{"id":4522,"date":"2016-12-27T17:33:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T16:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.small-improvements.com\/?p=4522"},"modified":"2024-11-26T13:34:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T13:34:21","slug":"the-2017-hr-hitlist-5-treating-technology-as-the-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/blog\/the-2017-hr-hitlist-5-treating-technology-as-the-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"The HR Hitlist #5: Treating technology as the solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jasonheadshot-2\"<\/span><\/i>The time is upon us for human resources to step up as a practice and lead. Never before has the work of HR been so critical to organizational success. To meet this challenge requires that we break some old habits. This is the fifth\u00a0in a series of guest posts from thought leader, <\/span><\/i>Jason Lauritsen<\/span><\/i><\/a>, called the 2017 HR Hitlist. Each of the five posts will outline one practice or behavior that HR needs to eliminate, and what they should do instead.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

“Golf is a hard game. I\u2019ve had a love\/hate relationship with it throughout my life.”<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There have been times when I\u2019ve wanted to be good at golf. During one of these times, I became convinced that a buying a new, state of the art set of golf clubs was the solution. If I got better clubs, surely I\u2019d play better.<\/p>\n

So, I saved money and ultimately made the purchase. The clubs were spendy, but they were also beautiful. It felt good to show up at the golf course with these fancy clubs. Just owning them made me feel like a more confident golfer.<\/p>\n

But when I played with them, I still sucked.<\/p>\n

The new clubs didn\u2019t fix my lack of skill. They also didn\u2019t make up for lack of practice.<\/p>\n

Golf clubs are tools. And regardless of how fancy or expensive, they are only as good as the hands that hold them.<\/p>\n

HR technology is just like those golf clubs.<\/h2>\n

The explosion in technology innovation means that we have a virtually endless array of technology products to buy and implement within our organization. There are technologies for every problem you can imagine in HR \u2013 from employee engagement to new hire paperwork.<\/p>\n

And all of these cool technologies hold the promise of solving your most pressing HR problems.<\/p>\n

But, just like my new golf clubs, buying technology could end up making you feel better at first, but it won\u2019t solve the underlying issues. Technology is a tool. And unless it\u2019s placed in the right hands, even the best tool can fail you.<\/p>\n

If you are considering the purchase of a new system in 2017, or if you already have technology that\u2019s failing to live up to your expectations, take a step back to assess if you\u2019re doing the work required to make your investment a success.<\/p>\n

Carefully consider the following three questions before making a purchase:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Are you clear on the problem?<\/strong> My purchase of new golf clubs assumed that the quality of my tool was the problem, when in fact it was my lack of skill. New clubs made me look better but didn\u2019t fix my game. When considering a new technology, spend time clearly defining what problem(s) you are trying to solve. Investing in a goal management platform won\u2019t help you create greater accountability if your real problem is a management team that is conflict-avoidant. Make sure you\u2019re addressing the real issue.<\/li>\n
  • Is there a plan?<\/strong> Building a house requires a blueprint to ensure the tools are used in the right way. Do you have a blueprint for how your tools will be used? What are you trying to build? For example, if you\u2019re purchasing a system for employee recognition, are you clear on why and what type of recognition is important to your employees? And, how will you know if your recognition efforts are making an impact?<\/li>\n
  • Are there skilled hands to use the tool?<\/strong> Implementing the best performance management technology in the world won\u2019t compensate for a manager who can\u2019t have a constructive conversation with an employee or who doesn\u2019t know how to set goals. As you consider purchasing a system, define what knowledge and skills are required by the person using the tool. Feedback technology will be pretty ineffective if you don\u2019t know how to give good feedback. Without skilled hands, a great tool can\u2019t realize its potential impact.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    We live in remarkable times. There are so many amazing tools to aid our work in human resources. This technology can amplify and accelerate our efforts to create productive workplaces. But, we must always keep in mind that tools are not the solution. Tools require skilled hands and a plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    HR expert Jason Lauritsen makes a case for why technology shouldn\u2019t be a crutch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":5390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,70],"tags":[78,129,125,144],"class_list":["post-4522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership","category-rethinking-hr","tag-feedback","tag-guest-post","tag-hr-technology","tag-management"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45101,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4522\/revisions\/45101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}