HR’s new role: rethinking and enabling digital engagement

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore how a new industrial revolution with digital technology at its core is disrupting the workplace. It shares how HR has an opportunity to use data and digital technologies to reinvent how organizations engage with their workforce. It answers the question of how HR pivots from its legacy focus on compliance and being a steward of employment to the work and helping the organization strengthen its connection with its workers through improved digital engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on Willis Towers Watson thought leadership and references recent findings from their research.

Findings

The paper explores how digital technologies have changed how workers connect with their co-workers and the organization. In addition, it examines how digital technologies are changing how work gets done.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is not exclusively based on research.

Practical implications

The paper explores how digital technologies drive engagement, HR’s role as steward of the work and enabler of digital engagement and best practices for enabling digital engagement in the modern workplace.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills a need to assist HR leaders in thinking through the implications of the future of work and how digital technologies will shape that future.

Citation

Jesuthasan, R. (2017), "HR’s new role: rethinking and enabling digital engagement", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 60-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-01-2017-0009