Dealing with the next wave of human capital transformation
Introduction to the next human capital challenges
Indonesian companies and companies around the world are faced with various new and extraordinary human capital (HC) challenges. To meet these challenges, superb HC management practices must come into place. Several issues come to mind when it comes to managing these fresh new challenges. Those challenges tend to revolve around digital revolution, organisation adaptability and employee benefits.
The digital revolution and how companies should cope with it
The rise of artificial intelligence, various mobile platforms and social media definitely drive the need for change in the way people work in a company. The digital revolution also poses new and sophisticated challenges for HC and business Leaders who need to develop new rules for both managing employees and structuring the organisation. However, it is important that these new rules, adapted to the digital revolution, preserve the fundamental tasks of HC, which are to engage, motivate, attract and retain members of the labor force. Furthermore, from a change perspective, the company’s ability to change falls far behind technological and individual change. In order to keep up, employers must “revamp” themselves often. Companies should strive to reinvent themselves, providing employees with a new “employee experience,” ideally unique when compared to those found in other companies.
Employee experience
Defining an employee experience in today’s dynamic and expressive workforce, which demands constant internet connection and instant communication, is crucial as they are somewhat paradoxically looking for more stability, protection and shields against disruption. As such, stability and protection are key to achieving higher levels of employee performance and loyalty. Furthermore, employee experience is ranked in the top five HC trends in 2017 according to Deloitte. Addressing this issue is one way for an organisation to adapt. Analysing employee experience is viewing an organisation not as a legal construct, but as a network of people and relationships. It leads to easier management of expectations and the construction of strong relationships. Employee experience also puts an emphasis on the balance between the needs of employers and employees. An example would be employees’ financial and emotional well-being, which often is underappreciated and/or generalised by organisations.
Delivering a positive employee experience through employee benefits
One way to deliver employee experience is through employee benefits. Employees want to have benefits that are flexible such that they continue to reflect their changing lives and environments. We call them “experiential benefits.” There are five ways to deliver the right experiential benefits to employees:
1. Offer a wide breadth of benefit options, a range that appeals to the different needs of different employees.
2. Tailor and customise benefits, which enables employees to own their benefits.
3. Provide access to a benefit expert in the company, who can provide comprehensive information regarding benefits suited to an employee’s needs.
4. Easy benefit enrollment. Don’t make the administration process dominate the actual delivery of the benefit itself.
5. Provide a solid benefits framework that is both consistent and flexible enough to meet employees’ different needs.
Such a framework, when implemented, will surely enhance the company’s strategic value and competitiveness, thereby raising the level of attraction to potential new hires and improve retention of talented employees.
Conclusion
In order to meet the latest HC challenges, companies will have to tap in to employee experience. Employee benefits can be utilised as a vehicle to deliver positive employee experience. Clear and positive employee experiences will lead to improvement in a company’s competitiveness, attractiveness to new hires and retention of key talent.
References
- 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends
- Society of Human Resources Management – 2017 Employee Benefits