Abstract:

The use of digital tools has seen a rapid spurt in recent years. Advent of platforms such as social networks, growth in smart devices and mobile connectivity are all having significant impact on how employees work and socialize. As employees become more comfortable with technology, there is an increasing overlap in the usage of such tools across their personal and professional lives. This leads to high expectations being set on internal people organizations and systems. Such usage characteristics thereby put significant pressure on the people function to transform. Most organizations though have so far focused on addressing the impact of digital on customer-facing functions. In the process, they have not really addressed the crucial people-facet of digitization.

We believe a radical re-think of key people functions and processes is the need of the hour. Traditional view of people drivers should be reframed for enabling a work culture reflective of the era of highly interconnected workforce. We call this new way of defining the people drivers in a digital age, People 2.0. We define People 2.0 as the behavioral, cultural, and educational transformation of employees and organizations driven by new technological paradigms.

People 2.0 is built on the four key pillars of Collaboration, HR, Talent and Management. Digitization has triggered a transformation across each of these areas resulting in benefits as well as transformational challenges. The Key Pillars in the People 2.0 Agenda are:
- Collaboration 2.0: To enable a connected workforce which leads to project collaboration, co-creation, R&D and Innovation
- Management 2.0: Manager’s role moves from hierarchical control to managing contribution to the community and more globally implementing People 2.0 Transformation
- HR 2.0 has a two faced challenge: to transform itself & to support the 2.0 transformation both Business and People wise
- Talent 2.0 services allow new models of talent acquisition, retention and learning thus switching from conventional to social methods

A transition to People 2.0 is complex. The rapid spread of social tools across the length and breadth of organizations will also play a compounding role in this transformation. A successful transition to People 2.0 must be based on a well-designed plan addressing all the company’s dimensions to support both business and people ambitions. While a transformation to People 2.0 can yield significant increase in people performance, there exist multiple issues that need to be addressed beforehand in order to achieve the desired impact.

In summary, the question is no longer “if” but “when” an organization will move towards the People 2.0 dimension. This transition represents a transformation that, even for the most agile organizations, is a significant challenge. How fast and effective is this transformation will determine whether organizations can (or cannot) be talent magnets.

Keywords:

Digital Transformation, collaboration, recruting, employee engagement, Digital skills learning, HR function.