Mind-sets required by HR Professionals and Employees in the era of Disruptive Technologies

It was an august gathering of senior HR professionals during the 2^nd Automotive HR Round table at Pune organized by UPES on 4^th May .The senior HR professionals who participated in the panel discussion shared the following responses on the question of which are the specific mind-sets required for both HR professionals and employees in the era of disruptive technology.

1) Not judging and generalizing employees needs. HR professionals need to have segmented employee value proposition. The case in point was in one of the leading Indian tractor company they had done a survey with 14,000 employees . The survey on compensation & benefits found that 10,200 employees have unique needs on rewards. So the message was not to group all employees to develop a generalized form of intervention which may not be suitable for all but form category of employees with similar needs for design of rewards or interventions.

2) Trusting employees. HR professionals need to practise building a trusting culture instead of talking about it. If they say they want to believe in their employees, they need to show it in action . For example if employees complete a self-certification course then believe in them instead of scrutinizing it for the authenticity of it. In this new era , there will be faster decay of learning and therefore employees will have to constantly upgrade themselves on their own instead of relying on their HR department.

3) Flexibility. Both employees and HR professionals have to demonstrate flexibility in adopting new ways of doing things. In earlier times, when CNC machines were introduced employees were rigid and not willing to adopt to new technologies. Such employees had tough times in retaining their jobs. In the era of disruptive technology, employees cannot just expect that their work process will remain the same for a year or more, it may change rapidly and may have to learn and adopt change in processes even weekly. They will have to adapt to newer technologies to use robotics and data science.

4) Empathy and Collaboration. In this era , there will be a greater need to understand the changing needs and demands of employees and customers with need for autonomous driving, electrification of vehicles, augmented reality etc.  They need to quickly customize to the expectations of customers and also to those of the employees to design suitable rewards and interventions. They cannot achieve greater results without collaborating effectively with other functions to design most appropriate solutions.

5) Growth mind-set. Employees should not always associate growth with vertical promotions alone. The growth mindset means is whether one is acquiring new skills and capabilities in the existing roles that one plays. Are they innovating and creating new processes and services and products. They need to show growth in their skillsets, learning and expanding their capabilities to create better and newer processes and services for the company they serve.

These are the  mindsets that will continue to be required now and beyond in an era of disruptive technology.

So do you have more to add or any your comments on these mindsets?.