Business Management: Adaptation For Disruptions

Introduction

Ringing a bell to the consequences of globalisation as well as prevalence of technology, which has brought new challenges and opportunities to organisations. Whereas, Disruption means “rapidly evolving technologies, business models, demographics, and workplace attitudes that are all shifting concurrently.” Described by a Boston Consulting Group senior and the global leader of the firm’s People & Organization practice,“digital automation, agility and innovation, and skill imbalances and talent gaps are redefining technological and digital productivity, changing the way business value is generated, altering resource distribution, and transforming workforce cultures and values.” (Bailey, 2017) they further specified the problems that caused by globalisation and advancement of technology that the organisations facing today.

First talking about digital productivity, digital automation contributes to productivity of the business yet chaotic in hiring labors. We used to define productivity as “the amount of hard work we generated , the amount we produced.” however, under the era of disruption and appearance of digital automation, it no longer only focuses on efforts but also the trend of using technology nowadays in different fields is common. Machines is replacing labour force such as ATM, online payroll system, head hunting apps so on and so forth. It therefore brings us a question mark: How many workers do we still need in performing such task?

On the other hand, skill imbalances and talent gaps are addressing unlimited pressure on resources allocation. Facing the unexpected future, the organisation needs to acquire digital talents to adapt in such digital disruption. Whereas, the old experienced workers are lagging behind the competition and being ignored, lastly becoming burden to companies. Skill imbalances and talent gaps thus, drives resources allocation of an organisation into a maze.

Secondly talking about workforce culture and values, agility and innovation are vital for a business to survive given that the world is changing unexpectedly from time to time. What the organisation should do to be agile and innovative, is to be quick and able to adapt no matter how the world changes. It is therefore posing limitations on employee-employer relationship since a fast changing organisation is unstable to full time workers, not to mention consolidating a strong morale in this kind of working environment.

The era of disruption brings the organisation into a dilemma, perhaps they need a team to evaluate all the environmental changes, cost, employees etc. to deal with the unprecedented circumstances. Human Resources Management is acting as a backbone in a company, by appraising performance, recruiting talents, managing compensation and benefits system so on and so forth, can definitely help an organisation build an even stronger structure over the era of disruption. The followings are going to explain the rationale behind with the use of intellectual technology and artificial intelligence on the 3 HR activities.

Compensation and benefits

Human Resources Management is responsible to compensation system which is required to handle all payroll related issues. Compensation means a lot to not only HR department but also the whole organisation, it relates to the amount received by employees that in form of tangible benefits and returns as part of an employment relationship. Also, employees concern so much on how much they have earned and how well and when will the amount be paid to them so that they can evaluate their performance as well as fairness, which is a major effect of a employees’ workplace attitude. However, organisation which fails in adaption to disruption in the era of digital, usually doesn’t recognise or catch up with the huge shift from automation to productivity. In automated process, organisation focuses on how delicate the payroll system is. With smart, secure and easy-to-use compensation software tool connected to a company’s compensation and benefits functions, it is user friendly to both employees and employers.

But how does it generate productivity to our organisation? Sadly, in the era of digital automation thereon becomes prevalence, which organisations are much more focusing on the productivity under automation. HR can therefore outsource cognitive and predictive payroll system that help managers to make better decision as well as enhance workers’ experience. For example, the employee self-service system (ESS) in payroll allows workers to view payroll information, sending time off request, communicate with HR directly outside office hour. It becomes more productive and efficient as it empowers employees to not only updating their information in anytime but also rescheduling works at home!

Training and learning

Training and learning is of utmost important for employees to develop and grow, under the fast changing environment nowadays especially under the age of digital. Company would like to exercise their fresh new employees for higher labour productivity as well as easier to adapt changes in workplace. Whereas, organisations without comprehensive training and learning system for labour may not able to fit in new business model and develop great workplace attitude, basically due to unskillful workers under the changing environment. They will rather cut off the short time costs on providing training and learning platform as they put too much consideration on efficiency as well as effectiveness on training an employee.

But nowadays, the world needs workers with updated knowledge and digital talent in order to fit in the era of disruption. In the decade of digital era, online learning platform is quite innovative and new to business sectors. However, it is quite effective and efficient to most of the industries. For example, HSBC, a renowned banking industry in Hong Kong, performing a great model with the use of training and learning system to both old and new front line employees. It provides on-the-job as well as off-the-job together by coaching on spot and through elearning platform. On the platform, updated training is required from time to time based on organisation requirement and the environmental changes such as precaution to any kinds of robbery and customer due diligence. Besides, an article talking about the average cost of developing online platform by IT team mentioning “If you were to assume an average hourly labor cost of $65, you wind up with a cost of $5,850 to $15,600.”

ELearning is a great media to keep employees updated and skillful under the changing environment so, performing both agility and innovation of a firm under the affordable cost. Recruiting and staffingRecruiting and staffing are the core part of HR, mentioning the acquisition of particular talents into right position. Successful recruiting and staffing management always lead to certain benefits towards company’s profits making and reputation, by eliminating chances of involving bulk of redundant staffs that causes huge burden to organisation’s finance. Recruiting usually requires lots of procedures and time. They need to spend time on screening, selecting and testing so that to ensure potential and suitable employee is hired to respective department. Since recruiting right staff is quite a difficult process to every organisation, fortunately, many technologies is here to help reducing complexity of the progresses in order to have better human resources allocation. Recruiting software, mobile head hunting apps and social media are the common technology of all. They are easy but absolutely useful in hiring employees among the pool, by simply clicking a button, viewers are able to screen through all resumes of the candidates.

Conclusion

Disruption is happening anywhere and anytime. We cannot explicitly predict what is going on in the future, but what we can do, as Human Resource Department, is to be agile and sensitive to changes, doing things accurately and efficiently. With the use of intellectual technology as well as artificial intelligence together with particular business management strategies, it is sure that a company can be sustained and adapted in the era of disruptions.