Why HR Needs to Champion New Technology Like SkedPal

Most non-HR execs view Human Resource Managers (HRMs) as technology laggards. This characterization may be unfair, but if there is any truth in it, it means that HR professional are holding back their companies. To what extent is this true and how can it be fixed?

In times past, issues related to employee productivity were the exclusive concern of HR. The diagnosis and training and measurement expertise required to lift employee performance resided in the skillset human resource professionals.

However, there has been a dramatic shift over time. When email entered the workplace in the mid-1990's HR sat on the sidelines, watching. The HR unit was often the last to learn how to use this new technology, plus the ones that quickly  followed. Some remember a time when HR offered classroom training in topics like "How to use Microsoft Excel."

Today, such training is laughable. Employees are expected to train themselves. The fact that they successfully do so today would shock the HRM of the 1990's.

Arguably, HR is still in shock and has long ceded the main role of productivity mavens to IT. That is, technologies such as email, the Internet and mobility have done more to boost employee producctivity and change company culture than anything HR has introduced in the past twenty years. HR still lags behind, watching the company evolve.

One example involves the evolution of individual task management. Employees today are struggling to keep up with their Inboxes. Unfortunately, so is HR which is often seen as a department that can never catch up with email.

The problem isn't email itself. Instead, HR needs to return to its roots to understand the human behavior that underlies task management. Here's a shortut to this particular lesson.

Human beings all manage tasks in the same underlying way. Self-generated tasks are known as "time demands":  psychological objects which are promises they make to themselves to complete an action in the future. They learn how to manipulate time demands in their teens, using this skill to get through college and perform at work.

However, in our professional lifetime, things have changed. The new technologies mentioned above mean that we create more time demands than ever before. Unfortunately, we use pre-Internet, teenage skills. The result is overwhelm.

The deffinition of being a productive manager of time demands has changed. Instead of the old goal of "having the right habits", the emphasis has shifted to "knowing how to upgrade your habits."

Research shows that your people change their methods for managing time demands in a predictable way.

1. They start out using memory. In the Jamaican workplace, there are way too many employees at all levels using this technique, failing as a result without knowing why.

2. Some improve their skills by shifting to using To-Do lists. They learn that memory usage is limited.

3. A handful who must deal with a much higher number of time demands replace the use of a To-Do list with their digital calendar. This takes carefful skills and it gives them greater capacity.

Recently, new technology has emerged that changes the game. For the person who gets to the limits of using a To-DO list, they can schedule their tasks directly into a calendar using software powered by Artificial Intelligence. SkedPal, which is currently in Beta, is one example while Timeful (which was recently purchased by Google) is another.

I happen to be on the Advisory Board for SkedPal, which is available for free in its Beta form at www.skedpal.net. I can say after a year of usage that it is likely to change the way we manage time demands in a profound way.

There's no reason HR must stand by while this change takes place. Like other technology-led transformations, there are human behaviors that lie underneath which HR is uniquely equipped to understand. It's a fresh opportunity to actively lead from the front rather than reactively sit on the sidelines. Everyone could benefit.

Francis Wade is the founder of CaribHRForum, an author and management consultant.

This article is a monthly contribution from a member of CaribHRForum. With over 600 practitioners in its discussion list, it is the largest online network of HR professionals in the Caribbean enjoying CaribHR.Radio, CaribHRNet and CaribHRUpdates -www.caribhrforum.com