, and the volume of the challenges. From here, they can identify the first GenAI use case that they can consider implementing,” she added.
On human-machine collaboration
Woo believes that while GenAI is powerful, it has limitations. “People (humans) are still needed to build trust and relationships,” she called out.
“Hence, when designing the GenAI use cases, HR needs to distil the end-to-end processes – where are the human interactions that are required, and what are those interactions that could GenAI play without taking out the trust or relationship component? So, we don’t lose the human touch in the whole end-to-end HR processes,” concluded Woo.
