As defined by Salesforce, digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create or modify existing business processes, culture, and customer experience. Digital transformation transcends traditional roles such as sales, marketing and customer service. In fact, digital transformation is permeating across all business functions, even HR.

For organisations to succeed in digital transformation, HR needs to embrace new ways of working by championing an employee experience, adopting technological trends, and capitalising on digital tools to accelerate digital transformation. With a mindset shift in how HR can spearhead a digital transformation revolution within the organisation, paired with the right application of technology tools, this helps to create a high performing and productive workforce.

Drive employee experience

Employee experience is a combination of all the experiences that an employee is exposed to. From the time they apply for a role within the organisation through to their last day with the organisation. Employee experience is more than just compensating employees with a paycheck, it includes everything that an employee feels, learns and goes through at work. Essentially, it is about making employees feel as if they want to contribute to the success of the organisation, while getting something meaningful in return. By creating a personalised employee experience, this equips HR with a strong foothold in setting the stage for driving digital and enterprise transformations.

Transform organisation structure and talent management

To accelerate the adoption of digital transformation, organisation structure needs to change. Traditionally, organisation structure was at best hierarchical. The relationship between employers and employees was that of a manager and subordinate. However, as organisations start to globalise and the workforce becomes increasingly diverse and remote, digital tools become even more important. Freelancers and contractors, making up the gig workforce, is extremely common today. In order for organisations to be able to ensure that this gig workforce continues to be highly productive and contribute to the success of the organisation, they need to be well-equipped with tools to enable them to execute their tasks effectively and efficiently.

As organisations transform to one that is digitally-savvy and agile, their existing workforce needs to upgrade. Given that technology is increasingly embedded in our daily lives. Employees have to be able to keep up with the rapidly-changing business dynamics or risk lagging behind. This means upskilling workers to be proficient in capitalising on digital tools in their daily work. Aside from ensuring that employees are digitally-literate, senior leaders also need to be equally digitally-literate to spearhead and champion a culture of digital literacy. This allows both employers and managers to be comfortable in using new technology tools to work efficiently and productively.

Create an employee-centered smart workplace

With the integration of digital tools and the accumulation of key employee and payroll data, there is a whole avenue of data analytics that can be used to optimise business processes. A digitally-optimised human resource management system should ideally be able to collect key employee information and use it for critical human capital insights and decision-making such as prediction of turnover rates and performance management. In short, focusing on creating an employee-centered smart workplace forms the very cornerstone in driving a successful digital transformation with the organisation.

In the face of a turbulent and highly-dynamic business market, the workplace is a constantly changing environment. Employee experience, talent management and human capital strategies have to evolve in order to keep employees engaged and productive. While hiring and retaining key talents. Building a holistic human resource model. One that focuses on defining the future digital workforce and taking incremental steps towards this long-term goal will help to ensure the success of digital enterprise transformation.

Embracing Technology-Improving Employee Payroll Experience

Payroll and change are two words that are not synonymous with each other. There is always that moment of hesitation when it comes to payroll changes, be it statutory regulations, technology, or even a payroll software update.

However, we have seen how technology completely transformed the way payroll is being processed today. Gone are the days of using excel spreadsheets for payroll calculations or maintaining physical copies of employees personal files. Technology today has provided a platform for organisations to streamline and automate administrative payroll tasks. While enhancing the way organisations manage and leverage payroll data for strategic decision-making.

As organisations continuously aim to automate and streamline their payroll processes. Many organisations are gradually recognising the need to enhance employee experience when it comes to payroll and HR. Given the rapid technological advancements today, employees are expecting features such as self-service employee portals and epayslips in modern organisations.

There is a greater focus today on linking employee experience strategy with payroll processes. Employees who are paid accurately and on-time are likely to be more engaged, resulting in high productivity levels. Here are some ways in which organisations can leveraging on technology to boost the overall employee payroll experience:

Employee Self-Service Portals

Employee self-service portals are web-based tools that allow employees to access relevant HR or payroll information while executing certain HR transactions. This may include leave applications, expenses reimbursement submission, benefits claims submission, and even internal job applications.

There are plenty of upsides in terms of rolling out employee self-service portals focusing on HR-related information. From both an employee’s and HR’s point of view, relevant HR information is consolidated into a single platform. This not only facilitates ease of information retrieval. It drives efficiencies as HR does not need to spend time disseminating information via multiple webpages or platforms.

Aside from the typical HR features such as leave application management, epayslips, or benefits administration, some employee self-service portals also come with advanced features that integrate with other business platforms, such as Finance or Performance Management System. Similarly, linkage between the employee self-service portals and performance management system allows employees to view performance ratings entered by their direct managers during periodic performance review cycles. This provides employees with “live” updates on their work performance, which may impact and improve overall productivity levels.

Artificial Chatbots

There is no doubt that responding to employees’ queries take up loads of time, particularly. When they are routine questions around payroll, system accesses or benefits and leave entitlements. Based on an infographic published by G&A Partners, HR professionals spend close to three-quarters (73.2%) of their time tending to tedious administrative tasks. This includes employee relations and meeting individual employees.

With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, mundane tasks of responding to routine employees’ queries can be outsourced. AI technology is highly sophisticated and capable of learning from experience to execute human-like actions. These chatbots are well-equipped to interact with employees in answering both basic and complex HR-related queries. While some employees may frown upon the idea of chatting with a virtual being, chatbots today have also evolved to incorporate an element of human touch. Some technology firms offer this “hybrid chatbot” solution that allows for an actual person to step in and address a wider set of complex queries which a chatbot may not be able to support.

Data Protection

Payroll and employee records are highly sensitive and confidential information. Most payroll providers have in place robust data security and encryption to protect payroll and employee records. This includes layers of network and web firewalls, intrusion detection, and employee verification to prevent unauthorized and illicit access. Most providers also backup their data regularly as part of the business continuity plan. These data controls are in place to assure employees and HR on the safekeeping of their personal records.

However, the responsibility of maintaining robust data protection does not fall solely upon HR’s shoulders. Employees play a crucial role in ensuring the safekeeping of their employee and payroll records. HR and business leaders need to instill a strong data protection culture amongst employees.  It is also imperative to communicate data management best practices, such as using a secure password. Which introducing multi-factor authentication (MFA) for certain platforms, or accessing payroll records on a secure network. When employees are well-aware of the measures to miminise potential data breaches. Which goes in a long way in boosting employees’ confidence towards the organisations in terms of managing data-related issues.