Digital transformation is at the heart of the work of Émeline Barbenchon, advisory director, people experience and change at PWC Luxembourg. "I support clients throughout the entire process, from defining the strategy to implementing the system, then reviewing their processes, right up to being able to measure the success of the projects", stated Emeline Barbenchon in an interview. For PwC Luxembourg, under the guidance of the people leader , digital solutions have been gaining ground in the HR department for several months.
With them, human resources are embarking on something of a revolution, which the two PWC specialists decipher here.
Pierre Théobald: How far have Luxembourg companies come in implementing and using digital tools for HR teams?
Émeline Barbenchon: The level of maturity is not the same for everyone. Luxembourg entities affiliated to an international group are mostly equipped with market-leading integrated HR suites such as Oracle HCM Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and Workday HCM. Companies with more than 500 employees and a head office in Luxembourg are following the same trend, and are either already equipped or working towards it. For other companies, on the other hand, the situation is rather disparate, with some at a more advanced stage than others. Some, for example, have only part of the HR value chain covered by a system. The first needs to be met often include recruitment, with an applicant tracking system, and learning, with a learning management system.
What is still standing in the way of faster, more sustained deployment?
Barbenchon: For both implementation and licensing, digital solutions require a budget. And not all small organisations have this budget. Admittedly, a small organisation doesn't necessarily need the Rolls Royce of systems. But just when you want to cover the entire HR value chain with a low-cost integrated system, you may find yourself 'limited' by the tools available on the market, which only cover part of your needs. This can be discouraging.
Roxane Haas: In terms of obstacles, it's important to take into account the time required and the capacity of teams to absorb the implementation of these tools, in addition to their usual activities. It's crucial to be able to carry out these projects successfully, and to do that you also need good change management, which isn't always easy. The 'change' and 'change management' aspect is therefore not to be neglected if we want to achieve good adoption of the tools by employees and ensure that these initiatives are crowned with success.
It is important to have acceptance of change and strong support from top management
Barbenchon: Yes, it's important to have acceptance of the change and strong support from top management. Strong leaders need to reinforce the key messages around the objectives and benefits of these tools and lead by example in their adoption. The introduction of a new HRIS is often a unique opportunity to align tools and processes with a desired culture which, thanks to the tool, encourages autonomy, transparency and employee commitment. If managers are given more responsibility by being given new tasks and access to certain data associated with digital technology - in terms of remuneration or performance management, for example - their role changes. In this case, a quick training session or a video won't be enough. Beyond the destination, the implementation of the tool, the path taken and the steps taken are just as essential. You need to take the time to think about the different ways of setting it up.
How do you get people to understand that the financial outlay is worth it?
Barbenchon: Every technology has a cost. With the cloud, you pay for the software, the maintenance, the IT infrastructure, the database... It's no longer maintenance as it used to be: new releases bring innovation and improvements every three, four or six months, and you have to retest and revalidate these functionalities. Added to this is the maintenance of integrations, which also represents a cost. So when you choose one or more solutions, you have to ask yourself what you want to achieve. Perhaps it's productivity, perhaps it's to facilitate career progression... This allows you to set yourself a limit. Today, there are open source or one app free solutions, such as Odoo.
What problems do you encounter during the implementation and training phases?
Barbenchon: What I see with customers is that the staff assigned to the project are not 100% committed to it; they continue with their usual tasks at the same time. In these conditions, it's difficult to free up time. During implementation, there are some particularly time-consuming periods: identifying requirements, testing, implementation, etc. Having to wear two or three hats can cause difficulties and delays in projects.
Once these difficulties have been overcome, what concrete advances can be made using digital technology?
Haas: I’ll illustrate with what has been put in place at PWC. First of all, we wanted to improve the employee experience, in particular by meeting the need for instant access to information. Human behaviour is influenced by factors such as technological advances and societal changes. With the rise of social networking and messaging platforms, human interaction is becoming increasingly rapid. These behaviours can also be found in the corporate world, and the HR function must adapt to the changing behaviours of its employees. This has led to the introduction of a chatbot. 25 years ago, information was accessed via the intranet. Today, the chatbot fetches this information, compiles it and makes it available instantly. That's efficient.
We also plan to deploy a tool to measure employee commitment and well-being. A tool incorporating artificial intelligence will enable us to take the temperature of our teams on an anonymous basis every week, so that we can provide our team leaders with this data and information. The idea is to be proactive so as to anticipate trends within the teams and deal with them quickly. For the future, the ambition is to use this data by combining it with other elements such as the rate of absenteeism within a team or career progression, and to carry out predictive analysis.
Artificial intelligence will never replace human decision-making.
Another illustration: PWC is moving towards a ‘skills-based organisation’. This is a model that places employees' skills at the heart of the company and how it operates, as opposed to more traditional models based on roles and positions. Here again, with systems using AI, we are able to make a permanent inventory of the skills available in our organisation; to map them against the skills requirements of future business lines (ESG, data, etc.); to identify the training needs of our employees; to offer them a training programme that meets their needs and enables them to progress in their careers.
When it comes to recruitment, we use assessment tools, which again rely on artificial intelligence to help us make decisions, thanks to AI-driven recommendations. Artificial intelligence will never replace human decision-making.
We also use Microsoft Booking to automate the scheduling of interviews and make the candidate's preboarding/onboarding process more fluid, thereby improving their experience.
What do digital transformations imply for the very essence of HR jobs?
Barbenchon: I think we're now moving towards a model where HR becomes a genuine strategic consultant. That goes a lot further.
Haas: I can confirm that. In addition to the operational side of things, there's also a strategic side that requires agility. We need to be able to adapt to changing business needs. The HR function acts as an advisor and partner to the business, and is also there to educate on a number of dimensions.
Barbenchon: Artificial intelligence is transforming the profession. Thanks to this technology, HR will be able to go even further in their analyses and predictivity, and get to know their people better. It's an accelerator.
Another benefit: with the increasingly pressing regulatory requirements that companies are facing (CSRD, pay transparency, etc.), technologies like AI will accelerate the collection, transformation and modelling of data, which is not insignificant either.
In short, what you are announcing is the programmed death of Excel spreadsheets!
Barbenchon: The solutions incorporate Excel-style spreadsheets, so you can still manipulate the data... What we absolutely want to reduce and eliminate, however, is the transfer of confidential or sensitive data by email, which is often done via spreadsheets. What we can encourage with an HRIS is the sharing of data that is updated in real time, and very often actionable, which not only provides greater security but also greater transparency and accountability for users outside human resources, such as line managers.
Read the original French-language version of this interview /