HR transformation held back by skills gaps
It’s time to upskill.
Why You Should Care
Digital transformation is a major challenge for businesses.
Part of the issue is digital literacy skills gaps, particularly in the HR team.
Here's the solution.
HR’s top priorities for 2023 are recruiting and employee experience. This is great news in the ‘Great Resignation’, but this laser focus on talent won’t solve all of HR’s problems.
McLean & Company’s 2023 HR trends report found that HR is struggling with digital transformation. Only 42% of the 1,000 leaders surveyed said HR had undergone a digital transformation.
This is concerning as those that had digitized were 1.7 times more likely to facilitate data-driven people decisions, and 1.2 times more likely to see HR as a strategic business partner.
There were significant barriers to success (55%) – primarily the need for financial and people resources.
Credit: McLean HR Trends Report 2023
HR needs digital upskilling
To succeed with digital transformation, employees – and particularly those in HR – need to be at the center.
This requires having employees with digital literacy skills, but unfortunately this is a particular area of skill gap for HR teams, according to McLean & Company. 86% of HR teams are experts in relationship building, plus 82% are resilient – but HR had the lowest proficiency in digital literacy, data literacy and design thinking.
It is crucial that employers focus on building these digital skills, rather than just buying them in from outside. So it is time to re-orientate learning and development programs to focus more on the long-term and on digital skills.
Credit: McLean HR Trends Report 2023.
The report concluded: “The benefits of HR digitalization are clear but successful digitalization continues to be more difficult with more than half of respondents reporting significant challenges or barriers. HR departments should start by partnering with stakeholders to create a digital HR strategy.
“Meanwhile, legacy processes and systems along with a lack of budget have emerged as the top two challenges, and HR must achieve leadership buy-in to secure the resources required to move forward”.
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