Changing Role of HR In Digital Era

The role of HR is changing. Previously considered a support function, HR is now becoming a strategic partner in helping a company achieve its goals.

During covid era, HR had one major role to play - Adapt. Those were remarkable years with many organizations showing their capabilities and resilience in adapting their operations to the Covid-19 crisis. We saw employees display their creativity and potential as they adapted to work-from-home situations. 

Now, with 2023 underway, the question arises: Will we slip back into old habits or switch from adaptability to transformation? As organizations continue to cope with post-pandemic developments, the emerging HR trends of 2023 will look towards transforming the workplace and shaping the future of work.

Speaking on the role of HR in stress management at work, Ms Priyanka Gulati, partner Capital Consulting, Grant Thorton Bharat, said “$1trillion is globally every year due to work-related stress at organisations, organisations should have structured process to tackle this alarming issue and HR is someone who is vital in this position. Data with gut should be maintained by the organisations as a redressal mechanism”.

Speaking on the personalisation of HR services, Prashant Khullar, CHRO, Ecom Express Ltd. said, “personalisation is really necessary in today's corporate scenario as every need is different and that should be respected,  like in hotels as we have people serving our needs as per our requirements, now everything zero down to experience part of any service. As leaders or  HR, we should try to understand each and every employee irrespective of their level.

As we know today many HR processes are getting automated, speaking on the same Rakesh Prasad, AVP - HR (IFS) Indigo, emphasised that “when someone works in the capacity of HR then over his career he builds a soft skill that is trust building so that can't be automated as it a very humane skill which is beyond the understanding of machines. In an organisation what truly gets an employee engaged is the connection, so human connect is mandatory to get employees engaged at a certain level.

Speaking on the changing role of HR in the current corporate structure Agniwesh Thakur said,“ earlier it was said no HR or no Business and this is still quite relevant but today as the system is quite dynamic as the world is getting introduced to new technologies every other day so today hr professionals should know the jargons and system themselves as the technical world is changing rapidly so he professionals should also gear up their game to sustain this rapidly changing digital- era”.

Human resources management is becoming increasingly important in organizations because today’s knowledge economy requires employees to contribute ideas and be engaged in executing the company’s strategy. HR is thus becoming a strategic partner by identifying the skills that employees need and then providing employees with the training and structures needed to develop and deploy those competencies. All the elements of HR—selection, placement, job design, and compensation—need to be aligned with the company’s strategy so that the right employees are hired for the right jobs and rewarded properly for their contributions to furthering the company’s goals.