2012 Technology Trends In Hr
2012 technology trends in HR
The office parties are over, the leftovers are all dealt with and everyone’s had a good break. Before the detail of the daily grind dispels any ideas of strategic thought, the beginning of the year offers a window of opportunity to consider what’s changing in the workplace, what new opportunities exist and indeed, threats and challenges to how we go about our business.
When it comes to technology, traditionally we’ve talked about trends from a top-down perspective - for example looking at large-scale software packages or computer architectures that enable new ways of working. The current wave of change is more of a groundswell however, taking place on the shop floor, on the road or in the office.
Whether we like it or not, employees at all levels are making more use of technology on their own terms. The buzzword is ‘consumerisation’ - that is, rather than being told what systems to use for what purpose, people are more and more taking matters into our own hands. A number of factors are driving this trend - not least, mobility, social networking and the cloud.
Mobility is a catch-all term to take into account technologies that enable work to take place from outside the office. So - mobile phones (which are becoming increasingly smart), affordable desktop and laptop computers, and the general availability of broadband communications make possible the home office, the teleworker and the connected road warrior. While these trends have been with us for some time, the balance has now tipped in terms of what people can afford for themselves, versus what the company can supply them.
The second area is social networking. Again, while it is true that the Internet has long been a place for some people to interact, the balance has now tipped - use of Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn has become a majority sport. Social tools now also exist for the workplace, such as Yammer, Salesforce.com Chatter and so on, and Web sites and online applications are becoming ‘socially enabled’, for example by the inclusion of Facebook comments on a blog.
Third, we have cloud computing - or more specifically to the general workforce, software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. Salesforce.com has already been mentioned, and similar line-of-business tools exist for project managers, developers, accountants and so on; applications also exist for security, storage and network management. Two significant differences exist between these applications and traditional, in-house software: first that they are very easy to start using as they require very little configuration, and second, that the de facto payment model is as-you-go, on a credit card.
Bringing the whole lot full circle are mobile apps available for smart phones, for example from the Apple app store or the Android Marketplace. While many of these are standalone, they often offer front-ends onto Web sites - for example the Trainline.com app which shows train times and enables tickets to be purchased. Such apps tend to be cheap enough to be considered a discretionary purchase by many - which means people are buying apps from time to time and installing them on their own, or on company kit.
As well as being frustrating for IT managers and operational staff (who are suddenly expected to support users with non-standard kit), it also creates complications in terms of how equipment and services are provisioned and deprovisioned, policies around employee privacy and working hours, and indeed conditions of employment. “if an employee has been provided with a smart phone so can access e mail at any time, how can an employer monitor (record) working hours, let alone control them,” says HR consultant Nigel Cox. “Intellectual property and confidentiality issues around online tools add new challenges, not least how to enforce restrictive covenants in employment contracts.” As the Web has no boundaries, so such challenges now have an international dimension: “Employment laws, data protection and employer responsibilities will be different in other countries – who has jurisdiction and how will it be controlled?” asks Nigel.
New technologies bring with them the law of unintended consequences, an example of which is the current court case (LINK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16338040) over who ‘owns’ Twitter followers when an employee leaves a company.
It is easy to get into a state of mind where ‘consumerisation’ is a bad thing, or at least should be shackled or restricted in some way. The trouble is, everyone from the janitor to the CEO is doing it - and in any case ‘it’ isn’t a thing, more a desire to use generally available tools and facilities. So, you can install restrictive firewalls on corporate computers, or secure virtual desktops that can be used from home; you can define no end of policies and practices, then do your best to enforce them. But then, something new will come along and you’ll have to start the whole process again.
We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, however. Genuine business benefits can be derived from having more mobile staff, who can collaborate better and reach the information they need more easily. A more flexible workforce can enable innovations in working practices, for example around job sharing. And the results can be measured in hard-nosed business terms such as productivity metrics and travel costs, as well as equally tangible, yet less measurable results such as employee wellbeing.
Meanwhile of course, the technologies themselves are a work in progress. Mobile communications, social tools and SaaS and smartphone apps are increasingly being developed to make them more suitable for business use - not least by adding a higher level of measurability. “As adoption of social technologies grows, organisations will increasingly demand tools which help them quantify the ROI on their social media and social collaboration investments,” states Angela Ashenden, collaboration specialist at industry analyst firm MWD Advisors (www.mwdadvisors.com).
We’re also likely to see higher levels of integration with existing systems and applications such as Business Process Management tools, thinks Neil Ward-Dutton of MWD. “Social collaboration capabilities will become embedded in most leading BPM offerings, and better support for mobile participation is a part of this.”
The ramifications, again, could be unexpected - essentially because as business uptake of mobile, social and cloud-based technologies increase, control moves further from the IT department and into the hands of technology users. But if trying to control the consumerisation trend is not the answer, what is?
The key is to think more about how this increase in individual initiative can be harnessed by the organisation, rather than stamped out. This is not just about letting staff do their own thing, but also directing such activities in a way that benefit the business, for example by helping individual employees support marketing activities through their own social accounts, or by creating a secure, business-specific mobile ‘app’ which delivers the information the manager needs to the device of their choice. Undoubtedly, opportunities to reward ‘good’ behaviours will present themselves, and businesses will require new policies that state clearly where the line is drawn for example, abusive behaviours should never be tolerated, whether or not they are coming from an employee’s ‘own’ social networking account.
Meanwhile, there are undoubtedly actions that HR can take to stay on the front foot. First and foremost, forewarned is forearmed. “Book a 2 hour meeting with your IT colleagues and run a SWOT on how these issues affect your organisation,” suggests Nigel Cox. “Then review your contracts of employment – specifically how you handle working time – and take a fresh look at your induction programme – what it says and how you run it. Does it acknowledge, or indeed take advantage of new technologies?”
As a final thought, the changing nature of the workplace (and the people in it) will also have an impact on the skills base and profiles of people we employ. We’ve heard how the next generation of employees have been brought up with very different expectations in terms of the tools they use and the way they communicate to their predecessors – not least, potentially, to the people running the company. No doubt this debate will continue, but in the meantime, there is scope to consider whether or not our organisations have the right balance of communicators versus those whose role is to get the job done. Business in the future will be built upon the technology-fuelled empowerment of employees at all levels. We can look to embrace this, to target its potential in certain areas or minimise its effects in others. The one thing we can’t do, however, is ignore it.