Digital HR

In many respects HR is similar to IT. Surely in the digital economy you would expect the CIO to be on the board and surely when there is a global talent war you need the HR director at the top table too.

It would seem that HR like IT has a value proposition issue.

So the question is whether HR and IT can work together to make a compelling case for jointly being part of the top team.

The two opportunity areas that jump out at me relate to knowledge management and productivity with heavy overlap between the two.

• Better knowledge management comes from better collaboration tools.  And not just tools that enable dialogue but tools that contextually augment that dialogue – Over to you CIO.
• The emergence of personal analytics devices and smart exoskeleton suits look like obvious ways to improve productivity (meek ‘suit’ wearing receptionist doubling up as corporate door minder). Again IT has a role to play.

Mobility as opposed to mobile devices is another area where HR and IT could work together.

Smart IT and HR leaders will take a proactive approach if only to maintain some sort of business relevance in the digital economy.