THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Does Your People Tech Drive Measurable Business Impact?

The FIRESIDE CHAT, part of the TECHR India, chaired by HONO’s Randeep Singh (COO) with esteemed panelists Sandeep Gautam, (CHRO, National Engineering Industries Ltd)  & Sunit Sinha (Partner and Head - People, Performance & Culture, KPMG) on the tantalising question “Does your technology drive MEASURABLE BUSINESS IMPACT?” – threw up answers that can change the course of businesses and was a huge hit with the people who care about ‘People’.

While Randeep Singh (COO HONO) nudged the critical questions towards areas otherwise kept ambiguous, and drew out of the participating HR leaders, tangible answers, and a stream of thoughts, ideas and case studies, Sunit Sinha and Sandeep Gautam met halfway, coming from the diverse directions of big-picture thinking and executable case studies.   

Sunit Sinha referred to the ‘HR problems’ that people-tech addresses as “not an HR problem, or people problem - at the end of the day it is a business problem.” He advised against getting stuck on a ‘perfect solution’ – when seeking for an HR-tech platform. He also advised that rather than HR trying to do it all by themselves, they should, “co-create, involve the people.”

Sunit Sinha did not see a paucity of solutions for HR challenges, instead he asserted that ‘there’s a problem of plenty. After fintech, hr-tech and editing-tech are the biggest.’ Referring to the cost barrier when HR seeks out solutions with a global stamp, he said, “We don’t need a global stamp. We are no more an alternative to the big three, we are the big three now.”

Sandeep Gautam described the ingenuity with which NIE had addressed a 3%-4% Absenteeism impact on productivity using customised HR-tech. Further, he simplified the approach to various HR-tech platforms and said, “Everyone is doing PMS (Performance Management System), but are we doing it the right way? Goal setting, chasing people…half yearly reviews, annual reviews. We decided to move from evaluating performance to managing performance.”

He shared the benefits of the approach they had chosen at National Engineering Industries – “Our PMS system is breaking silos and is linked with our LMS - to bridge the gaps.” – highlighting a syncretic approach.

As a parting shot, Sunit Sinha brought up the question of how HR should deal with analytics and data that HR-tech throws up, with a touch of humour - “The tougher thing with data is to look at your analytics and do something about it. And be ready to believe in data.”

The discussion is enlightening and is likely to open windows for a number of HR leaders still seeking answers to the tenuous link between HR transformations and business impact.