What a day it has been! I never imagined I’d be flabbergasted by what technology could do for the workforce and HR in particular. What was even more surprising is that human resource professionals are well aware of how technology can change lives, yet they shy away from implementation.
The day began with Jason Averbook (I know I’ve been mentioning him a lot lately) talking about how technology equals imagination. It is true; the potential of technology is limited only by our own imagination. Jason’s keynote speech had some of the most memorable lines of the day. If I were to pick just two things from his talk, it would be to create a strong 3-year workplace technology plan for the organization and to embrace a culture shift that stops one from thinking of HR in silos.
It isn’t humanly possible to encapsulate everything I heard today into one post and I am going to restrict myself to the two viewpoint sessions that I loved best. The first one was a panel discussion on how HR Tech needs to over index on user experience. Our technology at workplace is anything but intuitive. As Jason, (there I go again. Last time, I promise) aptly mentioned – We have better technology in the palms of our hand than what our organizations offer. Not only do we need to work towards systems that are more intuitive, we also need to focus on personalization.
The second viewpoint session I loved was a series of talks on disruptive learning. For someone who is a big fan of MOOC’s and network learning, this session was a fantastic validation of everything I believe in. As teams across the world move towards anytime anywhere learning, informal learning is an aspect that is still hiding undercover. I loved the speaker’s idea of creating novice peer circles. We can indeed learn just as much from novices as we can from experts & peers. All said and done, L&D teams now have a new charter – to stimulate learning and instigate curiosity.
There were also eye-opening talks around technology and recruitment. I shall refrain myself from pouring an entire days learning into this post. I’d strongly recommend you to check out #SHRMTECH16 on Twitter to catch up on Day 1 events.
The evening ended with an entertaining networking session over drinks followed by dinner. I may have been exhausted but I found it hard to pull away from the amazing crowd that had gathered for the conference today; but I had to return for I had to tell you all about it.
See you tomorrow folks!
The HR Business Partner Story 