Aging Workforce: Crisis or Opportunity

The success of businesses worldwide is largely credited to the pool of hardworking and dedicated human workforce that serves the objectives of the business entities. Businesses have achieved milestones with the groundswell of support of their working army. However, gradually every organization faces one fundamental problem – and that is, its aging workforce. Even Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has reported that India is facing this incessant aging workforce trend due to the growing unemployment. The question this scenario poses to each recruiter out there is whether this crisis can be arrested and transformed into an opportunity. We are here with some insights that will help enterprises understand how to leverage technology so that they never have to worry about the operational efficiency of their businesses.

How are workplaces changing radically?

Change is continual in today’s business environment. The time is changing where workplace challenges have new meanings. Before pandemic and post pandemic, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) have risen across industries in terms of their workforce management. The entire HR arm has come into limelight as it is unraveling new ways to handle the pressure built from these changes. The layoffs, low labor force participation rate and unemployment have further increased the problem of an aging workforce multifold. These issues have become pervasive and more difficult than ever. However, at the same time, HR technology has brought a new ray of hope into managing not just the administration but everything that makes business a best experience for one and all.

How technology advances the HR industry?

The most fundamental practices of human resources can be handled by the emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and machine learning (ML). In simple terms, the advent of these technologies has made HR processes efficient. The timely induction of these technologies can help business entities retain talent and build productivity, in short, catapult themselves from this growing aging workforce problem.

The synergy being built between these technologies and HR is now being termed as HR 3.0. And, this is the onset of new learning platforms for businesses to increase their resiliency, flexibility, and leadership to align technology to better serve their business objectives.

How to apply HR Technology to fill in the gaps?

The application of technologies from the simplest to most intricate HR processes is being termed as HR technology. Right from the recruitment to building a better employee experience (EX), technologies can aid how people work in an organization. 

Research, business intelligence, people analytics and automation all are being amplified using emerging technologies like AI, RPA, ML etc. This is how HR can drive value from talent while not worrying about their aging workforce. 

According to McKinsey and Company, nearly 56% of typical “hire-to-retire” tasks can be automated using the technologies that are currently in play (Ref. Link). 

Technologies and Recruitment:

It is always a prime need to maintain a pool of talented and skilled workforce in an organization. Use of AI in finding and hiring the right talent is now a more logical way to go about it:

• To understand employee skill sets and cultural fit from video interviews, there are AI-based HR solutions.
• There are various AI-based gamified assessment solutions that help in screening candidates.
• To simplify the screening process, there are AI-based chat-bots RPAs. These bots not only help in scheduling interviews but answering common questions.
• There are solutions that also work on improving the candidate experience during the entire recruitment process.

 Technologies and Mundane Administrative Tasks:

With the word, ‘HR,’ we think of a group of people calling out for talent, taking their interviews and signing them onboard. However, the complexity of the task has increased multifold and with the right technology, all these repetitive tasks are taken care of.

• AI/ML based technologies can help cut down the load of data collection, compliance processes, employee on-boarding, and so on.

 Technologies and Employees Engagement:

The flexibility and motivation with which each employee works for an organization culminates into productivity. That flexibility and motivation come from the managerial feedback which should not only be precise but timely. It seems like a doable job of giving one-on-one manual feedback if a team of members is considerably small; however, if we talk in big numbers, this simple yet effective practice sounds overwhelming.

• Tools like Employee Pulse is one fine example of monitoring employee engagement. These tools use AI technologies like textual analysis techniques and NLP (Natural Language Processing).
• Use of such tools help in lowering the attrition rate as with correct surveys, and gainful insights, right measures can be taken for employees at the right time.

Technologies and Employee Development:

It is rather a fact that with the right investment in employees’ training, an organization can sail in a better direction from the very start.

• AI-based coaching tools can be used by the organizations to help understand the employees’ persona and develop training modules based on the insights.

 Conversational HR Chat Bots:

The lunch breaks are no more an obstacle to get one query resolved as companies are seeing investing in HR virtual assistants. A wide range of HR functions can be handled by these virtual chat bots:

• Improving employee engagement
• Generating insights on talent metrics
• Managing process workflows, etc.

HR Technology Turns Aging Workforce Crisis into Opportunity

• Talent management is seen to be effectively improved with the help of AI-based technologies. Beginning from the hiring process, right till the appraisals, AI-based softwares can help save a lot of employee man-hours and divert it to a more productive time.
• These technologies scale better to find the right talent for a particular job in the times of crisis. From screening out the CVs, to printing offer letters to completing employee on-boarding formalities; these emerging technologies can save business entities from a lot of manual hassle.

It is time that organizations concentrate on harnessing HR technology to better business improvement strategies and business process reengineering. At the heart of this change lies better prospects in handling workforce gaps. Making this adage worthwhile that in every crisis lies an opportunity, even aging workforce becomes one opportunity for growing businesses to grow even better.

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