HR’s new role: rethinking and enabling digital engagement
| Published date | 10 April 2017 |
| Date | 10 April 2017 |
| Pages | 60-65 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-01-2017-0009 |
| Author | Ravin Jesuthasan |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
HR’s new role: rethinking and enabling
digital engagement
Ravin Jesuthasan
Ravin Jesuthasan is
Managing Director at
Willis Towers Watson,
Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to explore how a new industrial revolution with digital technology at its
core is disrupting the workplace. It shares how HR has an opportunity to use data and digital
technologies to reinvent how organizations engage with their workforce. It answers the question of
how HR pivots from its legacy focus on compliance and being a steward of employment to the work
and helping the organization strengthen its connection with its workers through improved digital
engagement.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper is based on Willis Towers Watson thought leadership
and references recent findings from their research.
Findings –The paper explores how digital technologies have changed how workers connect with their
co-workers and the organization. In addition, it examines how digital technologies are changing how
work gets done.
Research limitations/implications –The paper is not exclusively based on research.
Practical implications –The paper explores how digital technologies drive engagement, HR’s role as
steward of the work and enabler of digital engagement and best practices for enabling digital
engagement in the modern workplace.
Originality/value –This paper fulfills a need to assist HR leaders in thinking through the implications of
the future of work and how digital technologies will shape that future.
Keywords Technology, Artificial intelligence, Digital engagement, Future of work
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
A new industrial revolution with digital technology at its core is disrupting the workplace.
Digital communication technologies are transforming the way employees connect with
each other and the organization. Technological innovations are changing where, when,
how and by whom work gets done. Jobs themselves are changing as digital media and
advances in automation enable work to be increasingly fragmented into discrete tasks that
can be performed more efficiently and effectively by a plurality of means from full-time
equivalents (FTEs) to contingent workers to machines.
Today, employers use digital technologies and data to connect with their customers in a
more tailored and personalized manner. For their part, workers now expect employers to
understand their needs and engage with them on a more personal level similar to how
employers connect with their external customers. In the 2016 Willis Towers Watson Global
Workforce Study, 56 per cent of employees report that their employer should understand
them as well as they are expected to understand their customers. However, only 39
per cent report that their employers are meeting this expectation. This presents HR with an
opportunity to use data and digital technologies to reinvent how organizations engage with
their workforce. But how does HR pivot from its legacy focus on compliance to being a
steward of the work and helping the organization strengthen its connection with its workers
through improved digital engagement?
PAGE 60 STRATEGIC HR REVIEW VOL. 16 NO. 2 2017, pp. 60-65, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/SHR-01-2017-0009
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