Author: Volker Schrank

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The Metaverse as the answer for “zoom-fatigue”?

I believe that most of you have seen this or read about this – Facebook has renamed its parent company to “Meta”. And I guess we are also almost all on the same page in thinking that Facebook has done this because “Facebook” is a very negatively biased naming. But let’s face it: This won’t work. We will all remember that Meta is Facebook – if you wanted to change the bias, you should actually change what causes the damage and not “move on”.
Anyway. I was thinking about what he said, what Microsoft said but also reading and seeing the reactions. Here is my take:

The Metaverse

Mark is claiming that he is doing this because he believes that the Metaverse is the future; the future or new Internet, the next big thing. It is more than just virtual reality, it is a new “space” you live in, breath in and act like in real life: “Meta’s focus will be to bring the Metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.” And I get why Mark is doing this when I see the FB numbers – he needs to quickly find a new revenue machine. And maybe this will work out (I doubt it though given the past of FB and the scrutiny around FB). Is it truly new?But is that really a new thing? the Metaverse (ok, I don’t mean where it originally comes from…check this out if you don’t know)? It is not and I believe we can see some current incarnations being pretty successful. I am not the only one who is thinking of Fortnite for example. Fortnite is already pretty close (given todays technological possibilities) to the Metaverse you could argue, and when you then have a look at statistics, this makes even more sense:

  • 350 Million registered users (May 2020)
  • 25 Million daily active users
  • Of that 77% spend money within Fortnite – on average just more than $100

So, there could be something to it – the Metaverse. Or is Fortnite a very successful game and that is all it is? I think it can be argued either way. However, what is clear is that Fortnite is purely about entertainment. Mark though sees the Metaverse as more than just a game – and even Satya and Microsoft are claiming that the Metaverse is the future. But for them it is the future of work. Check out the announcements from Microsoft Ignite about Mesh. I have to admit that I did not try it yet, but I doubt that this will be a game changer – at least for the foreseeable future.

Get back to reality

Let’s step out of the Metaverse and into today’s reality: We are still in a new and very different “normal” thanks to our global pandemic. And in this reality we are meeting more colleagues in zoom or Teams than in real life. These capabilities really made the difference and enabled us to continue to work as productive as before (at least in desk-based jobs). But also, who of you isn’t “zoom-ed out”? Feels tired and exhausted by all these zoom calls and non-face2face interactions? It has been already diagnosed as an official stressor and psychological state (you can read more here). I doubt though we will be able to escape this soon. – and this is where allegedly the Metaverse should help us out? I am even sceptical about that. 

Let’s cut to it: The Metaverse is a mixed or virtual reality, it does not transport you into a new space like the famous holo-deck on Star Trek. You will still be sitting at home at your desk, not moving (or at least not much as your space is constraint), and not only wearing a headset but also a VR headset.  For those of you that have tried this, you know that it is a great experience and you can have fun – but then think of how long you use it for gaming or work-out vs. how long you would use it for work… these things are heavy and cut you out of your surroundings, isolate you – without immersing you like into a real F2F meeting. I don’t think this is any better than being “zoom-ed out”. Technology has to make a significant leap to really have an immersive experience without all the negative aspects that constrain remote collaboration today. 

We had already a failed incarnation – Second Life

Some of you might even remember Second Life – I would say that this was truly a first attempt at the Metaverse – and where is it now? It was a huge hype and many companies invested heavily in it – to lose it all. It wasn’t more than a nice gimmick or a game. For business, it was not the game changer it was hyped as – and I don’t believe Microsoft’s or Meta’s idea of the Metaverse will be any different. But let’s see how it will actually come to the market – there is often a discrepancy between what was announced and how the product actually will materialize (and when). However, there is also always the question: What is it here to solve? Any technology should be a solution not a hype. At this stage I don’t see any problem the Metaverse is solving – at least not at work.For Mark though, the Metaverse might work out better as I don’t believe he focuses on work, but more on gaming and social networking. He just needs to fix all the negative impacts that his social networks create, manifest, amplify – oh wait, he has done that by renaming Facebook, right?

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The Bot economy – trying an assessment

So, I am not sure about you, but basically almost no day passes when I am not haunted by this word „bot“. May it be emails of companies reaching out to me to sell me a bot (of course always the best and a „different“ kind of bot) or when my stakeholders or co-workers are asking for a bot for learning course exploration, finding the right policy or anything else. There is no escape – in a good and in a bad way. And don‘t get me wrong, there is for sure something to explore around bots and I can see them having a future in HR Tech – but most of them have three foundational flaws that we need to tackle first.

Are we actually having a problem?

First, and that is something I see in both, the requests reaching me as well as the marketing messages that clog my inbox: They are a solution without asking what the actual problem is? This of course isn’t anything special for bots. That is very often the case with technology: There is a new, hyped product and everyone is getting excited, but what is the actual problem this new technology is supposed to solve? And (a) do we have a problem in the first place as well as (b) is the product really solving the problem? Or just creating new ones in addition to more work? Because implementing a bot is not as simple as it might seem, which brings me to the second flaw.

Bots are hermits

Second, today’s bots are in the most cases stand-alone and specialized, not integrated or only integrated with their specific application. So they are providing a very specific, focused service, but not more than that. They cannot connect to other solutions or help you if you have a question or need that is outside their remit. They just fail then and leave you behind – frustrated.

Are you really getting the solution?

Third, for most things that you want to get done, you need more than „an answer to a question“ or a „policy link“. For a reason we have changed our thinking in the HR space from process to Experience – but which bot can provide you with an E2E Experience? Almost none (and the ones that can also only for very specific use-cases). They are just providing you with a very specific service like an answer to your question or an explanation of „how to do“ something. They don’t provide you support through the complete E2E Experience. And again, where is this significantly better than what we have today? And how many bots would you need to cater for all use-cases? And how would an employee know which bot to use when? I believe that this just creates more confusion than being helpful.

I am not giving up, we just need to live through the hype-cycle

I think we are almost at the end of the hypecycle of bots. I can already see some more E2E thinking when it comes to how bots turn into true assistants and can integrate multiple activities into one Experience. The clear signal that we have reached the end is when the bot technology is no longer in teh email-subject or mentioned prominently, but only mentioned in the details of HOW a Tech solution is solving a problem for you. But before we get there, there are still some questions to be answered by the industry as well as by our stakeholders (I mean our employees). And we need to define what kind of Assistant-Experience we want to build.

Polar opposites of Assistant thinking

When I try to explain as well as explore the directions I see the Assistant space going, I start with two polar opposites – and I don‘t know which one has a future and which not or do both? It is not that straight forward (yet).

On one end of the continuum you have the “One Assistant to rule them all” – you have one Assistant that is either all-mighty or sits on top of all other (hidden) bots. As an employee you have one place to go, one Assistant that you can ask anything – any question or action – and this Assistant will be able to help you E2E, either itself or via instructing other bots to get the work done and surface the result again through the single Assistant interface. I would love that – but not sure if this is feasible and when this is feasible.

On the other end of the continuum you have the “iPhone approach”. You have one central device or place (for example Slack or MS Teams) and a set of separate Assistants each for its specific purpose (like the different Apps on your iPhone or Pixel or Galaxy…) and it is simple and clear which Assistant to be used for what, when, how. – it seems not to bother us too much in our private life, so I consider this a valid option on the other side of the continuum.

As I said, I am not sure which way the industry and our stakeholders will go – but what I know is that we need to explore and test & learn in this space quickly to get feedback, learn and can inform our future strategy – while at the same time we should not give in to any bot for any use-case (especially if we are not clear if there is a problem or not…)

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Ambient HR – putting it into practice

Already a few years back I was dreaming of Ambient HR (Link). Back then it was a nice idea, an ambition which was not possible to make reality – but now, three years later this looks different. Ambient HR is what the next step in HR Tech can be and should be.

Recap

Let’s recap quickly – what is Ambient HR. Ambient HR starts off with the idea that the HR function is a supporting function that needs to enable the business to work. It has no reason to be on its own, make its own agenda or strategy. It needs to be an enabler – and as such, it needs to stay very close to the business. This is true for strategy, for policies, for anything HR stands for – and this also includes HR Technology. Josh Bersin is seeing it in a similar way when he talks about “Systems of Work” and where the HR Technology sector should head to.

Ambient HR Technology is seamlessly integrated into the daily work routine of an employee or people manager. It is not an add on, a separate system and interface that a people manager or employee needs to log on to, it is not a system where a people manager needs to find its way around and what needs to get done – it is rather integrated into the regular workflow.

How to make it happen? – the foundation

Well, when I first wrote about it, I wasn’t sure when this will be feasible. Now I am happy that we are almost there and can actually put it into practice. It is not yet anything that comes off the shelf, but the ingredients are there and can be mixed in the right way to make it happen.

What do you need? – first and foremost you need a strong HR back office system . something like a Workday or SuccessFactors or Oracle Human Resources – or if you have a smaller company one of the more new and niche softwares like ADP Vantage or Cornerstone. These will not only provide you with the back office infrastructure – meaning the database, but also with the additional “services” you need to make Ambient HR happen. This is something that was not present in the legacy, monolithic ERP based HCM systems.

You need AI – but don’t worry, this is one of the integrated services. AI a few years back meant that you needed to have special Data Scientists and AI engineers that programmed specific solutions just for you – or that you had to search for the right and fitting add-on to your system. – Just to find out that it doesn’t work so seamlessly. Believe me been there – done that, failed. But now AI is integrated into a Workday or a SuccessFactors (and others). The only thing you need is to enable it and to have data, clean and vast amounts of data. This is where it still gets a bit tricky (a) because you need to have clean employee data for all your employees (this also means that they can be categorised) and (b) best is if you can compare and benchmark with 3rd party data. This is where GDPR and data privacy come into play and will complicate things still. But it is doable.

The AI will support you significantly on Data Analytics. This is the next steps on your way to make it happen. Through AI and Data Mining your back office system is learning what is “going well”, what is “not going well” in your workforce and provide support on these topics to bring them to action. As an example: With AI and Data Analytics, your back-office system can identify who might be at risk of leaving the firm and can let the People Manager know – or it can identify who’s salary is inadequate based on tenure, performance evaluation as well as comparison with similar roles.

The Integration

This is one part of making Ambient HR happen. The second one is as important. Until now, all intelligence is within the HR system – and people managers, employees would have to sign on to it, look through the intelligent data and take the right action. This is still clunky and takes away the focus from what needs to get done.

The Integration is key now. The question is: What is your company wide system of productivity? What is it that your company uses to get work done? – is it Salesforce? Is it Slack? Is it Microsoft Teams? – whatever it is, this needs to be the place where HR Tech and the People Manager or Employee meet. Utilising that same interface and platform where anyway a big portion of your Employees and People Managers are busy on a regular basis.

Using this, the next step is the integration – where another (not so) new technology comes into play: bots. Bots that are integrated in your productivity platform and that build the bridge between this platform and your back-office HR system. These productivity platforms know already who you are, what your job is and what you need to get done – they can use all of this information to legitimate you towards the HR back-office system and provide you with a slick interface – in fact, no interface – but a bot (or multiple bots) that will make it easy for you.

These bots should (a) be reachable for every Employee and (b) approach Employees and People Managers as well. Let’s take the above example – your HR back-office system identifies that one of your direct reports is underpaid. It can reach out to you via the bot in your productivity system, check when you have the next 1:1 meeting scheduled with this direct report and let you know in advance via a message that you should review pay – it can even let you know how much of an increase you should action. – and if you are happy with the proposal, you can just reply to the bot after your conversation with your employee and trigger the necessary actions – no need for you to log onto your HR system, no need to dig deep into an uncommon interface. The necessary action is done without additional effort from you as a People Manager.

From here

This is not rocket science – and some companies are already there. Especially productivity platforms like MS Teams are ready for this and HR 3rd party providers are building out the bots.

A nice example is jibble – a time tracking App – that allows you to clock in/ out via bot in Teams and other productivity suits. This is where we need to get to – this is bringing HR ambiently into the workplace – and making it relevant and fluent to use for the workforce.

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Too much Analytics?

What is the biggest hype in HR today? – ok, truth is, there are a few, but HR & Workforce analytics are at the top of almost every HR Pro these days. And not only there – look at the leading HR software providers of Oracle, Workday and SAP SuccessFactors. What are they telling us as top of the line innovation and differentiation? – Analytics.
I am an HR Pro for some time already and I have to say that a few years back I would have been grateful fur such armadas of analytics, was actually craving for them. Today I am in a different place – why? I am worried that Analytics alienate us from our function and that it alienates people manager from their workforces even more than before. What are the issues?
Analytics everywhere – where is the human?
We are driving into a direction where it is easy to lose the individual employee in the ocean of analytics. Loose what a single employee cares about, feels, needs, etc. – We will know more about our workforce, but less about our colleague “next door” because we rely on the numbers we have at our fingertips rather than just “ask” our colleagues.

Do you speak Analytics?
Analytics is not just a report or a few numbers. It requires a lot of understanding, of education to really be able to interpret them. The issue with analytics is that on first sight they seem to be easy to understand and you can act – it is mathematical right? A simple equation. – actually, no. It is not. Who in your organization speaks “Analytics”? Truly everyone who has or will have access to them? Most likely not – in fact, it is a new skill to learn, a new language to speak.

Are you taking your own decisions? Or do you let the numbers decide?
The danger is high that managers and HR hide behind numbers and analytics to decide and defend decisions – even if the outcome is wrong. The tendency to go down this route is easy. Analytics and numbers bring you a black on white picture of the world, what was successful in the past and what wasn’t – why shouldn’t we blindly follow? Because any number, any analytic is based only on the facts of yesterday – and on predictions from someone for the future. This someone can be wrong – or right. But in any case it needs judgement to follow or not follow what the numbers are telling.
Tell me for yourself? Are Analytics a threat or an opportunity? – I believe its both, but it needs to be learned and implemented with care. It is a new concept, a new language to learn. Check your thinking here at HBR.

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The HR Data Treasure

I know, in times of GDPR it is kind of daring to think and write about what we can do with HR Data. GDPR has brought a kind of paralysis to many functions when it comes to Data utilisation. But if not we as HR dare to overcome this, who will? We are the ones to dare.

And looking at those data (of course having GDPR in mind, as it is a regulation we need to respect), there are still many interesting and worthwhile applications that would bring HR Services forward. The main theme I want to write today about is actually quite safe in terms of GDPR – and in line with my previous post about being invisible.

What holds true for HR practitioners and our HR function, needs to hold true for our HR Services as well. The best HR Services are those that either are not required or are actually not seen by our end-users of HR Managers and Employees. Only the 3rd option is to have barrier-free and simple, easy to use HR Services. Now, how do we get there? – Data is the key

Operating in HR, we know that every day a massive amount of HR Services is asked for and delivered through whatever mechanism you have in place. In an up-to-date set-up, these are delivered mainly through either BPO or in-house Shared Services. This brings with it a concentration of data. If we only knew what we know… but we do. Ask your Service Center colleagues and they will tell you how much they know and understand by just seeing the meta-data of the Services they deliver every day. What Services are in high demand? What Services are unusually quiet? – They know. But what do they do with it? What do you do with it? – most of the time nothing. Maybe you do volume analysis, maybe the data is utilised to find out which processes should be focused on in terms of user experience and improvement. But there are other key applications for those data.

Proactive Services

Take away all PII from your data, take away all noise (e.g. massive transactions like re-organization efforts) and what will be left is a fantastic set of information that you can explore and utilise without any issues or complications of GDPR. Still, it will bring you massive insight into your own organisation. What are the most transactions used? What are the main Services asked for? Where? By what kind of workforce? When?

Increasing visibility

What you will see is an increasing treasure of knowledge about what is going on in the organization and you can harvest that. You can harvest that to provide increasing visibility of this demand to your organization, e.g. inform your HR Business Partners about this so that they understand the pulse of the organization, but also inform them about any concerns that those data tell you like rising Employee Relations case numbers or similar.

In addition, you can utilise this data to also increase the visibility of the most demanded services. Make it easy on your Knowledge Base to find exactly those topics. Promote them and make it easy to use for the organization. And in your centers, get your workforce ready for exactly these transactions.

This kind of preparation and visibility is important in the moment, but also over time. Knowing beforehand which transactions, which Services are in demand when, and applying this knowledge to your Knowledge Base and to your center workforce will improve the Service level and satisfaction on both sides – Center and People Manager/ Employee.

Offering before demand

A more interesting application for this Data Treasure though is actually “before-demand” Services. Understanding your data tells you that there are specific patterns. The easy ones are that if a People Manager (or employee) is letting go of a person (leaving), the likelihood is high (the exact likelihood is told by your data) that one of the next activities of this manager is to start recruiting, filling the position that is about to be open/ available. So why would you want to wait until the People Manager comes to you with this request? Use your data to start Services before you are asked for them. – in this example, what could you do?

  1. Understand if you have all required information to start recruiting for this position. If so, go ahead and passively prepare the talent pool.
  2. Offer Recruiting as the next step to the People Manager – in your Service Desk if you have a conversation, in your written communication (e.g. when confirming the previous Service, make it easy to start the next one via a direct link/ button) or even as part of the workflow

The key is to utilise the treasure of information to enable more seamless interaction and Service to your users. It is as easy as Amazon is doing it with “People who bought this, also bought…” Let’s use this vast, impressive set of data and bring your Service and the organization to the next level.

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Be invisible

With all what is going on and with everything said for 2018 and 2019 about the importance of HR and the HR agenda, let’s pause for a minute and reflect: What is important, what needs to be done – and what is HR’s job?

Don’t get me wrong, I am in full alignment with what e.g. Josh is saying about 2019. I believe that he is right and we do have some serious issues to tackle around productivity as well as around wage stagnation and income inequality. And who would disagree with the changing nature of skills requirements (which is actually always true – as the economy is changing constantly, constantly new skills are required. The only thing that changes is “which” skills are in need). I would not disagree. Where I though believe we need to be careful is to say that this is HR’s work to do.

Who is accountable for leadership and people management?

I am a proud HR practitioner, but I am also a strong believer about HR being a true back-office function. And I am not talking about HR Admin – I am talking about the core topics of Talent Management more wider People Management. Yes, HR needs to set the agenda, tone and strategy when it comes to these topics, but HR is not the one to own or execute this. It is each and every People Manager, starting with the CEO and not stopping before the last People Manager in the organization. HR is there to support, educate, coach – but not to own and execute the People Agenda. This is often mis-understood – and I know that we as HR professionals feel more important and proud if we actually are at the fore-front of these topics. But we are a small function and cannot and should not own these topics. It is for us to be the invisible master-minds and conductors of the People Agenda, with the emphasise on “invisible”. Let’s not be in the way, let’s not be too visible, but lead from behind.

Be invisible

Leading from behind also means to me to not be in the way, but to enable the People Agenda. Let’s not come up with new policies or police our People Managers how to be People Managers – coach and enable them to do the right things the right way because they understand and believe, not because they “have to”. No one likes HR policies – not even HR, and so let’s do away with them as much as possible. And also, let’s stop being the People police and hand this over to our People Managers. Only if they own the People Agenda, HR can be successful. This is what we need to do, this is what will make us successful and will make the organization successful. And so, as much as I agree with our core topics for 2019, let’s be clear: It is on us to enable and coach, but not to own these topics. We and with us the organization will only be successful if each and every People Managers owns these topics and holds them true every day.

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What's on for HR in 2019

A new year has started – it is still fresh, and so let’s look at it from the perspective of HR. I know, I am not the first one to do so, but have my fair opinion to share.

2018 as a year in not only HR but our global economy was a difficult one – but all in all successful. It was though already impacted by recession signs and negative policies (e.g. tariffs, beginning trade wars, etc.). 2019 will see, I am certain, unfortunately much more of this. The US will move on further with their “America first” policy, and important countries like Brazil and Italy with their new right-wing governments will have another hit at our economy. Also, the current economic upswing is already lasting for almost 10 years. This is a crazy long time, so let’s get ready for a correction.

During economic corrections, the work of HR is a not so nice one. It is about lay-offs and cost-cutting. And as much as these topics are not sexy, it is important “how” we handle them as HR professionals. – it is our imperative to make these typical recession steps not about the recession, but about the next upswing. We are setting the stage for the next growth (or not).

(1) Be smart about cost-cutting

Very often, we are asked to cut down on all HR costs – regardless what they are. We need to be smart here and ensure that cost cutting does not hurt the long-term strategy and success of the company. Don’t cut to harsh into development of your people as they are the key to future success. Recession is the time of investment to be ready for the next upswing. This is counterintuitive, especially when you talk to your CFO – but if we in HR are not taking care about future readiness, no one will.
Recruiting is the next typical cost cutter: Hiring freeze. Don’t go there. This will hurt your employer brand and people won’t apply at your company anymore. In a recession, smart talent is more available and easier to recruit than in any other time. Keep your doors open and get the right talent in to make the next upswing (don’t wait for it to come to you, M A K E it).

(2) Utilize the opportunity to refresh (the right way)

I am sure that you had already analysed what is going well and what is not going well in your organization. But it is hard to persuade colleagues when things go well. But now the time has come to make bold moves, to change structures and re-organize, if required to transform. Let’s set this up for new success.

(3) Ensure that the tone is set in the right way

Be sure to set a positive tone throughout any action. Make sure it is not about “surviving the recession” but about “setting up for success”. It is important to keep morale and trust high in these times – especially to keep your key-talent on board. They will be the first ones to leave, keep them and place them in charge of success. The messaging is at least as important as the actual actions you take.

I strongly believe that these are our HR imperatives most likely needed for 2019. We need to understand the situation and of course support what is needed and right to do – but if we as HR are not taking care about setting up for the future, not sure who will. Recessions are huge opportunities to be even more successful. This is what needs to be understood. They are not a threat. – regardless of what others say. Let’s be the architect of the future – once again – and see 2019 as a huge opportunity.

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Refresh

After a long time and a few changes, I am back in the blogosphere. It took me quite some time, but now I am back to publish regularly again. I do recognise that the site was down, too. – this was due to server and connection changes, but should all be resolved at this stage.

I hope you find the next few posts interesting and hope you stay on my page.

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Integrated Talent Management – the true Value Function

Integrated Talent Management (ITM) – another buzz-word for HR, right? Another consulting topic to sell services to an organisation, right? Another attempt of HR to become more strategic, right?
Actually no – ITM, which is not new, but gains more and more traction these days, is finally bringing HR to where it needs to be – out of the way and at the same time focused on where it creates value.
The fate
In recent years, HR’s story was very much about downsizing, Shared Services, or even doing away with HR. And I would truly agree with doing away with HR if your HR people and your HR function are in any way similar to what is describe in that article. HR as a policies, compliance and control function is not obsolete, but can significantly be reduced. In fact, just mix and match with your compliance function and its ok.
The problem is that many HR functions and HR colleagues and leaders have lost the focus on the true value of HR: people and their impact on the company success. I don’t want to debate today how this has happened, but instead focusing on why HR is the true value function.  Let’s recap the resource based view of the firm where people are the true differentiator, the true competitive advantage of the firm and start from there.
The past is the future
Talent Management, and especially Integrated Talent Management is deeply rooted in that space and in that idea of people being the differentiator. And you know what – it is right. People are the main differentiator, people are what makes a company fail or be successful. People are what makes you different – and what cannot be copied or imitated by any of your competitors. And this is why we truly should focus on this competitive advantage and focus HR on making this competitive advantage even stronger.
ITM is all about that – focus all your efforts on bringing in the right Talent at the right time to the right job – and from there develop and move your Talent in the organisation slowly but steadily to utilise it to become more effective as a firm. Success is about having the right people at the right places, doing the right thing. And this right thing is also enforced by HR and its processes – Performance Management. And ITM is as much about getting people in as it is about moving people out – either when the time is right or when the Talent needs a different experience or when it in fact is no longer the right Talent. Companies change, strategies change and this impacts what kind of Talent you need. ITM does all that – and it does it very successful: Have a look here or here.
Watch out the HOW of ITM
This is where HR can create tremendous value for the company, where HR makes the difference of becoming a successful or a futureless organisation. One very important aspect of this is however, that HR should not make the same mistake it did in earlier days: Thinking and demanding that HR is the one and only department and HR people are the one and only people who can and should run ITM, should care and decide about your Talents.
HR colleagues sometimes are not trusting others and sometimes are over motivated to get a seat at the table that they want to do everything on their own, want to prove themselves and their company how great they are and what value they can bring. And this leads to actually very often the opposite: HR being in the way and not creating value. HR being wanted “away” by the rest of the organisation.
ITM needs to be and is about the organisation and its Talent, not about HR. Yes, HR is the function that needs to create an ITM backbone and needs to ensure that the organisation is on the right path. But the actual owners and drivers of ITM are all employees and our people managers. ITM is about everyday actions and everyday focus. Nothing that HR can or should do – HR needs to be out of the way so that employees and people managers can execute ITM – every day. And this not with the help of restrictive policies and hand-holding, but with creating the right environment and infrastructure so that employees and people managers can utilise the full potential of ITM.
If you will, ITM is doing away with HR – it is bringing Talent Management back in focus, and it is doing away with HR people being at the forefront of people’s topics. And by that, making HR truly strategic and positioning it where it should be: as the true value function.
 

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Shared Services 4.0 – at a crossroads

The next evolution of Shared Services is already on our doorstep – or maybe already reached your centers: Robot Process Automation (RPA).
Robots are great: they work 24/7 effortless, don’t make any mistakes, don’t want any special attention, are easy to maintain and low cost. They just sit either on your IT infrastructure or even on a Laptop right next to your other Shared Services colleagues. This is why they are the next evolution of Shared Services. You don’t have to go anymore to any low cost country to have low cost service delivery – you can have it anywhere. But that also means that you don’t need so many employees anymore to run your services. The positions Shared Services have created, the great impact on low cost labor markets is now turning around also to these countries (also, as in the first place, these positions were moved away from high cost countries). This is a true negative impact – and I have written about that here.
Employee Experience
Today, I would like to argue that this does not have to be the case – or at least not with full weight. This is due to another, very positive trend in (not only) HR and Shared Services: Employee Experience. The new way of Design Thinking (introductory video here) paves the way towards a more employee centric design, a way that actually is pretty close to what HR (with management and leaders of the company) should anyway do every day: Give employees everything to make them more efficient and effective in their daily work and provide an inspiring and motivating environment and experience. This is the way to create great business outcomes. And when I say “design”, this means structure, technology and process. Everything should and needs to be designed from the employee perspective: What do our employees need and want to be successful in their jobs? What do they need from HR or Shared Services? How do they get this in a fast, efficient way with a positive experience? These are the questions to answer – and one part of this chain of questions is also leading to the “right” process and channels into Shared Services.
Access to solve your problem
Coming back to robots: Robots are great to solve structured and rule based problems and processes. They are unmatched by any human. And we should truly let robots do these kind of activities as we will reach two of the top Shared Services metrics: Timeliness and Quality. A robot will be as fast as the infrastructure let’s it be – and it will create 0 defects. Wow, awesome. The problem though is that for a robot to be that perfect it needs perfect data input – and this data input is coming from employees directly. This creates two problems to solve from an Employee Experience perspective.

  1. The problem or question or request that the employee has MUST be standardised, too. It needs to fit into the “capability-box” of the robot.
  2. The employee needs to exactly know what he or she wants.

Now, both is often the case – but not always. Very often, an employee or a people manager has more complex topics to solve (or at least this is what an employee or people manager might think). In this case, Shared Services needs to help employees and people managers to quickly address any concerns, questions or challenges so that the employee or people manager can go to focus on their day job asap. There are two ways to help employees in this thinking and resolution process: (a) a fantastic, easy to use, complete and employee focused Knowledge Base and (b) good old fashioned direct human contact to an expert. And in some cases, employees want this human contact because of the sensitivity of the request or issue. In the end, we talk very much HR topics that can be sensitive.
And this is where I believe we should re-invest some of the robot savings: Tier 1 – chat, call, messaging support through human experts. This is still the major domain and best experience to get via a human contact. I believe that we need to “up” our game in solving employee and people manager challenges when they occur, quick and with an awesome Employee Experience. And for this, a human Tier 1 plays a big role. Do not let your employees and people managers search your knowledge base when they don’t know what to search for or need help. This costs a whole lot of productivity – and causes frustration. Give them the opportunity for the best interaction for any request they might have and this can either mean (a) opening a case that a robot can immediately execute (b) search the knowledge base to find the right thing to do fast or (c) “talk” to a Tier 1 Advisor to address any questions and execute your request.
This is the right experience we should create as Shared Services – we should shy away from utilising robots to create additional savings only. Let’s reinvest for the best Employee Experience.