The case for disruptive innovation in HR is about the necessity of delivering a new value proposition in the internal corporate market. Here HR operates and disrupts the way it provides services to the people and the company. It’s about better serving the internal client (the business, leaders and people) and displacing the old ways to operate.
These are three steps that can help you with the transformation and implementing the disruptive technology in human resources:
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Stubborn focus on people (human) development:
The first step in the transformation of HR is shifting the focus from policy enforcer to a catalyst of human development. HR is focused on the wrong thing when it tries to fit everybody into one standard policy. Refocus! This is hard, but doable. You just need to start by reinforcing the idea that HR was created to enforce policies, but it doesn’t have to live by those obsolete values anymore.
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“Compasses not maps”
HR needs to build a powerful transformative vision of the future and communicate it to its people and the company. Very often, and because of the disruptive and chaotic nature of the times we are living in, it’ll be very difficult to know what the path is. That’s why it’s more important to know where we are going (compass!) than how to get there (maps). The “how” will change too rapidly, but the “where” (or “why”) is powerful.
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Bring expertise:
HR doesn’t have to know it all. Even if it tries, it won’t! HR as a function and HR practitioners don’t need to have the answer to all the questions about employee experience, agile processes or disruptive technologies.
But there’s always somebody who either has an answer or at least knows how to ask the right questions. HR doesn’t have to be afraid of mingling with people from other walks of life and bringing them onboard.
Today that’s mandatory to build strong talent-based corporate capabilities. Today, HR puts processes and policies first. And this creates a problem of alignment between what people (including employees and business leaders) expect from HR and what HR is actually doing.