Technology Change is the Number one challenge for HR managers

Technological changes is the number one item in the agenda of HRM; s today. They pose new problems such as White-Collar Crimes, phishing, identity thefts, IT security, hacking  (Rendall, 2016).  On the other side of the coin issues such as use of Mobile devices, 

Social Media Platforms are challenges the question is to what extend does the firm allow employees to freedom share information about the organization these are just some of the problems.

Technology challenges organizations to reinvent standards of transparency in communication and sharing of information between many of its stakeholders. This creates new levels of conflicts as when information of conflicting or confidential nature are shared in the social platforms   particularly when organization’s are faced with conflict and crisis situations as the problem of Panadol Syrup Problem of GSK(Anon, 2011).

New frontiers in collaboration, communication and control are being achieved by organization’s in dealing with virtual teams, remote locations and even crowd sourcing ideas. 

Proctor and Gamble for instance is crowd sourcing ideas for research and development despite the fact that they have a R&D division this has reduce the cost of research and development and the company has been able to convert ideas into commercially viable products faster and at lower cost since they started this process (Tapscott and Williams, 2010).

Human Resource Information Systems and Data Analytics

HRM has gone information based and such ideas as knowledge management and learning culture are based on the ability to manage information via Data Centre, Data Analytics etc. and HRM are exploiting these new technologies in effectively managing the HR function which as become business oriented and strategic oriented therefore HR managers are sitting in the C suite today (Angrave, et el, 2016). 

However, the extent to which HR Analytics are used varies from organization to organization one view by scholars is that HR analytic are not successful as HR Data is in many places and not centrally located in one place perhaps this is due to the geographic spread of modern corporates are they grow globally (Shmueli, et el, 2010)  

Therefore, HR has been influenced by technology to a greater extent the next blog will review the implications of technology in some basic HR functions and how they are changing the fabric of HR. Such as in learning and development, recruitment and selection the implications of technology and benefits.

Reference:

1. Anon., (2011). GlaxoSmithKline Case Study Through Mergers & Acquisitions to Success.. 1st ed. S.l.: Datamonitor Plc.

2. Angrave, D., Charlwood, A., Kirkpatrick, I., Lawrence,M. and Stuart M. (2016) ‘HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge’. Human Resource Management Journal 26: 1, 1–11

3. Tapscott, D., and Williams, A.D, (2010) Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the world. Atlantic Books Lond.

4. Shmueli, G., Nitin R. Patel, and Peter C. Bruce (2010) Data Mining for Business Intelligence, Wiley Publication

5.Rendall, M., (2016) Industrial Robots Will Replace Manufacturing Jobs — and That’s a Good Thing. Crunch Network. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/09/industrial-robots-will-replace-manufacturing-jobs-and-thats-a-good-thing/