As part of the People Matters TechHR Singapore 2019 agenda, we reached out to CHROs and HR leaders from South East Asia asking them about their biggest HR challenges that they aim to solve with technology this year. We received a plethora of responses which we have synthesized into a two-part feature that highlights the key focus of areas of the HR community. This feature, the first part, lists the key business mandates for HR in 2019. 

Organizational Readiness

Becoming the organization of the future, today. With organizations pivoting towards new business models, success can only be guaranteed by adding a digital layer to the processes, and by adapting to the ever-transforming customers’ expectations. Here are some of the expectations from the HR to drive this agenda. 

• Anticipate the pre-requisites as well as ramifications of business growth to deal with unprecedented challenges and opportunities, digitalize people processes, transform organizational culture, and mitigate risks 
• Accelerate the pace of organizational readiness for the future: From fulfilling tactical and short-term requirements and re-organization to eliminating redundancies in roles and processes, HR needs to drive efficiency and boost productivity for a dynamic organizational structure that supports new and agile business models 

Talent Development

Developing a future-ready workforce. McKinsey projects that by 2020, the global economy could have 40 million fewer workers with tertiary education (college or postgraduate degrees) than employers will need, 45 million too few workers with secondary education in developing economies, and 90 million to 95 million more low-skill workers. Projections such as these only highlight the need for organizations to prioritize talent development and make it a key business imperative. The HR has to step up to do the following:

• Equipping employees for future opportunities: Upskilling, talent upgradation, capacity building, leveraging performance management for development, building skills needed for 4.0 — are some of the imperatives that CHROs have shared as their mandate. 
• Leadership Development: ‘Ready Now’ succession planning for critical roles and accelerating the readiness levels of talent in the Succession Pipeline
• Leveraging Technology in Learning: Introducing Digital/Mobile Learning at a larger scale to automate and personalize L&D programs

Talent Acquisition 

In today’s already deficient talent market, it no surprise that talent acquisition (sourcing, attracting, and recruiting) features at the top in the list of CEOs expectations. The HR, thus, needs to show its mettle in:

• Hiring the best and most diverse talent ahead of time 
• Designing a strong Employer Branding strategy that becomes a differentiator in attracting the best talent
• Re-thinking strategic workforce planning by incorporating flexible workforce models and new ways of doing talent mapping 

Talent Experience & Retention

Talent Expectations are no longer set by organizations (irrespective of the industry they are in) but are set through the experiences that employees consume as customers through the digital platforms that organizations provide. Today, employees demand seamless, instant and great experiences as customers of the organizations, which the HR can effectively provide by:

• Making the organization relevant in the world where employees increasingly compare organizations to the experiences outside of work 
• Leveraging technology and AI to enhance user experience and reduce HR related administrative work for people managers 

Transforming HR Delivery with Technology

Businesses are demanding HR to change the way they deliver value to the business. This can be done by:

• Data, Data, Data. Adopting technology for decision-making in HR, providing people with actionable insights to help drive business decisions
• Underpinning robust HR processes with technology and providing scale and consistency to HR Support

So what’s the business mandate for your HR team? 

Feel free to share your inputs too! Join us at PeopleMatters #TechHRSG to know more from thought leaders, business leaders, talent managers, technologists, and futurists who will provide you with the knowledge to engineer a fascinating workplace of tomorrow.