Experts | HR organizations should embrace digital networks to improve efficiency

Rob Scott

Industrial revolutions have made mass production possible and have brought digital capabilities to people around the globe. Yet such revolutions also mean that the masses are likely to face both great risks and opportunities.
In a business luncheon hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce on Monday at Wynn Macau, the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ book was discussed, highlighting that emerging technology trends are shaping the digital market.
In today’s world, generations have the capability to connect with more people through digital networks, which has dramatically improved the efficiency of organizations.
One of the speakers, Rob Scott, a top executive at the consultancy company Presence of IT, expressed his concern that some organizations may be unable to adapt to these fast-paced changes and may fail to regulate new technologies in order to capture their benefits.
Citing the book, Scott said that the world is facing a range of new technologies that combine the “physical, digital and biological worlds,” which could make an impact on all economies and industries.
He remarked that the evidence of dramatic change is obvious and it is happening at an exponential speed, and thus these changes are coinciding with the emergence of a new workforce that is diverse, demanding and mobile.
“The way we manage, lead, collaborate and organize ourselves is undergoing radical change,” said Scott. “Succeeding in today’s digital world is a challenge that can not be solved simply by consuming more and more technology, or, as some fear, replacing humans with technology.”
In terms of the global digital economy, growth is driven by the ‘Digital Native’ generation, who are demanding a world fashioned to its needs and expectations about how work should be organized.
According to him, the younger generations are demanding technology to work in a particular way, such as Facebook and Weibo, to enable them to do a better job, and give them the power to achieve great outcomes.
However some organizations are unwilling to adapt to the use of these new technologies, and may fail to regulate such technologies properly.
Scott explained to the Times that if organizations do not take part in these radical, cultural and leadership changes, organizations will be “left behind.”
“If you don’t move into this new direction of transforming organization into a digital space, you’re going to be left behind. People want to work for organizations that are thinking ahead, that are using technologies,” he explained.
The consultant said that one of the biggest challenges in the HR industry in Macau is keeping its employees in the industry as the market continues to expand.
“Contingent workforce is a big thing in this region. How are you going to better manage contingent workforces to make sure they are the right person at the right cost?” Scott questioned.
Managing director of TalentGroup Asia, Alan Chan, told the Times that the pace of utilizing technology in the region’s human resources departments has been “very slow.”
“We should encourage the use of technology in the HR space whereby all these systems can tightly integrate with each other to bring a seamless HR corporation space into the hospitality world,” he explained.
He also hinted that numerous companies in the past years have been focusing on meeting the quantity requirements on employees rather than focusing on the quality of the talent.