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  1. Technological change and mega-trends

    QUESTION

    Think of technological change and mega-trends and how they affect business of today and tomorrow. Analyze the impact of this technological change on the different functions of HRM.

 

Subject Technology Pages 7 Style APA

Answer

The Impact of Technology on Human Resource Management

 

 

Human resource management is a vital component of any successful organization. Ahammad,  Glaister, and Gomes  (2020) assert that any organization’s success hinges highly on its employees’ quality. Therefore, human capital is an integral aspect of any serious organization in the market. Human resource management is mainly concerned with employees and their welfare. Human resource management functions are centered on leveraging the value of an organization’s human capital in assisting it in achieving its business goals.  The functions of modern human resource management have evolved to include much more than simply taking care of the employees’ welfare. Today, human resource departments perform more strategic functions in the organization.  Human resource managers have adopted and leverage the use of technology to increase their efficiency and increase their performance in the execution of various fundamental human resource functions such as staffing, compensation, and performance management.

Recruitment and Selection

 One of the significant roles done by the human resource department is employee recruitment and selection.  The human resource department is tasked with staffing the organization with quality employees to meet its overall performance objectives. Owing to employees’ vital role in any organization’s success, recruitment and selection qualifies as one of the functions that determine the success of any human resource department. In the past, human resource managers relied on manual processes to undertake recruitment and selection. However, today, advancements in technology have revolutionized the recruitment process and increased the chances human resource professionals have in making quality hires.

 Increased the Number of Applications Received

Modern sources of recruitment, such as social media platforms and an organization’s website, are accessible to millions of people worldwide.   Unlike in the past, a job advertisement posted on social media is seen by millions of subscribers who use such platforms regularly. Therefore, the platforms increase the number of applications the human resource department receives from applicants who desire to fill the position. An increase in the number of applications received increases the department’s chances of finding applicants who are a fit for the organization both in terms of their skills and personality (Tessema et al., 2020). Therefore, unlike in the past where traditional job advertisement through media such as newspapers was costly and limited in terms of circulation, technological development such as social media platforms has significantly increased the pool employers can attract talent from in the job market.

Recruitment Bias

Technology has also helped human resource departments to eliminate unconscious recruitment bias that limited their ability to hire the best employee from a pool of applicants.  Aubeeluck, Waterall and Lymn (2017) define unconscious recruitment bias as the process of unknowingly discriminating job applicants based on their race, gender, or religion from information found during the process of screening their resumes during the recruitment process.  Today, recruitment software such as BreezyHR reduces the chances of recruitment bias by hiding applicants’ personal information. Human resource professionals who screen the applicants’ resumes only have access to pertinent information such as the applicants’ years of experience, professional and personal vision and philosophy, and academic qualifications.  Therefore, as a result of such technologies, human resource professionals only have access to the information they require to make the decision to hire, thus wholly eliminating unconscious bias that plagued the recruitment process, especially during the screening of the resumes to determine applicants who were to be shortlisted.

Use of Data During the Recruitment Process

 Recruitment software, a technological process, has also enabled human resource professionals to go on more than just resumes during the recruitment process. Traditionally, human resource managers could not adequately judge a job applicant’s character without first hiring them and knowing their character as they interacted with their colleagues in the organization.  The inability to adequately scrutinize job applicants resulted in hiring employees with the needed qualifications but questionable characters. For instance, hiring an employee who believed in and practiced racism. However, due to modern technological innovations such as recruitment software, employers get linked to the applicants’ social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. From posting made in such platforms, the employers can adequately judge the character of applicants and determine whether they are congruent with the organization’s values.   Therefore, technologies such as BreezyHR have given employers more to go on in addition to the resume submitted by the applicants before deciding to hire.

Response Time

Technological development has also made it possible for recruiters to immediately connect with job applicants after receiving their applications. Due to the concept of automation, the human resource department is able to imitate conversations with job applicants informing of the recruitment process, thus eliminating communication breakdowns that plagued the manual recruitment process, thus increasing the time it took to fill vacancies in organizations.  Technological developments, such as BreezyHR that have automated communication during the recruitment process, have significantly reduced the time it takes to fill a job vacancy.

Compensation

Just like recruitment, technological innovation has significantly revolutionized compensation.  Zeb et al. (2018) postulate that employee compensation has a direct relationship to their performance and the organization’s performance. The compensation strategies and methods adopted by an organization determine employees’ level of motivation and job engagement. Therefore, due to the direct relationship compensation has to an organization’s overall performance, it is also one of the critical functions performed by the human resource department. Just like recruitment technology through compensation management software such as COMPOSE have influenced the function of compensation in the following ways;

Payroll Management

 Traditionally, the human resource department relied on manual processes to generate an organization’s payroll. Data was collected and then using simple software like Microsoft Excel, compiled and then analyzed to determine the salaries or wages each employee was to be paid. Due to technological changes, payroll processing, which is a major aspect of the human resource department’s compensation role, has witnessed significant changes.  Compensation software such as COMPOSE comes with inbuilt payroll processors that automate the payroll process.  The software linked to various departments, such as the security department, collects vital data necessary to calculate each employee’s money. For instance, for employees paid based on hours worked, the system monitors the time they clocked into the company and the time they clocked out to determine the number of hours worked and calculate the money the employee should receive.   Therefore, such software has increased the payroll process’s efficiency by eliminating numerous mistakes that plagued the manual payroll processing system.

Flexible Benefits

Technology has also eliminated the rigidity that plagued compensation as a human resource function in the past. Today, human resource management’s compensation function is flexible and tailored to address the needs of the employees. Due to the ease of calculating employees’ income and balancing their leave days and paid time off (PTO), employees can leverage avenues such as their paid time off as a source of money to settle emergencies. Most employees have access to paid time off.  Due to technological development, such employees can decide to convert their PTO days to cash and use the money to settle their emergencies without having to take costly sources of debt such as bank overdrafts or raiding their savings.  Due to the automated nature of the calculations, an employee can choose to forfeit their PTO days and convert them to money and use the money to settle their emergencies. Such flexibility is only possible due to technological advancements in the field of human resources.

Benefits Decision

Benefits offered to employees play a vital role in motivating the employees of the organization.  The compensation management systems such as COMPOSE offer human resource departments the ability to make proactive benefits decisions tailored to employees to address their motivation needs. Over time, the system’s analytical ability identifies the type of benefits that best suits the needs of an employee, thus informing the decision made by the company when determining an employee’s benefits package. For instance, some employees respond positively and register high performance when given company shares, while others respond positively to financial bonuses. Therefore, the decision concerning the benefits to offer employees has been made easy and accurate by using compensation management software such as COMPOSE.

Performance Management

Performance management is also an essential function performed by human resource management. Technological development has changed performance management in the following ways; first, performance management solutions such as BambooHR have significantly revolutionized employees’ attitudes towards performance appraisal.  The technologies have eliminated shortcoming of manually performed performance appraisals that were dogged with personal bias of the person performing the appraisal. As Addabbo et al. (2020) postulates, modern performance appraisal’s accuracy has changed employees’ attitudes towards performance appraisal in modern organizations.

Secondly, the use of technology in performance management has also changed the way employees receive feedback for the evaluation of their performance. Traditionally, performance appraisal was done periodically, making it impossible for the employees to know whether their performance is in line with the organization’s goals.  Today, leveraging the use of performance management solutions such as BambooHR, employees receive regular feedback communication regarding their performance, thus giving them the opportunity to make changes where necessary to increase their chances of meeting their performance goals and that of the entire organization.

In conclusion, technology has significantly revolutionized several key human resource functions.  Recruitment and selection have benefited immensely by leveraging social media technologies to advertise job openings and recruitment software such as BreezyHR to automate and increase the efficiency of various stages of the recruitment process. Compensation has also benefited immensely from technology as compensation management solutions such as COMPOSE have significantly changed payroll processing and added flexibility to employee benefits.  Furthermore, the technology has changed performance management by increasing the rate of feedback and frequency of performing performance appraisals.

References

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