Human resources, the departments responsible for managing people in businesses, have had to bear a stereotype, and generally a negative one, for years now in the corporate world. It’s the area of a business typically responsible for hiring and firing, managing and allocating holidays, substituting and changing roles within teams, and much more besides. Almost all the ‘friction points’ within organisations involve human resources in one way or another.

However, thanks to digitalisation, a process all companies have been through in recent years, and hand‑in‑hand with technological innovation, human resources departments have been gradually shifting their role for some time now. Today, their role is much more active, they’re part of the core management team and, above all, they’re seriously important when it comes to talent management, improving productivity and strategic decision-making based on both measurable and monitorable information. Digitalisation has led to a paradigm shift in the world of human resources.

Human resources in talent and selection processes

Many companies still rely on the traditional face-to-face interview and a careful check of a CV before selecting their staff. However, the weighting they carry is getting lighter and lighter as other tools – often complementary ones – become available, the use of which would never have been possible if human resources departments hadn’t ‘embraced’ the changes brought about by technological innovation.

Beyond videoconferencing and remote interviews and screening, HR department managers can now look to AI-assisted tools to analyse language, uncover patterns and, to a greater or lesser extent, predict certain behaviours or discover the hidden talents of candidates. Nowadays, it’s more about identifying the true potential of each and every candidate – underpinned by both soft skills and hard skills – to ensure they’re put in the right roles. Furthermore, the onboarding process for new talent, who can often feel conflicted or unsure, can now take place with many more guarantees in place.

Designing positive careers, thanks to digitalisation

Thanks to the digital tools now available to human resources departments, and once the true potential of a company’s employees has been identified, it’s now possible to design careers with continuous improvement, training and professional development firmly in mind. Personalised workshops and specific training pathways can be built, which put talented employees in an even better position, where they can even discover new possibilities altogether, which might have previously remained hidden or unknown.

This helps teams feel they are taken into account, that their work within the organisation isn’t simply static, and that it’s possible to grow within the company, without the need to look elsewhere for ‘greener pastures’. What’s more, communication dynamics have also been transformed thanks to digitalisation. The role of everyone involved is now much more dynamic and employers can take advantage of listening to the people responsible for processes, understanding how they see themselves, what they expect from their careers and what their positive aspirations for the future may be.

Human resources and decision making

Potentially, one of the most transformative and positive changes for human resources managers, at least from a digitalisation perspective, is the availability of vast amounts of data and information – practically in real time – about work processes, staff performance, goals being pursued and what’s being done to achieve them. But this also means personal information and data that should only be accessible to company employees can now be managed and protected properly, alongside safeguarding digital rights, as required by data protection law.

In turn, this makes HR managers key stakeholders in short-, medium- and long-term strategic planning. By only handling ‘quality’ information, it’s now possible to intervene in processes that are not yet fully efficient, in order to improve them. That’s exactly why this kind of data leads to significant boosts in productivity and, above all, to constant analyses, helping companies really make the most of appropriate strategic decisions, supported by reliable and monitorable information.

Digitalisation has led to a more active role for human resources departments, boosting their importance in the corporate world, in addition to improving their productivity and competitiveness overall.