As the world embraces the digital age and the internet of things, business leaders in management processes are busy identifying how companies need to gear up to compete efficiently and make the most of the sea-change in business principles and practices.
One of the immediate needs is to staff a company more practically and efficiently by focusing on potential employee’s specializations and skill sets from a digital perspective. This puts additional pressure on the HR department of a company to transform the criteria they’d been using in hiring and improve their operations into the realm of HR 4.0.
What is HR 4.0
HR 4.0 is looking at potential employees from a futuristic point of view. The potential employee needs to be comfortable performing in a digital workplace and using modern digital tools to accomplish the tasks of their position.
In assessing what the employee can bring to the company, HR 4.0 also assesses how open the candidate is to learning and adapting new tools as they come along. In a digital environment, the business world moves fast, and employment candidates have to demonstrate their capabilities in keeping up with steadily changing processes and procedures.
But HR managers have to judge and assess these specializations accurately, so HR 4.0 also introduces an entirely new way of conducting the tasks of the HR department.
Increased Importance of Human Resources
The more specialization and digital skills required to fill a corporate position, the more education is required. These job candidates will have specific technical as well as intellectual skills. The HR managers will have to be qualified to understand the requirements of the vacant position fully and to identify the best candidate to fill that position.
HR 4.0 means understanding the candidate as a person as well as a set of specialized skills and talents. The people applying for these positions are generally the best and brightest members of the younger generation. And the most qualified HR managers are those who have studied the habits and needs of this category of professionals.
Increased Focus on Data in Hiring
HR 4.0 will make use of multiple streams of data to help HR managers run their departments and make their decisions. With a rapidly changing workplace, new business models coming into vogue, and new digital tools being introduced, the HR department will have to remain one step ahead to accurately and intuitively decide on the best hiring choices for their company.
They will have to be constantly learning about the new processes, practices and job standards. They will also have to limit the company’s turnover by retraining existing employees in order to reduce overall operational costs.
Ironically, the move towards Industry 4.0 and HR 4.0 tend to focus a light, not on the machines of computers of a company, but the people within the enterprise. This means that the HR department will remain one of the most important company assets well into the future.