Will HR function become an APP?

This is not a far into the future scenario. After all, the retail banking industry HAS become a mobile APP some years ago. So, instead of debating much, let us imagine how this will happen.

Permit me a bit of creative license to re-imagine “HR as an APP”

Career Maps instead of Google Maps – That will tell me, the employee, the "traffic" that is seeking to reach the same destination, and hence the time it will take to reach there. If an employee takes a different route, it will immediately re-route, re-calculate the distance and time to reach. If a route has tolls, those toll gate conditions are also visible.

Work Log instead of Life Log – It will record the focused work I was able to accomplish that day. It will look at flag clear rate vs flag accumulate rate in my email box, measure the ping-pongs of a single transaction as an indicator of effectiveness. It will integrate production or sales volume with effort, compare with peer group in real time and predict uninterrupted time it will take to finish this task. It will record my emotional state based on voice pitch and amplitude, and also tell me to take it easy – much like over-speeding apps do

My Talent Profile instead of my linkedin profile – It will provide the history of my assignments, the special skills that I got recognized for and will have the facility to re-score my talent profile for different positions, different assignments and most specially when the capability criteria shifts from Set A to Set B. My portfolio that contains my real artefacts will be integrated with my profile

My Engagement book instead of my facebook – It will identify my friends and interest groups, allow us to share content and causes, allow us to interact in real-time – “whatsapp”, basically help us show to the world as to what we care about and know what others care about

Areas like learning (e-learning), payroll (an easy APP to imagine), Incentives (much like a financial product with internal and external factors built into it) already have lent themselves to APP-ification

The only thing for which we will seek real HR people is to imbibe attitudes, help shift our values and beliefs, deal with emotional conflicts, have a second opinion on our judgments. For everything else, we will go to a HR APP.

Needless to say that in this future, the contours of “organization” will dramatically change too. The organization will be more of a diffuse, self-organizing social and I dare say commercial network!