Organisations and their HR departments had to contend with a spate of challenges created by the pandemic. The sudden shift to remote work surprised everybody, but technology made the transition seamless.
During our Parichay Webinar Series, Sudeep Kumar Sen (Vice President, Gi Group India) and Sanjeeb Lahiri (CHRO, GRP Ltd.) shared insights into how HR tech helped organisations manage their remote workforce during the pandemic. They also put the spotlight on seven HR functions influenced by Covid-19, and how technology helped tackle the challenges.
1. Talent Acquisition
When the pandemic struck, talent acquisition became a concern for organisations across industries. But technology turned out to be the recruiters’ secret sauce soon enough. Video interviews became the norm. Application tracking systems (ATS) did all the heavy lifting! Headhunters sent screening clips for the initial assessment of candidates. In short, recruitment became smarter and faster.
2. Employee Onboarding
During the pandemic, it was no longer possible for HR to gather new recruits in a room. Onboarding happened virtually and remotely via a video interview and an HRMS platform. Employees uploaded their documents, HR verified the same and updated the records to complete the process. It was that simple!
3. Attendance Management
Physical attendance systems became irrelevant when the pandemic struck and remote work happened. Attendance-tracking modules helped employees clock in and clock out from anywhere on any device. HR was also able to capture and track attendance, leave and overtime via intuitive dashboards and reports.
4. Learning & Development
The task of training a new employee became a lot easier thanks to learning management systems (LMS), e-learning platforms and virtual classrooms. Due to the advent of many affordable, outcome-oriented tools, course creation, assessments and certification also became quick and convenient.
5. Employee Engagement
The warmth of a physical handshake can’t be replicated on screen. Agreed! But the task of staying connected became a challenge when remote work was the only way forward.
The popular video/audio conferencing tools, internal messaging tools and project management platforms helped organisations bridge the communication gap during this remote working scenario. The result? Team events, fun @ work activities, family engagement, town halls and leadership sessions happened virtually and effectively.
6. Mental Wellness
The challenges of remote working did stress out employees in the initial phase of Covid-19. Many organisations invested in applications that enabled on-demand support. Counselling via chat, email, phone and video calls became prevalent. But more advanced digital applications leveraged AI and analytics to offer personalised services to employees.
7. Exit Management
Technology made the exit of employees as smooth as their entry into the organisation. The entire process, from resignation submission to approvals and checklist management to exit interviews, happened virtually.
Conclusion
Heaps of technologies continue to drive communication and collaboration in the new era of work. Although many of them have been in existence for a while, the pandemic accelerated their adoption.
Be it for measuring the pulse of the remote employee, rolling out a rewards program or helping HR become a high-value strategic contributor, technology has undoubtedly become the backbone of every progressive organisation. Even the smaller businesses have realised the need to make HR tech an integral part of their overall strategy.
Has technology helped you tide over a crisis during Covid-19? Let us know through the comments section below.
Watch the recording of the entire webinar
