The role of IT has transformed seemingly overnight. Once a small team responsible for keeping the computers running, IT today reaches into every aspect of the company, and it does so more integrally. Technology optimizes productivity, helps you reach customers, enhance customer experience, and maximizes profitability.
With this shift, information technology faces new challenges, but like no person is an island, so no department is. HR and IT must work together to ensure IT can adapt to its changing role.
Because ultimately, this isn't about technology. Technology is just a tool.
It's about people.
How do we, as business leaders, get the right people to manage the technology we need to move forward as a company into a technology-driven future?
We collaborate to address the challenges IT faces.
The old IT playbook focused on filling jobs. You need so many help desk techs. You need people to manage the servers. You need a cybersecurity person.
But this approach lacks scope because it disregards a broader vision of how technology once integrated throughout a company can help all of your people work together better.
In that regard, HR and IT have the same goal, even though they may take a different approach to get there.
HR & IT need to work together more strategically to focus not just on hiring the people that maintain existing tech infrastructure, but those who understand how technology can help you meet much larger business goals. Let's look at a quick example.
73% of consumers expect a seamless omnichannel customer experience. They realize that the technology exists to do it, and they judge companies who fail to deliver. They think you're behind the times.
For this reason, companies with strong omnichannel retain 89% of their customers while the average company retains only 33%.
That's a gamechanger.
If your company doesn't currently have an omnichannel experience, it will take more than filling your basic IT positions to make this happen.
Within most organizations today, IT and HR only collaborate when they need a job filled.
This approach can lead to high IT turnover. People in IT continually feel understaffed and overburdened. And the department ends up using massive amounts of overtime pay to compensate.
IT departments with limited vision and skill-set end up patching together old solutions to solve current problems. Often they're unaware of more effective custom technology solutions. Or the lack of HR and IT collaboration leave them de-incentivized to provide more lasting and practical solutions.
When HR better understands the departments broader needs, they can
While this may all sound like IT's responsibility when IT and HR work together, you assess these factors from the outside looking in and better evaluate department needs.
Closer collaboration between IT and HR helps reduce skill gaps to retain top talent because everyone feels supported. They have the human resources they need to get the job done.
We need to think beyond tech skills to soft skills and department culture to achieve this.
Often HR, as third party observers, are better able to assess these non-technical factors that mean so much to the success of any department.
When HR and IT work together, it reshapes IT, and through this transformation, the productivity and profitability of your company. They can help you get the people and technologies in place to bring you up to 2020 customer expectations.
If your IT department is lagging and suffering from many of the challenges we discussed above, you need a strategic partner with a track-record of transforming technology within a company to meet business goals. Contact us today for a consultation.
Anthony has been in the MSP business since before the acronym existed. Managed IT once started as break-fix solutions and some light phone support.
Since then, he has seen the industry flourish into a landscape of platforms, cloud servers, software tools and AI . Tailoring network configurations and software stacks to the specific needs of each business.
In his current role, he focuses on proactive planning, ensuring clients can avoid potential issues altogether. This involves meticulous planning for enhanced business continuity, allowing swift resolution of any unforeseen challenges. What initially began as addressing "fires" through break-fix solutions has evolved into a proactive approach, ensuring that such issues are prevented from arising in the first place.
