Burning questions for HR digital transformation

Whether you’re at the start of your digital transformation journey or tackling an individual stage of the employee lifecycle, it’s more than likely you’ll need to commission new digital assets or technology.  If digital isn’t your first language, here are some important questions to ask yourself or your development team to ensure your success.

At Electric Circus, we’re an expert digital team, with skilled ‘tech translators’ like Kit Hargreaves, our Technical Director. Kit has a talent for turning complex digital jargon into friendly language that puts our clients at ease and is effortless for them to understand.

You may think that’s a question you should be asking yourself before you brief a digital agency. Not necessarily. A good partner can help you discover the right solution before you write a brief.  We use our discovery sessions with clients to help them understand the problem, their audiences, and then map out different solutions.

It’s easy to pick up digital buzz words and think: “We must have API integrations to link all our platforms together!” But we often find that once we sit down with a client and analyse the problem, the solution looks very different. Why just link your platforms together when you could make them interact, consolidate their data, and use these collective insights to find new ways to engage your employees, improve their skills, or identify further HR investment opportunities.

Or you may need to recruit a new team of software engineers for which you decide to launch a costly advertising campaign. But to get people to apply in such a competitive field, you need to create employer brand recognition. So instead of building a dedicated section on your careers site with social media and ATS integration, a first step would be to produce an employer brand campaign to make yourself stand out. Something shareable that engages people and creates intrigue. Click the arrow to see how we helped Cygnet Healthcare do just that.

You definitely need to give this some thought. There are three things to consider:

1. Experience & user journey: how does the site feel moving through it?
2. Features & functionality: what does the site do?
3. Management & governance: what do you do with it once it’s built?

Which of these you make your priority depends on what you actually need. If it’s to build employer brand recognition, user experience will be the priority. If you need an internal piece of software for gathering data about employees, functionality will be key. And if you’re creating lots of careers blogs, then management is crucial.

All three are important, and user experience should never be compromised. But knowing which to prioritise can make for a less complex build.

Translating how your employer brand feels in the real world to how it feels digitally can be done using clever design and innovative technology to create engaging interactions. But for every project you should ask yourself, what do your candidates and employees need here? Does your digital asset have to be simple and functional or provide an exciting user experience? Or both? You have to decide the right balance for each project.

It shouldn’t make a difference whether you know your JASON from your XML or the difference between an API and an SSO. Working with a good digital partner means not having to worry about being an expert yourself.  For our clients, we’re their ‘tech translators’ so we explain everything in a way our clients understand. We also work with our clients’ tech teams to integrate solutions, which we can choose and implement together, delivering projects that achieve their goals.

But what you can do is think about what you value in a good website, app or other digital asset. You’ll have had both good and bad digital experiences that will inform your expectations for your own tech solution. Take inspiration from global tech giants but keep the scope of your brief relevant to your situation. You can impress with equally clever yet simple design and functionality.

You want technical experts who are also creative thinkers and great communicators. Culture fit is hugely important. Finding a team who you feel comfortable with, and confident they’ll put their hearts into your brief is also super important. A solid project process will give you confidence too.  Discovery, design, prototyping, production, project management and insights are all crucial elements of successful digital development projects.

In part 2 we look at what you need to know to keep your digital projects relevant and running smoothly. We’ll also explore the often overlooked aspects of asset ownership and intellectual property.