A Revolutionary Phase for HR
Management or a Myth?
Since the
dawn of the 2nd decade of the 21st century, Gamification has emerged as a concept to
induce certain types of behavior in participants. It is the construction and
use of rules, often called game
mechanics, to engage participants in the game. It is based on the belief that human beings possess a natural
aptitude for competition, success, position, assertiveness, justice, and
cessation.
We see a new
trend emerging in India of the movement of services to products.1 Customers
today are not paying for commodities, but the value, i.e. the contribution of
the product to make their lives easier. This phenomenon encompasses the HR
industry which performs the crucial role of providing learning to today’s workforce.
Consider the
numerous emerging educational websites in the world such as Alison and
Coursera.2 They are breaking existing models of how learning is
delivered. They propose a model where classrooms are used not for content
delivery by teachers but for discussions. Coming to social media, enterprises
are trying to make their presence felt on Facebook and Twitter which were
initially deemed to be for consumers.
These new
phenomena require new learning methods for employees and companies must adapt
to newer techniques to train their employees. Traditionally, companies in India
have had an assembly line approach to learning. An employee enters the
organization, gets stamped with
certain course delivery and certifications, and is made a part of the workflow.
Today each
action that a company takes, including learning, is questioned by the
management and stockholders alike in terms of how that action provides the
company with a strategic advantage. Every action the company takes needs to
make it a differentiator and give it some strategic advantage. In this space,
commodity learning is hardly going to help. With the influence of these
factors, we see 2 trends emerging.
1.
The spending on learning is increasing
2.
Technology is enabling agility in learning
So what if
learning could be productized, so as to stop redesigning it every time? What if
social gamification and mobile concepts could be incorporated in training? What
if India could come up with entrepreneurs providing solutions to help the CLOs
(Chief Learning Officers) and CEOs address learning as a strategic imperative
as opposed to a process checkpoint. Innovation will come from companies which
don’t have a very large hiring volume, but the impact of each employee in those
organizations is very high. Companies such as SAP SE, Yahoo!, which put a lot
of value to the impact each person brings to the table naturally spend a lot of
time ensuring a high productivity and efficiency of the employees. Another
trait of such organizations is that they spend a lot of time in recruiting
their employees.
Traditional
business houses such as Tata, Bajaj, etc. are starting to put their confidence
in such concepts.3 Some Indian segments fall in a Goldilocks zone for innovation, such as
the BPO industry. Although hiring is done in large numbers, the assets are the
people themselves.
The social
layer of Gamification has already been built.4 This resonates when
an enterprise incorporates Gamification and amplifies the value creation.
Today a lot
of CHROs (Chief Human Resources Officers) are on notice from the CFOs. CFOs are
increasingly asking the CHROs to either prove that HR is a strategic function
valuable for the company, or be outsourced.5 HRs today are looking
at 3 goals.
1.
How can the companies be more connected?
2.
How can neutral networks of learning be created
inside the organization?
3.
How can performance be improved?
An excellent
example of innovating in the area of performance management with Gamification
was at Rypple before it was acquired by Salesforce.com. Rypple questioned why
feedback has to be given annually or semi-annually rather than a regular
process.6 As the CHROs face outside pressure to demonstrate
strategic value, they look at the norm and experiment while breaking the norm.
During these experiments, some would indeed work and come out as the best
industry practices for current times. Some experiments may not work, but that
will only open doors for more innovation.
A CHRO who
has had a certain pedigree, probably had the best training at the best schools.
But that becomes irrelevant for current times. Earlier their knowledge would
have been relevant for 20 years, but today they have to reinvent themselves and
their thinking every few years. Already, new forums such as LinkedIn groups are
emerging where CHROs and CLOs get together and engage with academia and
trainers. This has been possible due to democratized access to information
which is growing at an exponential rate. Some roles are bound to go extinct in
this process, but this will help create a better evolution of the CHRO.
References
1. Ganesh V, 28 July 2013. Moving away from IT services to products. Business Line, The Hindu.
2. 11 July 2014. True Activist.
3. 20 May 2014. Tata Interactive Systems recognized among ‘Top 20 Content Development Companies 2014’ globally. TATA Interactive Systems.
4. 19 July 2013. The Landscape of Learning: Gamification in Indian HR. People Matters Online.
5. Benko C, Gorman T, Steinberg A R, 2014. Disrupting the CHRO: Following in the CFO’s footsteps. Deloitte Review, Issue #14.
