JOSH BERSIN

Insights on Corporate Talent, Learning, and HR Technology

The New Digital World of Work – How it is Changing HR (In India)

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I just finished an amazing week in India, including a speech at a major HR Technology conference in Delhi.

As many of you may know, India is now the second largest internet market and the HR community in this country is terrific. I have never met so many passionate, intelligent, focused HR professionals in one group – all looking for ways to better leverage technology to improve their organizations in many exciting ways.

The speech I gave was called “The Digital World of Work: How it has Changed HR” and in the session I discussed how “becoming a digital organization” is not really about technology, it’s all about people.

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In India, where many businesses are growing fast and the workforce is young, technology savvy and ambitious, HR organizations are rapidly adopting technology, learning about design thinking, and very aware of the need to practice Digital HR. But as in other countries around the world, they have old legacy systems, lots of complexity and leadership challenges, and their job market is highly competitive. I met with dozens of exciting new startup companies building technologies for team management, feedback and engagement, pulse and mobile surveys, gamifiied learning, and data-driven recruitment. The startup environment in India appears to be very healthy, so companies in this fast growing economy have many new technologies to look at.

While I was here I met with one of India’s largest companies, and this organization is building a true “network of teams” organization – optimized around standard HR platforms, an extensible mobile platform for recruitment and development, and highly scalable HR practices to help the company grow. While many organizations around the world are moving in this direction, here in India the pace of change is so rapid that this company believes their HR processes have to be “real time.” They will be able to monitor their entire workforce, their hiring, and soon their employee engagement all on a real time basis.

The world of HR technology is rapidly changing, and as I discussed in “The HR Software Market Reinvents Itself,” we expect some disruptions ahead. Stay tuned for more on HR technology in the coming months – I just want to shout out to all the amazing HR leaders I met in India and celebrate all your amazing progress and passion for our profession.