The world of HR is changing as the digital age is advancing. And HR professionals need to provide value for their organisations so their businesses can stay competitive. But to accomplish this, they should have the right skills. Because without the right skills, HR professionals can be left behind and unable to implement the new changes that would help their organisations grow.

How the Digital Age is Improving HR

With augmenting and automation of tasks growing, HR practitioners are seeing a growing capacity to be more productive and find ways to be a part of the growing trends in HR, including managing hybrid workforces, implementing employee listening, and building diversity. Days of manual processes are declining, which every HR professional can be excited about since back in 2020, HR professionals were spending, on average, 86% of their time on administrative work. This has impacted all aspects of the role. One report from Capgemini and Faethm concerning the impact of automation on HR suggests that automation and augmentation are likely to impact HR roles in several ways over the next ten years.

Enhanced People Management

The digital age has allowed HR to improve the organisational employee experience, enhancing employee engagement and ingenuity. Due to access to improved onboarding and training processes, productivity can increase quickly. Performance reviews and recognition has become more meaningful. Plus, improved means for real-time feedback from employee listening programs allows businesses and HR to engage their employee in a way they were never able to do before.

Improved Recruitment Processes

Technology assists with sourcing and attracting top talent from multiple external and internal platforms, such as the talent marketplace. From an automated screening process that saves HR a substantial amount of time not having to read every resume to generating interview questions that dive deeper into behavioural qualities, HR can hire quicker and diminish bias associated with manual reviews.

Increase the use of People Analytics

Currently, HR data is being collected and used to make predictions and strategic decisions on people management. Workforce planning can yield better results from numbers collected and analysed. Just more strategic policies and procedures can be adapted from data collection. A far better route to take the business than going off a hunch or what was done in the past.

People analytics is projected to grow in the coming years due to technological advances. Of the companies we surveyed in our 2022 Insight222 People Analytics Trends report, 65% indicated that they increased their team size in the previous 12 months, compared to 55% in 2020. This growth is expected to continue as 68% of companies predict their team size to increase in the next 18-24 months as they strive to become or remain leading companies. 

This means that leading companies are already making the investment, and many more are following. Some of the investment will include bringing to the payroll analytics consultants, data scientists, and behavioural scientists.

What Are the Nine Skills HR Professionals Need to Succeed in the Digital Age?

Because the digital age has given HR more tools to develop policies and programs that encourage productivity and employee engagement, it is more important than ever to overcome the challenges facing HR. With the new digital age and trying to lead the company into digital transformation, the HR professional must focus on three key areas. 

Business-focused – This means that HR can see the big picture, plan according to what goal the company wants to accomplish and assess outcomes after the plans are implemented.

Data-driven – This allows HR to make decisions based more on the facts. Data-driven HR practitioners can avoid costly business mistakes by focusing on the facts presented before them.

Experience-led – This gives the HR insight into the experiences employees undergo to accomplish their work for companies and how their experiences can be continuously improved.

The Insight222 Nine Skills of the Future HR Professional focus on these three categories, breaking them down into nine powerful skills that the HR function must embrace in order to handle the impact of digital transformation on HR and the business. These include analytical thinking, workforce planning, data analysis, human-centred design, EX implementation, digital literacy, organisational acumen, stakeholder management, and storytelling.

To succeed in the digital age, HR professionals need to embrace a more data-driven, experience-led, and business focused approach to their work to meet the expectations of the modern workforce. 

What Skills Are Needed to Be Business Focused?

Again, to be strategic, the HR practitioner will want to focus on the big picture, and what success looks like for the organisation. It could be more sales, a more significant headcount, or more outreach. Whatever it might be, the strategic HR professional focused on these three skills can be change champions, manage relationships, and drive program adoption across the business.

Organisational Acumen 

This allows the HR practitioner to not only understand the fundamentals of HR but also understand the inner working of the industry they are in, such as manufacturing, hospitality, or software. They need to comprehend the business tasks required to succeed and translate them into strategic work for the HR department.

Stakeholder Management 

This skill prepares HR for working with all the game players. A diplomatic approach to matters and an ability to convince, coach, and persuade others to see and act on suggested changes are vital to making rewarding differences in the business.

Storytelling 

This may appear to be an odd skill to obtain, but it is ideal when HR practitioners are trying to show stakeholders what they want them to see. Because of the need to keep their interests and convince them to take appropriate action, storytelling skills make the HR professional more capable of explaining to stakeholders why a new policy that may cost a lot, in the beginning will benefit the company in the end.

What Skills are Needed to be Data-Driven?

To be data-driven, HR wants to understand how to utilise data fully. They use the information not only to see and comprehend what happened in the past but can act on it to improve the company’s overall bottom line. To do this, there are three skills here to develop.

Analytical Thinking 

This skill allows the HR practitioner to see things as they are, see how the company would like things to be, and deduce ways of accomplishing the goals with an effective HR strategy.

Data Analysis

This means that to interpret the HR data and HR statistics collected correctly, they need the ability to understand the data presented before them. This way, they can make educated conclusions that either support or refute their hypothesis.

Workforce Planning 

This skill is the ability to act on the information gathered and analysed and implement it to benefit the company’s current and future goals. Here, the HR professional can save and make the company money by deciphering what type of employees a business needs and how many they may need at any particular time.

What Skills Are Needed to Be Experience-led?

With employee experience topping the list of workforce expectations, gaining skills that are to be experience led is vital. HR will want to become more focused on how processes and procedures bring value or frustration to all stockholders, including managers, employees, and candidates.

Digital Literacy

This means the HR practitioner understands the technology in the HR landscape and knows how to use it. This skill gives HR the ability to adapt and work with technology effectively and efficiently and not shy away from change.

Human-Centred Design 

This is the skill of the HR practitioner to adapt and create systems that work for their current and future employees. This skill gives the HR business partner the know-how to evaluate technology and determine if it is suitable for their company and employees. Because if systems are too complicated or ineffective in serving the user, then they can cause unproductive and disengaged employees.

EX Implementation 

The HR practitioner should be able to evaluate what technology is best for their organisation. Plus, they need the ability to put the technology in place and have their people learn and understand it. This skill gives HR professionals the tools to implement the program changes that make the business run stronger and have people excited about it.

How to Build the Skills HR Needs to Succeed in the Digital Age?

With the desire to be the most useful for your organisation, you need more than just wishing you had the skills to get you where you want to be. The next step is putting the work into building those skills, and there are several steps you can take.

First, identify where you could improve in skills. Understand your specific role and what particular skills will give you the edge to perform at your best. Different jobs take different skills and experience, and the level of technical capacity can vary. LinkedIn or job outlook sites are a great place to discover what skills fall into what job title. 

Once you have identified your role and the skills best suited for that role, you will want to understand the gaps you have. Break them down into chunks and write them down to make them more tangible. Be honest with yourself and test if you are uncertain.

Next, explore what resources are out there for you to access. Keep your finger on the pulse and what’s happening in the HR field. You can do this by attending HR webinars, listening to podcasts of experts, reading blog posts, or following experts on social media. There are so many options out there; find one that you most prefer and enjoy.

Lastly, find opportunities. Upskilling has stayed in fashion and is becoming the greatest way toward career advancement and opportunities. Take advantage of a talent marketplace if your company has developed one. This can come from training programs and certification or company-driven mentorship programs. Or ask your leadership for help. Taking the initiative is the best step forward.

What Are the Challenges HR is Facing in the Digital Age?

Professionals in HR can be thrilled about what this means to them and how processes and decision-making will be done in the future. But with new technology arriving and changing daily, it also presents challenges for HR.

HR has a significant role in guiding the organisation through digital transformation. They first need to convince colleagues, upper management, and c-suites of the importance of technology. In doing so, they may experience objections that it is too expensive or too difficult to implement and use. Here they will need to work to build and develop a data-driven culture within the organisation. 

To accomplish this, HR needs to lead as an example, implementing and using digital technology daily. But unfortunately, not all HR professionals feel confident they can adequately utilise people analytics and data. They believe they need to be mathematicians or scientists to make sense of the data gathered and make wise decisions.

Do You Have the 9 Skills for the Future of HR?

Building digitally savvy and analytically willing people across the human resources function is the basis for innovation, curiosity and delivering value for the organisation. To this point – HR professionals agree: Over 80% of HR professionals strongly agree that people analytics drives business value and is important for their career.

There are plenty of reasons to be positive. The same research from Insight222 and pymetrics shows that a profile of HR professionals’ soft skills has a significant overlap with the soft skills required in a digital environment, despite a disparity in decision-making style.

How do your skills stack up against the 9 skills for the future of HR? And how confident are you that you can embrace HR in the digital age?

Build the HR Skills of the Future with myHRfuture

The myHRfuture Academy focuses on supporting HR professionals build the skills they need to succeed in the future. It aims to help you become more data driven, business focused, and experience led – to acquire the skills necessary to process, produce and leverage digital information. Our new HR skills of the future assessment not only shows you how you stack up against the 9 skills of the future HR professional but also highlights your development opportunities, providing you with a personalised learning journey that aims to guide you every step of the way so that you can close your skill gaps, deepen your knowledge and Press PLAY on your Career.