A retired government officer, Dr.Nigam has vast experience in handling legal and administrative matters and is responsible for coordinating, directing and planning the administrative functions.

COVID-19 is now a reality that has seeped into our lives, and the world has already adapted to it. One of the biggest changes it has brought on is the practice and need for remote working. While company HR policies enabled work from home for employees for their comfort, it is now the normal in which businesses are functioning.

The work from home or remote working has in turn transformed the HR paradigm. From recruiting to exit formalities, corporate trainings, and performance reviews, all is being done virtually, like never before. With an emphasis on mobile connectivity, online and social collaboration, traditional ways have been dusted and technology is shaping the HR functionalities.

Digital disruption has seeped and almost hijacked every core HR function today; and this trend will go upwards in the future. Technology, like for other functions, has thrusted HR to lead this change and be at the forefront of business productivity and employee learning and development. According to the HR Pulse survey by KPMG in 2020, which interviewed about 1,300 (HR) executives, around 69 percent employees affirmed how the HR function needs to completely re-evaluate and transform itself to respond effectively when employees continue remotely predominantly.

It also highlights that over 50 percent executives note that technology investments for new development platforms and collaboration tools will be key investments of the future. Whether it is performance reviews being conducted using digital and AI tools, interviews happening over Zoom, teams and Slack or employees undergoing corporate training using virtual collaborative learning tools – a tech transformation of HR will be the forefront of people management and business.

The applications and trends surrounding big data, the internet of things, cloud computing, robotics process automation, AI and immersive communications have been accelerated in the world of work already. Use of new-age cloud-based LMS (learning management solutions) are simplifying every HR process via automation- improving productivity and efficiency of HR teams and yielding great returns for companies in terms of lesser operation costs. These tools, which could be easily customized to encompass all core HR capabilities could easily serve the virtual and contactless workplace. These customised solutions can help make data driven decisions based on real time insights to help empower employees and enable a unified and healthier workplace culture.

Some RoI driven training can help managers nurture the workforce for the present and future requirements

Leveraging new data strategies for workforce planning, financial projections, recruiting plans and communication approaches for people management and analytics. For instance, some RoI driven training can help managers nurture the workforce for the present and future requirements. Further, there has been an essential need for unified engagement platforms, and collaboration programs to drive employee engagement –such as chatbots and AI platforms for employee interaction. These online applications help run surveys, and monitor employee issues in real-time and enable managers to view feedback and respond for overall better collaboration and team performance. Another interesting trend is to see how applications of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) could be key ingredients of the HR toolkit; say in the overall employee lifecycle process and make the standard recruiting, onboarding and training processes engaging.

As business functions become normalised remotely, so does learning and development within the organisation. Many people managers believe that employee trainings must be a regular and critical aspect of remote working. Upskilling and reskilling employees to manage all functions from home, virtually, has been one of the biggest investment’s organisations have made in this year.

While work from home has become a win-win concept for many, the near future expects more innovation and technological integration to help cope with new normal. As we further learn and move into living a contactless life, it is imperative that the CHROs help keep employees driven and motivated for a better future. New age tech capabilities will sweep through every possible HR function, for organisations to drive change and growth.

The idea is to create a virtual yet collective ecosystem, a community of employees and leaders taking care of one another and be better prepared to collaborate.