office buzz. Asia-Pacific catching up on HR tech adoption

Over 70 per cent of organisations in Asia-Pacific are looking to increase their HR technology spending, says the 21st edition of the Sierra Cedar 2018-19 HR Systems Survey White Paper. Released during the SHRM HR Tech conference in Hyderabad, the Survey provides a comprehensive landscape on the adoption of use of HR tech.

It says that while Asia-Pacific organisations are currently 20 per cent lower in their overall usage of HR applications than their counterparts in North America or EMEA, it expects the gap to close rapidly as there are double-digit increases in the adoption of all HR Technology categories over the last three years here.

“The region is also bypassing many of the early mistakes made by organisations embarking on enterprise technology implementations by investing in critical HR Technology practices such as implementing an HR Systems Strategy, investing in standard approaches to integration, and developing continuous change management models,” says the report. Payroll and Attendance are the top most HR tech applications in use in Asia Pacific at 89 per cent and 88 per cent usage while career planning and business intelligence are least used apps at 34 per cent and 32 per cent usage.

The month of June is celebrated as Pride Month to take a positive stance against discrimination. Facebook and Instagram are full of individuals wearing rainbow-coloured caps or bands. A few corporates are joining in too. Co-working giant WeWork India, for instance, has changed the colour of its logo to match that of the rainbow flag. It is doing this exercise month-long, across three locations in three cities — WeWork Forum in Delhi-NCR, WeWork Enam Sambhav in Mumbai and WeWork Galaxy in Bengaluru.

As automation hits workplaces around the world, will it impact men and women differently? A new Mckinsey report , ‘The future of women at work: Transitions in the age of automation’ says that men and women tend to cluster in different occupations in both mature and emerging economies, and this shapes how each is likely to be affected by automation. For instance, in many countries, women account for more than 70 per cent of workers in healthcare and social assistance, but less than 25 per cent of machine operators and craft workers.

However, in a scenario where automation unfolds on the scale of past technological disruptions, women and men could face job displacement and potential job gains of a broadly similar magnitude. In the ten countries it studied for this report, it found that an average of 20 per cent of working women (107 million) could lose their jobs to automation versus 21 per cent of men (163 million) by 2030. Service-oriented and clerical support occupations could account for 52 per cent of women’s job losses, but machine operation and craft work occupations could account for 40 per cent of men’s losses.

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