The second Talent Economy Forum, co-organized by Beijing Foreign Enterprise Human Resources Service Co Ltd and Harvard Business Review, is held in Beijing on August 10, 2016. [Photo by Wu Xiaobo / chinadaily.com.cn]

Human resources (HR) managers shared their insights on HR transformation in the digital era at the second Talent Economy Forum held on Tuesday in Beijing.

The era of mobile internet, with its new technologies and business models, has brought new challenges and opportunities to business in all sectors, said Hao Jie, general manager of Beijing Foreign Enterprise Human Resources Service Co Ltd (FESCO), which co-organized the forum with Harvard Business Review.

He said companies from various sectors should form partnerships and create a sharing economy platform to meet the challenges and better manage the unpredictable future.

Create value for business: Dave Ulrich

Dave Ulrich, HR management guru and professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, emphasized the need to shape HR to create value for business in a keynote speech delivered to the forum.

"HR is not just about HR. Everything we do in HR is important because it builds value to business," he said.

Digital transformation for HRs is not about the technology such as the digital system, or the cloud, but about the information HRs bring inside from the customers that allow the employees to connect with customers, Ulrich said.

He suggested HRs to change their perspective, think outside in, connect to investors and customers, and look beyond strategy.

HR management goes digital

According to Jessie Hu, human resource planning director of IBM Greater China Group, IBM has adopted big data technologies to HR decision making and used mobile and social networking technologies to reach out to the employees.

She shared IBM's experiences in matching job descriptions to employee information with big data and improving the assessment of employees' skills through social networking technologies.

Digitalization helps HRs know how capable and efficient a company is in creating value for customers and meeting business targets, said Chang Yang, vice-president of human resources of internet giant Alibaba Group.

Besides, it allows HRs to know what role a person can play in a certain business scenario, he added.

By capturing information related to a job position in each different business scenario, big data technologies enable HRs to place the right person in the right position, which is crucial to a fast-changing company, said Chang.

In the process of HR digital transformation, creating value for business is more important than working out an "advanced” salary or training system, said Shirley Wu, chief human resources officer of diary company Mengniu Diary Co.

HRs in Mengniu focused on improving the organizational competence and building up the company culture last year and look to a leapfrog development of its work in the next three years, she said.

Sharing service platforms to be a trend

The fundamental purpose of HR digital transformation is to build up strategy, develop standardized procedures for routine work and better serve the employees, said Xing Ying, deputy general manager of FESCO.

Sharing service platforms are currently the most representative and one of the widely accepted ways for companies to embrace digital transformation, said Xing.

According to Xing, FESCO has been building a service sharing platform for businesses in these years. Data on the sharing platforms can provide HRs with insights and support companies in decision making.

"According to the analysis based on our survey among more than 1,000 companies, sharing service platforms will be likely a big trend of the future," she said.

Of the companies who have set up service sharing platforms, more than 60 percent have established the centers in the recent three years, and companies with more than 1,000 employees take up the most shares, she introduced.