Be a Smart Digital Innovator - 6 Insights

Are you an Innovator with a breakthrough idea? Here are top 6 insights gained from interactions with HR Innovators and leaders to help you navigate the waters.  

Innovation is an exciting and evolving concept. Organisations around the world are innovating while leveraging the digital tools – from cutting edge manufacturing technology to social media. More often than not, it is individual innovators who push for change and breakthrough ideas to make digital change a reality. An innovator's journey is fraught with many challenges and these challenges are magnified manifolds when HR professionals try to innovate especially due to proximity to softer side of human issues. Here is a set of insights gained from my professional experience working for global corporations, and interactions with HR leaders in different industries.  

The 6 Insights:

1.       Have a “pitch-perfect” idea   

2.       Get Stakeholder Buy-in            

3.       Experiment, Fail and Build “Proof of Concept”

4.       Facing Push-back and Changing Mindsets

5.       Changing Roles of HR & IT

6.       Continuous Communication and Engagement

1.      Have a “pitch-perfect” idea

The first and most crucial step is to crystalize your idea into an impactful but brief “pitch”. You can use the IDEO Design Thinking principles - feasibility, desirability, viability – to have a “pitch perfect” idea.

Next, leverage available resources to perfect the idea through dialogue – from your organisation’s Innovation or mentorship program, to professional Innovator’s club. Identify possible leaders who can champion the actual “realization” or conversion of the idea into an actual service, system or policy. Start “pitching” your gem-of-an-idea to the leader/s to gain sponsorship. Convince your Sponsor/s to be your champion and seek guidance to navigate through the intricate puzzle of power and relationships.

Tip 1: Have clear communication with your sponsor/s about project ownership vs leadership, possible timelines, immutable features and dream team etc. 

Tip 2: When discussing many HR topics, ROI can be a fuzzy area. Therefore, seek tools that can quantify outcomes and show business-level impact. E.g. Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation framework

2.      Get Stakeholder Buy-in

A seasoned HR leader shared her most critical learning about leading a massive change process:

Stakeholders! Stakeholders! Stakeholders!

First list all possible stakeholders. Secondly, short list key stakeholders by either discussing with your sponsor/team or by using a tool e.g. power/interest grid. Thirdly, choose a method of engagement. Lastly but most crucially - engage and seek buy-in at each critical stage of the process: ideation, design, testing and implementation. The constant dialogue may seem tedious but it will pay rich dividends when the time comes for actual roll out and deployment.

Tip –Stakeholder engagement is NOT about making a few, many or everyone happy. It’s about making the “right” group of people happy about the “relevant” features.

3.      Experiment, Fail and Build “Proof of Concept”

Be in action mode from the “get-go”. Have the green light? Race to figure out a way to pilot your concept. Pool in your resources; get the “minimum viable product (MVP)” ready to showcase the fact that your concept works. In case of failure, just dust-it-off, find the flaws and fix them. Try again!

Learning is integral to the process of experimentation. Do NOT let this stage discourage you. Rather see the bumps as part and parcel of the journey.

Tip: Set realistic deadlines. And have a support system ready to help you through the rough patches.

4.      Facing Push-back and Changing Mindsets

How do your internal customers usually respond to breakthrough HR initiatives? They cheer and welcome new projects or end up saying - “I don’t need this”, or “I already know this”, “We don’t have time for this”, “This is not a priority”…

Like a seasoned sales professional, anticipate “customer objections” and formulate responses beforehand. If needed, practice through role-plays with your team-member/s. Your experiments would have already revealed many flaws

Needless to say – ensure you are aligned closely with business, interact with people on-the-ground, and involve end-customers where possible. When it’s time to launch – focus on advantages, and create a buzz so that teams are excited about the initiative.

Tip - Beware of using Digital Learning e.g. 3D or touch-enabled only for the “awe” factor. The audience needs to be receptive and digitally-savvy. Here, identify and assess which “Digital Generation” you are targeting. 

5.      Changing Roles of HR & IT 

A senior talent development professional was quick to point out that by providing digital solutions, the roles change - HR becomes a service provider, IT becomes a Solutions partner and Employees act as Consumers.

HR as a service provider is more than a custodian of rules and laws. The focus shifts to performance in terms of SLAs (Service level agreements). Most organisations choose to outsource and others treat is as an opportunity to hone internal skills and some critical industry certifications (e.g. recruiters, designers, analysts, project managers)

The relationship between HR & IT function changes – the two work in “partnership” to address issues like budgets, development guidelines, security protocols, legacy systems and their compatibility.  

The hard reality that HR faces in its new avatar is that Employees as consumers expect to be provided with apps/e-learning/platforms that are as good as what is available in the market. Low-quality graphics, limited functionalities and restrictive functionalities can be a great turn-off for many Generation-Y or Generation-Z users. Meanwhile, the pre-Generation X users continue to struggle with such systems.   

Often, to deal with the above two issues –HR managers decide to invest in cloud-based SaaS systems. The insights now available from Big Data Analytics (talent, performance, attrition) also help HR in working with IT teams to buy/design systems with most impact. 

6.      Continuous Communication and Engagement

Just like our planet Earth’s outer orbit is increasingly being littered with space debris, you would find “digital trash” or “Dead Media” circulating on the internal web of most global organisations. The trash encompasses all the obsolete, redundant or underutilized digital resources. Assets that were piloted but not implemented, or implemented but are not actively used. The reasons for “digital trash” range from redundancy, design issues, to being outdated (content or functionality). Some examples – internal social networking sites, wikiboards, video-channels, apps etc.

It is important that you ensure that the Digital Innovation project stays “current”, has an optimum base of users and is actively used as per business cycle. This requires continuous communication and engagement with end-users and stakeholders. One may also build realistic review-process, timelines, accountability and phasing-out details within the project-plan.

And then, you would have created a “self-sustaining” digital solution that consumes minimal resources but delivers “value” throughout its lifecycle.