Written by: Amira Haytham
In a matter of two days, SHRM Tech has succeeded to shed light on various topics from the effect of artificial intelligence on the HR world, to the transformations we need to endure and a glimpse of the technological future that is not so far away. David Green opened up the start of the conference mentioning the topics we’ll discuss and the importance of networking in the upcoming days.
Mark Levy
The Evolution of Employee Experience in a High-Tech World
Mark Levy steered the Employee Experience in Airbnb as the former CHRO and spoke exclusively on the benefits of ‘treating your employees how you want your costumers to be treated’ and the actions needed to be taken to accomplish a satisfying workforce. Levy started his talk with a question he was addressed by 5 years ago at the start of his journey at Airbnb, “Are you ready to change the world?”
An essential factor is: “making your employees feel like they belong in the workplace.” Levy discussed. Attaining the mindset that you’re approaching your employees to do things with and for them, not to them, is the first step to satisfaction. From the most simple applications such as listening, co-creating and setting strategies with the employees to bringing the workplace to live by re-designing and even ‘creating a city branched into neighborhoods’ for your employees, brings the workplace to life. Through an illustration of a call center before and after re-designing it to the workers’ comfort, it demonstrated significantly the effect of the livelihood of the workers as well as the workplace.
For practicality, Levy suggested ways to answer the question, “How do we make our employees feel like they belong?” He further explained the ‘Life Dojo’ method, where a survey is sent specifically to each worker, asking them first, “What keeps them at night?” And subsequently provides them with a journey of self-improvement.
Zahid Mubarak
Making Sense of Data Analytics to Drive an Organization’s Value Creation
“How do we make sense of the data?” A question Mubarak focused his topic on. Data is the base of supporting fats, whether it was financial or non-financial. Zahid Mubarak stressed on the importance of dealing with the statistics rather than obtain it.
Mubarak explained how we need to condense the data into a form where we can extract necessary information. By engaging with the audience, Mubarak gradually asked a few questions involving statistics about the employee workforce, employment required, profit, and losses of a company. Eventually, through various stages of analysis, Mubarak shows how small differences in statistics cause an obvious gap in the finance and how it can cause recession and losses.
Dr. Anna Travis
Dr. Anna Travis focused on the role of agile leadership in a digitizing world. In the case of when Amazon retailed a ‘whole foods’ chain, Dr. Anna discussed the whereabouts in this successful organization.
Two main rules were laid out; experimenting and teaming up. To move fast, the organization needs to experiment, however, the experiments needed to happen within the team to succeed the organization’s upbringing. “The number of the team should be no bigger than the number of people we could feed with two pizzas,” Dr. Anna stated.
A challenge all organizations face is that no one is willing to suffer a string to get to the goal; a series of failing experiments is demotivating.
Referring back to a study in February 2001, Dr. Anna discussed how they reconsidered the way software needs to be developed so that people can work better. as hardware has been the recurrent usage, software has been in constant development, and quoting Mark Andreesen, Dr. Anna said, “in the future every company will become a software company.”
Dr. Heba Makram
Transformations are a make or break for any organization. As the word transformation is an overused term, Dr. Heba defines it as, “when a snake sheds its skin it changes. When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly it transforms.”
Transformation is as difficult as it seems, and for HR to transform into a beautiful butterfly, the managers must be prepared to overcome the obstacles.
“Be prepared to be disrupted,” Dr. Makram laid out the difficulties any transformation process would face. It is absolutely normal that the director will have moments of doubts, however, a supportive leadership should compensate. Another complication to put in mind, is the possible divide created in the organization. A diverge between the ones who support the change and the ones who are stuck in their comfort zones is inevitable.
Dr. Heba concludes by the importance of having a clear vision of the output desired out of the transformation process. To be able to withstand the obstacles of the journey, the first step is to find your ‘why’. And for further endurance of trusting your planned process, don’t mistake someone else’s vision for something you can borrow. Creating your own tactics and visualization for the future of your company has a much higher benefit than following the crowd.
Randa Farah
A world where everything is monitored and most jobs are replaced with Artificial Intellegence, where do humans and happiness stand? Already, technology forms a big part of our lives. Simple tasks such as sorting emails and searching a file name is accomplished in only a few seconds due to the evolution of technology. But how fast is this evolution growing? And how can Artificial Intelligence aid HR?
Randa explained how Volvo used artificial intelligence to recruit technicians using a car. Instead of a normal one-to-one interviews, the car can choose its own engineers.
It is no doubt that many jobs will disappear due to this evolution, such as bookkeepers, however, new jobs will evolve too.
Happiness leads to success, so how do companies achieve happiness at work? Maintaining a pleasant connection with the employees and receiving the outcome of hard work allows the employees to experience positive emotions in a repetitive way.
Rana Askoul
Empathy in the time of technology
“The H in HR stands for human”
As our world evolves technologically, we direct all attention to adapting and utilizing the technology to our benefit, we tend to forget the essence of “human resources”: empathy. Rana started her talk by brilliantly reciting a story she wrote to her father after he passed away. Her story revolved around “eternal love”, which is a love that lasts forever.
She succeeded in projecting her emotions onto the minds of her audience, and when she was done, the entire crowd was breathing in unison, but a single emotion wandering among them, filling the hall with her story – not in words – but this time, in experience.
Referring back to Adam Smith, the father of economics, when he described empathy by, “Empathy is exchanging places in fancy with the sufferer”, and how empathy doesn’t contradict with our self-interest, which lays in the heart as a priority. Actually, empathy is critical for the survival of the human race.
Through some stories, Askool projected how empathy helped save the world; through Steven Pinker’s book: The better angels of our nature, where it embarked a great movement, the 80th century revolution, concerning ignored issues in its eras. Also, ‘uncle tom’s cabin’, the second bestselling book after the bible at its time, shed a light on the struggles of African-americans, and this novel carved out the civil war. Finally, a story all eyes glossed upon: Alan Kurdy. A young Syrian refugee who helped save a lot of lives. And through empathy, all this was possible.
As we strive to utilize technology, we must stay aware of its effect on our empathy.
“I feel your pain as long as you’re from another race.”
“The young are less empathetic.” Both of these statements are consequences of the overload of technology. Rana showed us statistically how generation Z are far more exposed to technology and social media, but still feel lonely and scared and might lose their emotional intelligence and their ability to connect and relate.
How do we claim our empathy back? Reconnect, assume positive things about the people and workplace, be kind to ourselves and care.
The SHRM Tech conference has not only been an eye-opener, but a source of new ideas and networks made. Even though I was the youngest to attend, I still found the talks both beneficial and fascinating. HR is not only a way of running your business, but it is an attitude and a lifestyle in your work-space.