The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic put the modern workplace to a halt; with many short and long term implications for management but also for employees. The uncertainty around its duration and a potential 2nd wave of cases; poses important questions about the new operation conditions for businesses — particularly how we work, but also what we expect from our workplaces. With that being said, it has also become a radical driver of change with many companies undergoing radical digital transformations to accommodate a remote work culture — by adopting new policies that protect their employees and customers in a post-Covid Era.
HR leaders have been at the center of this crisis, and have been playing a central role in keeping the workforce engaged, productive and resilient. But they are also tasked with turning their attention toward ensuring their organizations are prepared to thrive moving forward. With so many cutting-edge tools and apps, HR teams and leaders can easily build an impressive tech stack to meet the 360-degree needs of employees and to implement meaningful HR transformations that don’t break the bank. But with so many options, it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed. As such in this article I will attempt to summarize some of the best practices and strategies that HR teams and leaders can refer to; for their own Tech Stack.
What is a Stack?
A Stack refers to a collection of tools designed to assist a specific department of an organization. You basically create a stack by acquiring different tools designed to aid specific tasks in a department, and then organizing (or stacking) them in tandem with the workflow of the department.
For instance, marketing stacks may include the hosting platform for your website, an autoresponder for your automated email marketing, analytics tools for managing your SEO and social media campaigns, etc. Where as developer stacks include various frameworks and languages adopted for specific types of development projects like websites, mobile apps, etc.
What are the Components of an HR Stack?
Technology lends itself to highly expedient use in nearly every aspect of business process management, even in the HR department. In the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, these technologies could not have been available at a better time. With quarantine measures implemented on a mass scale across cities and states, HR procedures are currently grinding to a halt across industries due to lack of robust remote working facilities in HR departments.
The following are components of HR stacks that can come in handy not only during a crisis like this, but also in your attempts at building resilience and stability going forward. Also, these are the most critical HR stack components, according to the results of HRExaminer’s recent survey of around 800 HR professionals.
Hiring: This component helps HR departments explore career sites and job boards, deploy an applicant tracking system to manage data, conduct interviews, test skills, determine eligibility, and assess references.
Onboarding: With this component, HR expedites the processing of candidates’ paperwork and their introduction to the company’s working environment.
Payroll and compensation: A different set of technologies that helps HR department ensure the organization, verification, and delivery of employees’ compensations.
Benefits Administration: Similar to those of payroll and compensation, this technology set helps companies determine, schedule, and deliver workplace perks like healthcare, insurance, commuter benefits, etc.
Time and Attendance: You can easily keep track of employee arrival and departure times with these apps, most of which integrate computer-based time tracking, biometric technology, etc.
HR Analytics: These technologies come with capacity algorithms that process data from the other HR stack components to forecast trends in your human capital system.
Performance Management: Allows you track your team members’ performances and implement HR development plans such as periodic reviews, goal-setting meetings, etc.
Wellness Management: Another set of technologies that support a vital aspect of HR management. These technologies help you manage and communicate wellness perks across your organization, including memberships of wellness clubs, discounts on fitness equipment, wellness programs, etc.
Continued Learning: To help you further fuel the self and professional development of your team members, these tools are designed to organize, track, and analyze the use of learning tools such as LearnCore, Lynda, CodeAcademy, etc.
Total Rewards & Recognition: This set of technologies helps you organize, administer, and track the payout of bonuses that employees can qualify for by accomplishing certain milestones.
Succession management: Replacing employees or shuffling your office holders can cause significant disruptions to your business operations. But you can mitigate such disruptions with succession management technologies.
HRIS (HR Information System): As the name suggest, this refers to a platform that facilitates the management of all the other HR stack components on a centralized interface. This system can help you expedite the use of other component technologies, minimize errors in the HR management process, and increase productivity.
How to Build a Best-of-Breed Stack?
Gone are the days of the ‘killer app’ or the one-size-fits-all software solutions. These days, you need a crop of highly tailored, streamline solutions, as there’s no ’silver bullet’ that can help you scale every challenge in HR management.
However, diversifying your software stack might sound like a daunting task. But looking on the bright side, you can see a silver lining where you’re able to save time, money, and energy with a best-of-breed solution.
Here are the crucial steps you must take to assemble a best-of-breed stack:
- Familiarize with the core technical aspects of HR, such as recruiting, learning, executive development, coaching, compensation, etc.
- Build yourself up as an HR expert, problem-solver, and listener. This will help you get a firmer grasp of what changes and initiatives your organization needs to move forward.
- Build up your expertise in your business and industry by developing your grasp of intricacies of business operations and marketing trends that influence your company’s chances of success.
- Familiarize yourself with HR technologies and tools. Unlike in the not-too-distant past when HR tech was only a sub-specialty of HR, you can’t become an HR expert without nous of the current technology trends in the field.
- Develop your leadership knowledge. Leadership skills are key to understanding HR dynamics and how to harness them.
Consequences of a Wrong Stack/Benefits of a Good Stack
All stacks can help your organization solve problems, but they’re not all created equal. An inefficient configuration may inhibit business growth, cause maintenance woes, and induce high downtime and system instability. However, a well-rounded stack provides a competitive edge, minimizes maintenance needs, expedites decision-making processes.
A Brief Overview of some Key HR Apps
Google Hangouts (for interviews): This platform integrates multiple communication channels like instant messaging, voice calls and video calls to facilitate seamless, result-driven interviews.
Google Calendar (for scheduling): A simple web and mobile calendar app that allows you to track your events and share your schedules with others.
Gmail (for communication): Gmail is the most popular mailing platform. You can explore it to facilitate seamless mail correspondences between you and your team members.
Handshake (for managing requests): An order management platform that facilitates a tailored user experience.
Angelist (for sourcing candidates): A free platform for sourcing and tracking applicants. It also facilitates easy access to Slack groups containing potential candidates for a role.
ZohoRecruit (for sourcing candidates): Another free applicant sourcing and tracking platform with features for creating job ads, managing candidate funnels, scheduling interviews, and hiring.
Hellosign (for document management/signing contracts etc): A web-based platform with a user-friendly interface that facilitates the inscription of e-signatures on documents from various sources, including email, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com, Evernote, and SkyDrive.
Payroll4free (for payroll management): Helps expedite the processing of HR paperwork relating to your payroll.
Google Drive (file sharing): Share files like text, spreadsheets, and presentations. It also allows you to collaborate with your team members to create documents seamlessly.
Slack (for collaboration): One of the best collaboration platforms with a neat, highly intuitive user interface.
Owiwi (for assessment): An innovative platform that uses gamification to explore and analyze the key traits of candidates.
Social Media (for communication and promotion): Explore LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to communicate and promote your employer brand.
Conclusion:
With a well-rounded HR stack, HR departments can scale the challenges currently faced in the wake of a mass-scale quarantine. What’s more, these tools will always come in handy in the future, as they’ll help give your organization the speed, flexibility, and stability needed to achieve high levels of growth.
