Driving Innovation and change
Table of Contents
One business problem related to Human resource department 3
Comparative study of the three solutions. 5
Coyne’s 3 Conditions of competencies. 6
Relationship between innovation and business success. 8
Development of creative ideas for future based on AI. 8
Prediction in 2030 about human lives and relationships. 9
Introduction
The paper is going to highlight the importance and relevance of Artificial Intelligence in the current business scenario. Artificial Intelligence is a digital revolution that has not only upgraded our lives but also strengthened the functional departments of an organization. The discussion will stress a challenge faced by the human resource department of an organization and outline three solutions to this challenge provided by Artificial Intelligence. These challenges will be compared and critically evaluated through various approaches and models like Tidd and Besant’s 4P model and Coyne’s 3-conditions. A competency tree will be formulated, ranking all the three existing solutions, and a value creation process will be briefed. Further, the paper will suggest creative solutions for the future by which the business challenge can be solved and also discuss various ways by which human relationships are going to change in the next 10 years.
Discussion
Question 1
Importance of innovation
Innovation has a crucial role to play in carrying out the human resource practices of the organization. Innovative HRM policies and practices can ensure autonomy and skill enhancement of the employees so that they can perform well according to the volatile external environment (Gattiker and Larwood, 2019). Innovative HRM practices involve proper utilization of the digital platform through Artificial Intelligence so that Human Resource Development can be improvised within the organization. External pressures, the complexity of the global market, and other factors compel firms to take up this initiative. Traditionally, these firms have faced many challenges that are currently solved through AI.
One business problem related to Human resource department
A significant challenge faced by the human resource department is lack of employee engagement in different tasks and activities conducted within the organizational premises. Recent studies have shown that employee engagement has unimaginably lowered by 13% in the current years. This has happened due to traditional methods applied by organizations while engaging employees (Meyer and Leitner, 2018). As a result, most of the employees are unhappy and are reluctant to participate in any kind of activity going on within the organization. Many other employees feel less confident due to a lack of motivational factors and a lack of training and development.
Lack of training and development contributes further to this issue. The traditional training and development programs have been fragile, and they could not enhance the skills and potentials of the employees. The employees could not examine their capabilities and, as a result, feel very demotivated (Papa et al. 2018). Employee engagement gets hampered drastically due to this significant issue. It is essential to devise training and development methods for the overall growth of the human capital of the business. This has been possible through various solutions provided by Artificial Intelligence, which induced a sense of confidence within the employees.
Three current solutions
The three essential solutions provided by Artificial Intelligence in solving these problems are stated below.
- AI-driven Chatbots are useful for increasing employee engagement due to the facilitation of the communication process. Through these chatbots, the sentiments and emotions of employees can be measured and analyzed at regular intervals (Hirzel, 2017). This is needed for empowering employees and drive the communication process further between HR professionals and human resources. Chatbots provide human-like communication tools for personalized conversations.
- The learning and development program can also be advanced with the help of Artificial Technology. With the help of AI, agile, and adaptable learning programs can be created that will adhere to the individual needs of the employees (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). The data and analytics used in the software will delve deeper into the business to find out contingency solutions for human resource development.
- Another meaningful way by which AI can drive the learning and development of the employees is a virtual mentoring process. The virtual mentors are highly skilled and excelled in their fields, and they can track the learner’s path by understanding his domain. These systems also offer feedback and guidance to the employees for improving their productivity through their skills.
Tidd and Besant’s 4P model
According to Tidd and Besant’s 4P model, innovation can be categorized into four kinds according to its nature and can be segmented into two types according to its velocity. The four types of innovation are product innovation, process innovation, position innovation, and paradigm innovation (Bessant, 2019). The kind of innovation undertaken by an organization depends on the nature of its business. The other two types of innovation are incremental innovation and radical innovation.
The innovation related to human resource management of the organisation can be termed as process innovation. This is because innovation is concerned with developing human resources, which goes on through a well-structured process (Iakovleva et al. 2019). The innovation can be termed incremental as it is a slow process that takes place in a sequential manner. The shift from the traditional method to a digitalized process requires small improvements at each step for getting better results in the long-run.
Question 2
Comparative study of the three solutions
The first solution is essential for employee engagement and can be prioritized over all the other answers. Through Chatbots, the personalized conversations between employees and HR professionals can be analyzed and leveraged to determine the specific needs and requirements of the employees (Grönroos, 2017). This helps the HR managers to develop customized training and development solutions for the employees such that they can feel confident and recognized within the organization. AI-backed chatbots also understand the sentiments of the employees and address the potential roadblocks to increasing employee engagement.
- The next solution that is advanced data analytics can be ranked third among all the existing solutions. Hive Learning is an essential software in this process. It provides agile solutions for tracking human skillsets, such as analytical skills, strategic skills, critical thinking abilities, cultural awareness, and emotional intelligence (Novais and Konomi, 2016). The learning and development departments of organizations use these models to formulate learning and developmental procedures for the human resources, based on their existing skillsets. The virtual learning method has been proven better than this technique.
- Though the usage of advanced analytical software for the upgradation of human resources might seem useful in the HRM department, still virtual learning process has been better over this method in creating a learning environment for the employees. Through virtual learning, the employees can directly interact with a virtual mentor to undergo a process of direct evaluation. The software can analyze the domain knowledge of the employee to prescribe a targeted learning process for that employee.
Coyne’s 3 Conditions of competencies
Coyne suggested three necessary conditions through which competencies can be achieved by the organizations.
- A pragmatic view of the competencies was coined by Coyne, who proposed identification of key attributes of a firm for developing competitive advantage over its competitors.
- Next, Coyne stated that customer satisfaction is important in developing competitive advantage in which customers would make repeated purchases (Alexandridis et al. 2017). The customers should be able to perceive the value propositions of a product or a service.
- Another important way of deriving competitive advantage is to develop resource capabilities, through regulatory, positional, business systems and organisational characteristics (Panagiotopoulos et al. 2019). Regulatory relates to the possession of legal entities while positional relates to the intangible qualities like trust and reputation in the market. Business systems relate to operational characteristics while organisational relate to the management change.
Considering all these attributes, the first solution can be feasible for the organisation. This is because the first solution is resourceful at all directions. The employees would be enhanced and their productivity will increase. This will drive more customers and the competency of the firm will increase automatically (Laukkanen and Tura, 2020). Also, employee growth and empowerment are fundamental to the success of a business. The company should determine its resource capabilities before adopting the process. Technological advancement is required and investment in the IT department is required for the implementation of such a process. Also, the employee should be cleared out the benefits of this digital transformation within the business, such that they can easily accept change.
Competency Wheel
Value creation
- Chatbots are very important for human resource development as they allow the HR manager to provide instant and accurate replies to the queries of the personnel. The complex queries and issues can be automatically escalated for manual review and evaluation so that there is no mistake in solving them. Based on the gathered results from the Chatbot, the HR profession can trigger employee engagement within the organisation.
- Virtual mentoring is especially required by the multinational companies who send their employees abroad for solving international projects. This method is also important for employees who work from home on a frequent basis (Sekhri and Cheema, 2019). These employees need constant improvement in the productivity of their works and this would require greater participation from their side. Therefore, this method can train them effectively for increasing their participation rate.
- Advanced business analytics software can come up with suitable solutions for the betterment of the human resources of the organisation. These analytics predict the skills and positions of the respective employees. Overall, this software is best required for predicting the hiring needs of personnel according to the changing positions of the job roles. Therefore, all the other two methods are better than this technique.
Question 3
Relationship between innovation and business success
Innovation can be defined as a single breakthrough through which either a totally new product or service is created by the business, or an innovative change is brought about in the existing products or services. Innovation helps in the improvement of the operational procedures of the business for increasing its efficiency and productivity. Innovation can also help in extending the line of services or the range of products in a business. This is very important for meeting with the rapidly changing customer needs and requirements. Adding value to the existing products or services is required for gaining a competitive position in the market outpacing the key competitors. The business can be differentiated from other top players through its unique and innovative offerings. This can consequently help in enhancing the perceived value of the customers, and they will be eager to make repeated purchases.
Innovation is also important in the human resource department for levelling up the human resource practices and upgrade the current position of the employees such that they can take up more complicated challenges of the future. This will enable the employees to find out their hidden skills and potentials through which they can feel empowered and confident while working in the organisations (Rana, 2018). The organisations will be able to retain loyal staff and will not fear of losing key staff. Human capital is a very important segment of a business which can help the business in building a brand name in the newly tapped markets and establish good relationships with the partners. On the financial segment, the company will achieve promising results through the improvement of profitability and turnover. Thinking beyond the conventional boundaries, the organisation can achieve strength and compatibility to remain competitive in the market.
Development of creative ideas for future based on AI
The three important creative solutions for driving employee engagement in future can be stated below.
- AI-enabled Sentiment Analysis Platforms – Till now, many organisations struggle to get valuable information and insights for increasing employee engagement within the workplace. This is because organisations have to deal to unlimited data and information and sorting out the most valuable ones can be a daunting task for the HR professionals. These AI enabled sentiment analysis platforms can be used for understanding the sentiments and emotions of the employees through advanced algorithms, that categorise unstructured data.
- AI-enabled performance management platforms – Most of the performance management processes used by organisations are not fruitful for the employees due to presence of inhibiting factors like workplace biases, race and gender distinction and other similar factors. AI-enabled software is free of biases and they assess performance through real-time data and information (Rucco, 2019). The incentives and rewards for excellent performances are handed over to the employees instantly without any human intervention. This can help reduce corruption in the organisations and the employees will be satisfied with the assessment. This will in-turn stimulate their engagement in the activities.
- The last and the most important future AI software for nurturing talents is AI-enabled talent development platforms. Leading learning management systems (LMS) vendors are looking forward to integrate AI with their learning platforms for creating personalised and customised experience for the employees (Perez et al. 2018). This software will be equipped with predictive analysis and behaviour mapping techniques for tracking the needs and patterns of each employee and offer personalised learning programs for them. This digital platform can also solve issues in real-time and increase all the possibilities of employee engagement.
Through all the above stated solutions, the organisations will witness an increasing trend of employee engagement in the future years.
Prediction in 2030 about human lives and relationships
After the emergence of digitalisation, the human capacities are getting augmented and the old human activities are slowly getting replaced by new ones. The code-driven systems have affected information and connectivity in most parts of the world. As a result, many unexpected opportunities and unprecedented threats are gradually occurring in the human lives and relationships. It is still a matter of question whether this algorithm driven artificial intelligence will make people’s lives better than today. Many experts have predicted that artificial intelligence will amplify the effectiveness of humans but at the same time might also threaten human autonomy, agency and competencies. AI is going to exceed human capabilities in a wide range of activities such as complex decision-making, reasoning, learning and sophisticated analytics and other similar tasks.
However, AI is going to threaten many other segments of human activities such as human agencies, where individuals will have a loss of control over their lives. People will have less insights about information and their experience, independence and privacy will be sacrificed. Data abuse is another important segment that will be threatened due to AI tools. Job loss will be prominent in economy as a result of AI driven systems. The efficiencies and economic advantages of the machines will disrupt different parts of human activities. Another important threat that will posed by AI upon human lives is reduction in social, cognitive and survival skills. As people are deepening their activities on machines, their self-thinking abilities are eroding constantly.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be inferred that artificial intelligence is going to digitalise different platforms of business such as human resources, transportation and product assembly. Human resources management can be exemplified through the application of Artificial Intelligence. The most important challenge of personnel, that is, employee engagement and employee training and development can be enhanced with the help of machine-based technologies like chatbots, advanced analytics and virtual mentoring. The most competent solution among these is the chatbot software, which directly surges up employee engagement. However, artificial intelligence is going to affect human lives and relationships both positively and negatively in future. Though the software will upgrade the level of work and reduce errors, but it will challenge some of the important human skills.
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Appendix
4P model
(Source: https://innovationmanagement4.wordpress.com/innovation-space-4ps/what-is-innovation-space-4ps/)
Talent management software
(Source: https://joshbersin.com/2019/04/is-integrated-talent-management-over-yes-let-talent-experience-reign/)