An Introduction to Digital HR and Why You Need to Adopt This Strategy
By Larry Alton via HR.com
Human Resources (HR) has been around for decades. It’s the foundation that builds strong organizations. Traditionally, the HR department of an organization is tasked with recruiting, screening, and training new hires along with managing programs related to employee benefits.
While many traditional HR tasks are managed with computers, digital HR adds an extra pillar of support for all HR processes. In other words, digital HR isn’t separate from traditional HR, but rather, a support system that increases the efficiency of running a human resources department.
What is “digital HR?”
Digital HR describes the use of technology to optimize HR processes. The cluster of tech used is called “SMAC tech” and consists of social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies. The end result of optimizing HR processes with SMAC tech is an efficient, effective, and connected HR team.
Digital HR components
The goal of digital HR is to increase efficiency and effectiveness with specific digital technologies. Those digital components include:
- Digital advertising. Many HR departments use pay per click (PPC) advertising platforms to solicit applications to fill employee positions and generate clients. This streamlines the hiring process, especially when combined with automated screening technology. The most popular PPC platforms are Instagram, Facebook, and Google Adwords.
Many HR departments also take advantage of the other side of digital advertising by becoming a publisher on Google’s Adsense platform. Organizations that have a blog will benefit greatly from monetizing their content with Adsense. Since most websites run on WordPress, any HR team can set up Adsense quickly and easily without any technical help. - Automated screening tech. Some organizations develop proprietary software technology designed to screen applicants automatically. Applicants fill out an application online and applications are filtered according to the answers.
For example, if a company requires a master’s degree, all applicants that do not have a master’s degree get filtered into a separate folder. The company can still access those applications, but those who have a master’s degree are filtered into the main inbox where they’ll be given priority.
Automated screening software can also be used to segment applicants according to a predefined tier of priorities. For instance, say an organization prefers to hire website developers who also have basic knowledge of Photoshop. The application can be set up to ask if the applicant has any Photoshop knowledge on a scale of “none” to “expert” and apply a tag accordingly.
The same type of segmentation can be applied to any other required or negotiable skill as determined by the organization. In this way, applicants can be tagged according to a scale of preference as the organization determines ahead of time to make candidate selection easier. - Cloud platforms. Today, almost anything can be hosted in the cloud. This includes websites, third-party software, proprietary software, and anything else required to run an organization. By hosting HR-related software in the cloud, the company doesn’t need to maintain onsite resources like servers and special network components.
- Company intranets. A company intranet is a powerful component of digital HR technology. Employees, contractors, and even vendors need a private space to conduct business communications and access stored data.
A company intranet is also the best way to foster connection and communication among team members. Intranets also provide employees with a self-help area where they can get answers to questions, access procedures, company regulations, and other important information. - Digital analytics. Also hosted in the cloud are digital analytics programs. Analytics are important to every HR department because they can measure every aspect of the employee lifecycle.
Digital HR gives organizations a competitive advantage
Every HR department is better off when utilizing digital strategies to acquire and retain talent. Social media hasn’t entirely replaced job postings in the physical newspaper, but it’s definitely eclipsed listings in the paper.
People are spending more time than ever on their smartphones and tablets, specifically spending time on social media. To get a competitive edge on acquiring talent, it’s no longer optional to use digital HR strategies. If you want to acquire top talent and thrive in today’s marketplace, you need to leverage social media at minimum.
Get the edge on talent acquisition with digital HR
Organizations are constantly competing for top talent. The organizations that can attract the right applicants will have the best pool of talent to choose from. Using digital HR is the best way to attract and retain top talent once acquired.