The HR Technology Conference & Exposition just wrapped on Friday. Being part of a virtual conference as large as this was a new experience for me, and I suspect most of the 12,000 attendees. While it certainly wasn’t the same as past conferences, I want to commend the HR Tech organization for such a well-run event. I attended many of the sessions and had conversations with several attendees, and I’ve been reflecting on what I heard.
- Even though we were all remote, in many ways, this was a very human HR conference. I’ve never seen so many people be so vulnerable with each other at a conference, express so much care and compassion, and be so open with their challenges and worries.
- There was a universal concern about organizational health, culture, and connection, and a real recognition that these elements need to be nurtured in new ways.
- A common theme with every conversation was how to have a productive workforce during this time of change, uncertainty, and disruption. There was also a shared recognition that productivity isn’t possible without addressing workforce safety, physical wellbeing, and psychological health.
- There were lots of successes shared – despite the challenges, many workforces are proving to be resilient and are adapting to the “new normal.” However, even in high performing organizations, people are worried about the continued isolation of staff and a sense that the loss of ad hoc human to human interaction significantly impacts creativity and the ability to build trust.
- It was remarkable to see how quickly vendors have innovated to offer solutions for the remote workplace. Software companies face the same challenges as everyone else, and in many cases, their new solutions arose to address their own needs.
- Most of the attendees I talked with understood the role of new technology to support their objectives. They were also aware that technology alone wouldn’t help unless accompanied by re-engineered processes and effective change management and workforce support.
- Everybody understood that no technology can exist in isolation. Every new application needs to be integrated with the existing app ecosystem to share data and provide seamless workflows.
- Urgency is high, so organizations will not tolerate “traditional” multi-month integration projects. This makes solutions like Workato compelling, which can enable sophisticated HR tech integrations quickly without compromising security or functionality.
HR professionals have clearly emerged as leaders who are actively engineering new processes enabled by new technologies so that their organizations can succeed and even thrive during these times. At Dispatch, we help HR professionals design these new processes and rapidly deliver integrations and workflow automation solutions. Contact us to learn more about our products and services, and how we might be able to help you.
About Dispatch Integration:
Dispatch Integration is a software development and professional services firm that develops, delivers, and manages advanced data integration and workflow automation solutions. We exist to help organizations effectively deal with the complex and ever-changing need to integrate data and optimize end to end workflows between cloud-based, mission-critical applications.
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Cameron Hay is the CEO of Dispatch Integration, a data integration and workflow automation company with clients in Canada, US, Europe and Australia. He has over 30 years of leadership experience in various technology-oriented industries.