Technology has continued to change every facet of the way our businesses operate, and never before in history has that change happened so rapidly. Brands in Africa are now operating in an era where having a strong digital presence is a strong necessity, digital is a differentiator and a game-changer for your business, not only for success but often simply for survival in the highly competitive space.
The focus here is to show why progressive Human Resources (HR) leaders in Africa need to strengthen their skills and capacity to develop a digital mindset and put themselves on the path to becoming effective change agents in organizations.
There’s a huge need for Africa’s HR sector to go extremely digital and stay at the forefront of the digital revolution as this will help them increase productivity, reduce costs, and offer a better experience to organizations.
Making the shift to digital HR is a game-changer for you, your business, and your people.
In today’s market, having a digital strategy and mindset is a business differentiator, and it will certainly help your organization in the long run.
The digital world has become a game of the first to ‘get digital’ the fastest – and I believe that HR has the full potential – but only if HR can try to think and ‘get digital’ first!
The right HR technology brings simple and standard processes from the outside in so your people and organization can focus on what really makes a difference and work at their peak.
Going digital enables HR leaders to deliver excellent employee experiences, and better business outcomes – helping human resources become a strategic, value-adding function within any organization.
Enablement of Remote Working
Although the concept of remote work has been with us for more than a decade, the pandemic forced organizations not already promoting a remote work environment and culture to make the transition more quickly than expected, and it seems that this trend will remain with us for some time to come. Africa has not been left behind: remote working in Africa is on the rise, with Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa leading the pack. These countries have highly skilled talents with a global outlook.
Not only has this helped to make it easier to attract and retain talent, but it’s also increased productivity.
More people than ever work remotely, with estimates that over 80 million African citizens now have a remote work arrangement. We need to raise awareness, foster culture change, and learn how to learn, to become more lean and agile in Africa.
Digital HR professionals need to focus on facilitating a culture to help teams better communicate, coordinate, and collaborate remotely daily using their online tools.
Document all the key learnings. This will lead to more focus on these insights by everyone in the organization that can be applied to daily work for overall improvements.
Recruitment Process Has Changed
Online job platforms have rendered newspaper job listings out of date, with applications sent via social networks and job sites. Today, the most recent disruptor is LinkedIn. It is a social network for professionals.” LinkedIn has been steadily boosting its capabilities to identify connections between users, skills, companies, and jobs.
LinkedIn has also customized features for HR professionals, such as the Recruiter tool, which allows users to make advanced searches on member profiles.
Reimagine, reimagine, reimagine
The biggest mistake that HR can make in this age of digitization is maintaining “the way things are normally done.” This roadmap to digital HR will need to be significantly reimagined. It’s not about trying to maintain the status quo but changing the status quo.
Never stop learning
Technology and competition are changing faster than ever. It is very important to create that hunger for knowledge and adaptability within HR and then across the whole organization.
Being prepared for being digital
As transformative change continues to evolve, business leaders – especially those in HR – need to adopt new practices for recruiting, leading, organizing, motivating, managing, and engaging a workforce for the 21st century.
Digitizing a sector begins with a single step
Since digital transformation has no end-state, creating a roadmap to digital innovation must take a gradual process. When these pillars are well-connected, the recruitment industry puts itself in the best possible position to achieve the business outcomes it needs.
