Innovation constrained by lack of support, budget and skills

Image source: thehrdirector.com

BY: Stephen Long

A NEW SURVEY SHOWS ORGANISATIONS PLAN TO OVERCOME STAKEHOLDER SKEPTICISM AND RESOURCE SHORTAGES WITH STRONG INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE. BUT 38 PERCENT RANK LACK OF STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT AMONG THEIR GREATEST CHALLENGES. FOUR IN FIVE BUSINESS LEADERS WILL PRIORITISE INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE TO DELIVER DIGITAL STRATEGY. THIS IS AHEAD OF INVESTMENT IN NEW TECHNOLOGY, AT 71 PERCENT ANDE 70 PERCENT OF ORGANISATIONS WILL INVEST IN THE CLOUD NEXT YEAR, BUT ONLY 20 PERCENT ARE INVESTING IN DATA INTEGRATION. CONTRIBUTOR STEPHEN LONG, MD – KCOM ENTERPRISE.

Research commissioned by KCOM, the IT services provider, has revealed that despite considerable enthusiasm to innovate, organisations are being thwarted by tight resources and strong internal resistance.

The findings show that a lack of senior stakeholder support is the greatest inhibitor of change, followed closely by budget and a lack of specialist skills. Each appeared in the top three challenges, highlighted by 38 percent, 35 percent and 34 percent of respondents respectively. However, organisations are also limiting themselves by turning away the specialist skills and experience that could help them advance, through overly predictive procurement processes.

The survey captured the opinions of 250 business leaders and C-level decision makers – including CEOs and CTOs – in government, financial services, retail, healthcare, and transport and logistics.

The year of the cloud
Eager to be more competitive, organisations are making big investments in innovation projects. Almost half (43 percent) consider driving digital transformation to improve competitive advantage to be their top priority in the next year. A further 32 percent are allocating at least 20 percent of their IT budget to new projects.

When it comes to innovation, organisations are overwhelmingly looking to the cloud. Almost three quarters of businesses plan to invest in cloud migration (70 percent) and the implementation of cloud native applications (68 percent) in the next twelve months. This is followed by efforts to increase data security, with 65 percent intending to invest in improving identity management services.

By contrast, only 20 percent will invest in integrating data across systems to improve business flow and customer view. Both public and private sector organisations are also taking an increasingly people-centric approach to digital transformation. In the next year, 80 percent said they would incentivise staff retention through training, accreditation and career development to deliver on their innovation strategy. This is compared to 71 percent who said they would do so by investing in new technologies.

Limiting the possible
However, the survey also found that organisations are constrained in what they can achieve. A range of organisational factors are preventing them from identifying the problems they face as well as the solutions they need.

For instance, companies have to contend with the high chance of failure when innovating. Willingness to fail is essential to the success of new projects. Fortunately, the majority either embrace failure if it is recognised early enough to limit costs (46 percent) or see it as a natural part of innovation (10 percent).

However, the definition of ‘failure’ depends on the industry. Over two in five (44 percent) of those in health and social care view late delivery as failure, whereas only a fifth (20 percent) of those in financial services feel the same way. More than 72 percent of the total respondents define a project that comes in over budget as a failure. This is compared to nearly half (45 percent) who define it as a failure to achieve the original designated outcome.

While the definition of failure may differ across industries, it’s comforting to see that whatever the failure, companies are willing to embrace it. Only 28 percent regard failure as frowned upon or career-limiting and, for these organisations, this attitude is highly likely to stifle innovation. Yet for the majority, failure is embraced as step towards innovation.

Stephen Long, MD at KCOM Enterprise, said: “It is positive to see that organisations are embracing cloud technology as the path to innovation, and they recognise some of the challenges holding them back. However, too many are stopped from giving their all to innovation projects by fear of failure.

Innovation, by its very nature, involves pushing the boundaries of what is known and understood. Organisations must accept that failure plays an important role in doing this. Only by obeying Samuel Beckett’s dictum to ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better’ can companies truly unlock the value of the cloud and new ways of working.

Fortune favours the bold, so companies need to prepare to fail, and build in a fast failure stage into all their innovation projects.”

Article source: https://www.thehrdirector.com/features/business-growth/innovation-constrained-lack-support-budget-skills150/

Michael Blickman: Beware of using artificial intelligence in hiring

Image: Indianapolis Business Journal

By Michael Blickman

Employers are always looking for more efficient ways to handle basic human resources needs. One solution that has caught on and is growing exponentially is the use of artificial intelligence—or AI—platforms to assist employers in selecting employees from large groups of candidates.

One of the more well-known platforms is Plum, which offers a product that, as stated on its website, allows an employer to know whether “an applicant will thrive in a role (before you even hire them) by measuring their contribution to culture, work ethic, ability to innovate and more.”

Think about that. Can that computer really contain that kind of crystal ball? The computer can purportedly be taught through the machine-learning process to make better decisions than your hiring managers and HR professionals.

Plum points out, and I believe rightly so, that in hiring employees, humans often make “gut” decisions that can be unpredictive and biased. AI’s goal for hiring is to train the computers in industrial and organizational psychology methodologies so they become much more reliable than humans in selecting employees.

I wholeheartedly agree with the fundamental premise that too many employers are not careful in selecting new employees. In fact, employers often spend more on the termination process and the aftermath that sometimes involves litigation than they spend on the front end in hiring employees.

At the same time, I have to say that some of the claims made by AI-hiring platforms sound too good to be true. While that raises a red flag, many of the largest and best-known companies in the world have adopted AI in hiring. Those that haven’t are worried they are falling behind.

However, a significant problem with using AI in the hiring process is the prospect that the data used by the computer is implicitly biased and that unlawful discrimination will result. In fact, in early October, Amazon scrapped its years-long effort to build a hiring tool that would allow its computers to review hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes at a time and identify the best candidates.

The problem Amazon found was that the computers were consistently biased in favor of male job candidates. As a result, the selection algorithms actually reduced the number of women who were considered qualified for Amazon positions. The algorithms reportedly penalized resumes that included the word “women’s.” Does that mean the computer discriminated against “varsity women’s basketball” team members? It also reportedly penalized women who graduated from certain all-female colleges. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

The result might not be so surprising given the overwhelming male dominance of tech-related positions in Silicon Valley and beyond. And the gender issue is only part of the story, because high-tech companies are also well behind other firms in the hiring of African-Americans and Hispanics in white-collar positions.

I offer these specific recommendations: Continue reading…

Article source: https://www.ibj.com/articles/71135-in-the-workplace-beware-of-using-artificial-intelligence-in-hiring

 

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on 2018’s Top HR Trends

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By Pallavi Jha, Chairperson and Managing Director, Dale Carnegie Training India

 

With the rise of artificial intelligence, several of today’s larger organizations face the issue of restructuring. Several global companies believe their organizational design is less than ideal, but few know how to go about remedying it.

The answer to this is to make sure the global workforce “upskills” to be qualified enough to handle fresh positions. Adapting to a rapidly-changing world of work will be the defining task of our time – organizations ought to invest in their workers to ensure they aren’t left behind. Those with the right skills will be at an advantage to choose how, where and when they work. The rate of advancement and globalisation cannot be offset, but we can invest in employees’ skills to enhance their resilience. Equally important is nurturing learnability and adopting new skills to stay abreast and remain employable.

As indicated in the trends listed below, while AI-related technological developments may cause sluggish growth in some areas of hiring, it will, as a matter of fact, create jobs too. Below are some of the HR trends that we will see gaining prominence in 2018, some of which will see artificial intelligence playing a supporting role:

1. HR Becomes a Strategic Business Partner

As strategy is usually undertaken by top management, this requires HR to work more closely with top management in order to become a strategic business partner, if not one already. A vast portion of today’s CHRO’s have already begun to implement this. HR ought to focus on understanding the wishes, needs and competencies of employees, which are integral to designing a highly-coveted employee experience and becoming a fantastic employer brand.

2. Renewed Emphasis on Employee Productivity

When filling positions is a time-sensitive priority, it gets tougher for recruitment to be scrupulous. A lack of quality talent causes an increase in the levels of coordination and management required, meaning that productivity goes down.

When the hiring emphasis is on quality and productivity, benefits increase for the organisation as well as for its employees. People analytics can support HR in gathering data to determine the habits and characteristics of the highest performing people and teams. The findings of which can be used in future recruitment and talent development.

3. Focus on People Analytics

People analytics was once a technical discipline owned exclusively by data experts. Today, it has carved out its own niche as a business and managerial discipline; meaning 2018 will see an increase in the number of organizations with a stand-alone people analytics function. Among other tasks, the PA team will be responsible for creating means by which to link team leaders and senior management. The real challenge will then be to generate insights that can inform decisions relating to people, teams and the best ways to support them.

4. Learning in Real-time

With micro-learning gaining popularity, learning modules are being increasingly broken up into more digestible pieces, providing employees with access to learning material when they need it, AKA ‘just in time’ learning. An L&D approach can also be adopted through gamification, with new virtual and augmented reality offerings making it more enjoyable. The challenge will be to track and measure the performance of an organization’s human capital, to be able to find or create the most appropriate learning solution.

These trends point to a superior workplace experience in 2018. And although companies may face new hurdles in making them a reality, they will likely be met with a more streamlined approach, higher productivity and greater engagement.

Article source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/312152

* Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You’re reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

7 creative ways small businesses can encourage employee innovation

Image credit: HRDive

Pete Jansons, Vice President, New Business Group at CareerBuilder | HR Dive | original post January 30, 2018

Innovation is a word often associated with the Googles, Facebooks and Apples of the world. But while small businesses might not have the budget to take the risks that big businesses have, innovation is just as important to staying competitive, attracting customers and recruiting top talent. Coming up with new ideas, however, is easier said than done.

That’s where your employees come in. Together, they hold a wealth of hidden ideas just waiting to be unearthed. Here are seven ways to encourage innovation among your small business employees.

1. Make it okay to fail. Many employees are reluctant to submit ideas for fear that they will fail and look foolish. Make it clear that failure is okay. Take a cue from companies like Amazon, Netflix and Coca-Cola, and embrace the idea of failure. (After all, as JFK himself once said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”)  Once your employees let go of their fear of failure, they will feel free to challenge old ways of thinking and bring new ideas to the table.
2. Reward risk-taking. Employee recognition is key to boosting morale, productivity and overall job satisfaction. But while it’s important to recognize employees for good performance, rewarding them for taking risks will give them incentive to think beyond the status quo. Consider a “risk-taker of the week” award to celebrate your employees’ daredevil spirits. You never know when great risk will lead to great reward.
3. Encourage off-site learning. Give employees opportunities to enhance their skills and learn new ones. Send them to conferences, seminars or off-site classes where they will not only build their expertise, but also meet new people and be exposed to new environments and different ideas.
4. Hold a hackathon. No longer just for tech companies, hackathons (or hack days) are days set aside to let employees take a break from business as usual and work on completely different projects. Even if the day doesn’t result in a new business venture, the day “off” will help rejuvenate employees mentally and can help spur ideas for approaching their daily work in new ways.
5. Create an idea submission hub. It may not be that your employees don’t have great ideas; it might be that they just don’t know what to do with them. Give employees an easily accessible method for submitting ideas – from creating a virtual “idea box” on your company’s intranet to an actual “old-fashioned” suggestion box. Make it a point to review these ideas monthly or quarterly, and act on the best ones.
6. Schedule time to innovate. Hold regular (perhaps monthly) team meetings where employees can submit ideas and build on others’ ideas. Create a “safe space” where every idea submitted is taken seriously, appreciated and considered.
7. Prevent burnout. Mental burnout can be a huge obstacle to innovation. Yet, CareerBuilder research shows that 3 in 5 small business employees feel burned out out at work. Make work-life balance a priority. Consider offering flexible schedules, redistributing workloads or bringing in temporary help.

Remember, innovation fosters innovation. The more you encourage and support new ideas and creative thinking at your company, the more it will become a part of your culture – one that attracts like-minded, creative candidates with new ideas of their own.

Article source: https://www.hrdive.com/news/7-creative-ways-small-businesses-can-encourage-employee-innovation/515908/

Fun at Work

Typically fun and work can sometimes be perceived as an oxymoron, instead of a therapeutic medium. Having fun at work does not insinuate we are goofing off or are nonproductive. Keeping the workplace environment rooted in an enjoyable culture can lead to renewed energy, increased contributions of imagination, creativity, innovation, and healthier attitudes within our workforce.

Enjoy what you do, no matter how menial of a task you may think it is. Your work is important to the overall picture. Look at your contributions as being valuable, because they are.

It’s okay to be goofy at times. You don’t have to be so wound up and serious all the time, in order to take your work seriously. It really ain’t that deep, as you make it out to be.

Add an element of tranquility, a little Zen to calm your spiritual juices when needed.

Put a funny, lighthearted cartoon up or some cheery quotes in your range of sight, whether in your cubicle or office space. Don’t let it be one that mocks, humiliates or insults others because it is motivated by undercurrents of “isms.” Keep your humor clean.

People need not dread coming to work because of a hostile work environment. Turn the tides and add some fun elements to help you and your team remain efficient, happy, healthy and productive.