According to HRD's annual research, CEOs across the Asia-Pacific are empowering their HR teams with increasing budgets to purchase HR tech platforms and systems. 74% of HR professionals surveyed said they were planning to increase their spend on HR tech over the next 12 months. With more virtual working arrangements and tech savvy employees than ever before, HR departments are working to keep up with the pace of change, looking to tools like technology to help manage that change. However, HR technology can bring with it a set of issues that HR professionals are (and will continue to) grapple with, including AI, machine learning, implementation and how to manage future workforces. This HR Blog will examine the HR tech issues you need to consider in your business and how to mitigate them going forward.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, building a successful career required young people to learn core technical skills for an occupation, and gradually broaden their skills and experience over time. This is what it meant historically to be ‘work smart’. Today, automation and globalisation have led to a loud, compelling and quite different narrative about the future of work, and it is fair to say that career paths appear more complicated. Media reports warn on an increasingly frequent rotation that “robots are coming to take your jobs”. Parents, carers and young people read these reports with rising concern: what occupations will be around in 2030 that a student today can train for? According to the Foundation for Young Australians, today’s 15-year-olds will likely navigate 17 changes in employer across 5 different careers. They will sometimes be self-employed, at other times working with and for others. Clearly, we need a new understanding of what it means to be ‘work smart’ and that new understanding doesn't just apply to today's students, it applies to all of us. This week's HR Blog explores multiple perspectives from which to consider and prepare your organisation for the future of work.

Have you noticed that there seems to be a bit of more serious, considered reflection about the role of technology in our lives taking place lately? As AI and algorithms become more ubiquitous, and our lives become inextricably linked to our devices and our digital footprint, there has been a call from some quarters to pause to consider how we can ensure a future where technology serves us and not the other way around. One of the most significant technological changes driving digital transformation in the workplace, is the focus on solutions designed to work the way employees do, rather than forcing users to change. The 'force fit' methodology that was prevalent in early tech was surprisingly common in the past, and the users had little choice but to convert their processes (and habits) to match the technology. Those types of systems won't have a long shelf life and it is more clear than ever that organisations which do not provide a user-centric experience won't be able to keep up as the future of work unfolds.

Management Guru Peter Drucker famously stated that culture eats strategy for breakfast. In a business environment where culture is more important than ever, developing your organisational culture is more than just having a set of values and a vision. Everyone in the business needs to live and breathe your culture and set the example. It needs to be part of everything you do, and it should act as a set of rules to help guide and empower your people with decision making. It is only when values are taken off the wall lived by all employees in word and action that you can say your organisation has a strong corporate culture. Reduced to its essence, culture = values x behaviour. In this week's HR Blog, we look at why it is important to ensure values and behaviours align, and culture is a lived experience not just a slogan.

Our recent HR Blog about the rise of the social enterprise defined this as the overarching theme of Deloitte's 2018 Human Capital Trends Report. The rise of the social enterprise reflects the fact that social capital is achieving a newfound status alongside financial and physical capital as a measure of the value of a business. This change is being driven by many factors, with trust being one of the leading metrics. Ernst & Young's global study on trust in the workplace poses the question 'could trust cost you a generation of talent?' The subtext being that businesses that don't take the trust issue seriously could suffer long-term consequences. Edelman's annual trust barometer for 2019 presents a more positive view for employers. Despite a high lack of faith in 'the system' and institutions overall, there is one relationship that remains strong, and that is the one individuals have with their employer. So how can HR Professionals ensure that these big picture signals aren't ignored in the rush to tick items off ever lengthening to do lists? Let's unpack the headlines so that you have a clear picture of how the world of work is evolving and which HR trends matter to your business in 2019.

In preparation for HRD's annual summits this year, they consulted with over 3,000 HR professionals around the Asia-Pacific region through roundtables, surveys and one-on-one executive interviews about their most pressing challenges. The results of that consultation process resulted in a wealth of insight from respondents across 10 countries. Their findings will form the basis for the topics explored and speakers presenting at this year's HRD Summits. In this HR blog, we're going to explore one of those topics - the top 5 goals of HR tech in 2019.

There is a radical transformation taking place in the public's relationship to the organisations from whom they purchase products and services. As trust levels between the public and large institutions like Government continue to decrease, private sector businesses are being called on to fill the resulting gaps in social responsibility. In Deloitte's 2018 Global Human Capital Trends Report, they make it abundantly clear that organisations are no longer assessed solely on traditional metrics such as financial performance, or the quality of their products or services. Rather, organisations today are increasingly judged on the basis of their relationships with their workers, their customers, and their communities, as well as their impact on society at large, transforming them from business enterprises into social enterprises. Forecasts indicate that this trend will continue to grow and that business would do well to take heed, take stock, and ensure that going forward, there are strategies in place to make the transition to being a social enterprise.

In an environment where it is virtually impossible to get consensus on anything, I think it is fair to say that people on all sides of the equation can unite on this: no one likes to fill in or process forms. Not only that, another truism that you could add to the certainty of death and taxes is the fact that there is no getting around the high number of forms new employees have to complete when they commence employment. From employment requisition and authorisation to hire, through to requirements like tax and super declarations, Onboarding new employees requires A LOT of forms. If you're still using paper to record and process this type of information, then you're still victim to manual double (or more) handling. This is an extremely inefficient way to operate in today's business environment, not to mention an expensive one. If you're ready for change, but you're not quite sure where to begin your digital transformation, digitising your forms is an easy place to start. It also gives you big wins, quickly, with minimal impact on your budget.