At the Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA), we enable high level women to mentor each other to enable each leader to achieve personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organization’s founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from some of the thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring.
This month I introduce to you Amy Hanlon-Rodemich, former chief people officer of Nokia, GlobalLogic, and others.
Q: You have talked a lot about the concept of HR 4.0. Can you elaborate on that?
Amy Hanlon-Rodemich: HR 4.0 is the next iteration of the human resources profession. The profession has gone through many changes, starting all the way back in ancient China where logs were kept of the skills each worker possessed. Later with the first Industrial Revolution, the role crystalized into the personnel department with a focus on tracking workers’ hours, skills, etc. As we hit the mid-20th century, the role morphed into the human resources department and we began to realize that we needed to treat workers fairly and focus on things other than work, to drive motivation and thus productivity.
Certainly, the advent of the third Industrial Revolution with computers becoming the norm helped this evolution. As the internet age evolved in the late 90’s, we transformed again into the people team. We moved away from the earlier concept of trying to find out what people were doing wrong and correcting them to a focus on how we could identify and engage their strengths.
With the Millennial generation, we also saw a push for more focus on diversity, sustainability, and social justice. Now we find ourselves yet again on the precipice of a new transformation now that we are in the fourth Industrial Revolution with artificial intelligence and machine learning. As well, we have the COVID influence, which has moved us into a hybrid working model and geopolitics which is adding to the global mental health crisis. Lastly, we have the influence of the younger generations who are digital natives and are shifting the way we think about motivation and development. All of these factors are leading my colleagues and me to agree that a somewhat radical overhaul of the profession is sorely needed.
Q: So what is the overhaul that is needed?
Hanlon-Rodemich: Well in my mind, it is the shift away from the mindset of HR as the “corporate police” and moving towards greater automation/digitalization and the need for deeper connectivity with employees. I believe that a large portion of our operational activities can be automated via our human capital management systems or AI. This can free up resources to focus on getting to understand not only our employees’ needs and desires, but what is standing in their way.
If approached in the right way, this can lead to greater productivity but also stronger engagement. I like to use the analogy of “flipping the pyramid.” Picture a pyramid with executives at the top, then managers, then employees. Whenever there is a big, meaty problem that needs to be solved, we tend to go to the executives to solve it, or the management teams. However, I have found that some of the best solutions come from the employees themselves, as they are closest to the problem in many cases. Engaging them on solutioning is highly motivating and enables their voices to be heard and implemented. The research shows that what drives employee engagement the most is not pay, but being recognized and appreciated for hard work.
So, I spend a lot of time engaging in discussions with employees, asking for their feedback and thoughts on how we can make things better or easier for them. I also believe that a strong element of this concept is reverse mentoring. There is such a large gap between those of us who are Boomers or Gen X and the younger generations. It would behoove us to listen to them to understand where we may be missing the mark not only in terms of the employee experience but also our products. Their feedback is truly invaluable.
In addition, I believe that personalization is the wave of the future for the employee experience. If we were able to harness information from each employee on their concerns, what their preferences are for benefits, environment, learning, and more, we could use that data to make better business decisions and drive efficiency and cost savings by focusing on the high-impact items. Of course, there is much more to HR 4.0, but that is the overview.
Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of The Exceptional Women Alliance