HR Vision Podcast #05 – HR Technology ft. Kamal Radhakrishnaiah

Ivo:
Hey everyone, and welcome to the HR Vision podcast. I'm your host, Ivo, and every week I'm going to have a conversation that matters about HR. This week with me, I have Kamal Radhakrishnaiah. Welcome Kamal. How are you?

Kamal:
Hi Ivo. Thanks for having me. I'm doing good. How are you?

Ivo:
I'm doing great doing great, beautiful Saturday morning...

Kamal:
You got my last name right!

Ivo:
I did?

Kamal:
Yeah!

Ivo:
Amazing, amazing. I'm very happy. From now on, if you don't mind, I'm gonna call you only from the first name.

OK so Kamal is an HR solution architect, Microsoft MVP and owner of the NoCodeHR Blog. Today he is here with me to talk about technology related to HR. So tech in HR will be the subject of this episode. So Kamal, you're ready? Excited?

Kamal:
Yeah, I'm ready. I'm excited, so I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Ivo:
Awesome, awesome, let's go for it then so. As usual, I always ask my guests a small introduction about themselves, you know? So tell me about you, and your professional background. Let's start there.

Kamal:
OK. You guys know my name. I live in the Netherlands for five years now, with my wife and we have a 3 year old daughter. and we are originally from India so we we migrated to the Netherlands in 2016, June I think. So that's a bit about my personal background and professional wise, not by design, but I evolved to be a HR technology enthusiasts in my career. So I've worked across different industries and different HR technology solution platforms. So to say like Oracle, Microsoft and SAP. So that's a bit about me and May this year I also got the MVP status from Microsoft. I'm very happy and excited about that.

Ivo:
Sure. Congrats. First of all. It's curious, I came to the Netherlands in 2016 as well in August. So more or less at the same time. It's quite interesting.

So, but your studies were or about technology. They were not about HR, I suppose, since you said that it was a not ... by design, exactly.

Kamal:
So I actually studied mechanical engineering in my university. and then, I happened to start my career at Oracle Consulting. As part of the HR technology division, so to say. And yeah, once I was involved in the initial assignment, which was related to PeopleSoft back in the days and a bit about Oracle Cloud. It got me interested and I was curious about HR and I didn't know a bit about HR before I, you know, I started off in the assignments and everything, but I did not have the expertise to go through and understand the business requirements. So once I started working I also started doing my MBA in parallel with HR as a specialization. So that way I could align myself to what I was actually doing.

When I look back, I think being where I am in my profession, it just happened by chance and some things came across, and then I started becoming curious about it. That was how I ended up with HR as an expertise now, and technology was more... I was involved in technology when I was studying in university, but not IT, so not software and tech that supports businesses in the background or something like that. So I was always interested in tech and tried to do some things in technology, but not the way I'm doing now. I never thought I would be doing what I'm doing now.

Ivo:
So it was an interesting chance, or it just sort of happened?

Kamal:
Yeah, most of the times it's I feel in India, but although there are people who are very enthusiastic in a specific technology, and they pursue education and work in the same industry. But it was not the case with me, so it was not the case.

Ivo:
Alright, so you landed in HR, in HR technology. What keeps you still excited about it?

Kamal:
So, one of the things that's interesting for mean in HR is that it looks so simple when you look at it from the outside. But when you actually start looking at it from the inside, from the HR department's perspective, it is more complex than it looks. The reason being that, if you look at any other process, right? So when you look at HR as a process, it is geography-dependent and it varies for every country and when you look at other processes maybe you have the opportunity. To centralized a lot of processes, but with HR it's always local, so you end up having different discussions about the same process when you discuss with people from different countries. And that also brings me to the the cultural aspect of my job. So I've always been lucky to work with people from different geographies. I'm in tune by nature, and, I seem to think I'm flexible. But when I actually work, you know, with different people, I realize that there's so much more to learn. You know, from a cultural standpoint, in the way of working in the way of working together. Or doing projects together, for example so that keeps me going I feel. So there's a lot I can learn from a work perspective. Because every time I feel I know something, there's always more to it and I realize this, there's nothing I know about it. And the other aspect is I get to meet people from different cultural backgrounds because HR by nature is like that. So when you work for any project or any company you're always involved with people from different countries because it's most of the time it's a global corporation, where you have people from different countries working on the project. So those are two things that I feel happy about.

On the technology side HR keeps evolving. So in the last nine years. I feel there's a lot that has happened in the world of tech and in HR. And the way business look at HR has changed drastically. So I feel there's a lot of disruption that keeps happening, and that's one of the reasons that I feel there's a lot I can learn and also look at things differently.

Ivo:
Very interesting, that's a good perspective on it. So you said before that you have experience with the, well I guess we can say some of the major platforms for technology and technology related to HR. So Oracle, SAP and Microsoft. I know that now you are more focused on Microsoft. You were part of our company, at FourVision before.

Why do you think you are now more focused on on Microsoft? Or do you see it in the same plane? What is your perspective from this these companies that you have experience with?

Kamal:
So that's a very interesting question, which I tried to think of many times. Every time I experience a new technology, on one end I started off a focussing on Oracle technology, in the beginning of my career, and I believed that it was the best and I still believe it is the best. But then I shifted the perspective to Microsoft. Technology and Dynamics 365 as a solution. And you know which can support HR technology, and then my perspective also said "this is also the best" you know.

Ivo:
OK yeah.

Kamal:
And then when I looked at SAP for example, now, then I feel SAP SuccessFactors is also the best. But then when I combine all the work I've done and I look at it from an objective perspective: none of the products can meet all the requirements.

Ivo:
That actually goes goes back to what you're saying. The complexity of HR processes of different geographies, and they focus in different parts of the processes right?

Kamal:
Exactly. So every company you know looks at each of these solutions differently. Although these solutions are built to meet all the global requirements, you cannot really say you know everything is 100%, so it's like a paradox, right. And that is where, you know when you when you look at it, you know the art of consulting and trying to solve problems with the best effort and best solution available comes into place. And you know companies like FourVision or any other consulting company you know. That is where it helps the businesses look at how the technology can support the business in the optimized way. And it can be not perfect, but it is the most optimized solution for a particular situation and that's what I feel, when I try to compare things, it's actually not fair to do the comparison.

Ivo:
Yeah I get that.

Kamal:
So and it's also a learning and every solution, and every scenario has its own perspective and we have to look at it. Yeah, more open with the perspective of how can we optimize the situation with the parameters we have at hand. And most of the time, we will never be able to meet 100% of, making everybody happy. So, if we reach some point of where everybody can look at each other and smile, you know from business and IT, then I think we've been successful.

Ivo:
Do you think, of those three platforms, they have the same level of personalization? And what I mean by that is you as a consultant or someone that actually works with HR Tech that chooses one of these platforms or is actually specializing in one of these platforms. Do you think Microsoft allows a bit more personalization, for example, because I know that is, I know Microsoft better I have to say. And it seems that there are some levels of personalization that you can adapt. Help the customer with. What do you think of that? Do you think it's the same level? All the three? They can actually have a lot of personalization.

Kamal:
From a pure technical sense. I would say they do support extensibility to a certain extent right? To what extent and what is the complexity of it - like for example, if you look at a Microsoft technology, then the future of extensibility is maybe in Express Plus technology platform that allows extensibility for the Dynamics side. Or maybe the Power Platform that allows extensions on the first party customer engagement applications side. There are similar capabilities on others and when you look at moving into cloud, all these big vendors support low-code to no-code extension platforms which is hosted on the cloud as a platform service solution. On the technical side: is it the same or not? I'm pretty sure they will not be at the same way of working, but they will offer the same level of flexibility. I think so. So they would offer the same level of flexibility. Maybe in some areas, some platforms are a bit more complex or a bit more simple, but it varies. I still go with the same answer where I say "All of them are the best".

Ivo:
Yeah, all of them are the best!

Kamal:
Yeah, so I would be objective about that.

Ivo:
I get it, I get it. I guess it depends a lot on the the type of company have at hand, you know, what are their needs, their requirements, their budget as well? Because this these solutions, they differ in terms of budget as well. I think it's a good approach to have.

Kamal:
The other thing that comes to my mind, Ivo, is when we look at, you know, scenarios where you want to extend the standard solutions. Then you can also look at some things which are offered standard by a partner like you know like FourVision offers a set of standard extensions, which may support some localizations, and in the same way all of the other platforms also supports some kind of extensibility. So, you know partners build solutions which are specific to our industry or which are specific to a specific geography and that would be an easy solution when you look at it from a customer perspective.

Ivo:
Now I get that yeah, that makes sense. Now I know that for the last couple of years you've been more connected to Microsoft, so of course you are a Microsoft MVP for people that don't know exactly what that means in terms of you know of getting that award or that recognition from Microsoft, can you explain a little bit what that is?

Kamal:
So the first real conversation I had about every MVP was with one of the MVP's from Australia, Amey Holden, and I was just asking her about the same question, so I was like, you know, I was telling us that I'm very curious about it and what does it mean and everything. So the first thing she told me was "It's a long journey so being an MVP is a journey and it's not like a like a one-time, getting the award and you know, it means something. So it's more about the passion for sharing what you know. So that is what she told me and also in the process you learn a lot. So when you try to share your knowledge, learn a lot. So she was explaining that you have to, you know, start sharing your knowledge and then at some point in time, if you feel or if a community member feels that you've shared content that adds a lot of value to other people in the community. Then being MVP is a recognition from Microsoft that you have contributed positively to the to the community and share your knowledge and the recognition helps any individual scale up that knowledge into the next level. So it helps your journey of your passion to share knowledge. Go to the next level. I resonated with that after I got the award, because Microsoft also supports you to know things better and learn more. It kind of supports your journey of knowledge sharing, and being passionate about Microsoft Tech. You know, being MVP gives you some more opportunities in the direction of exploring Microsoft Tech better. And I think it's been quite quite a journey to reach that. A lot of learning in the process, I feel.

Ivo:
So it's a one time award? Or you can actually have it like every year, or something like that?

Kamal:
Ao it's an annual award. It's not like you need to renew, so you can not like one time and you stop it. You continue to be part of the community and share your knowledge. Then you get a renewal. So every year, I think July 1st was the annual renewal cycle and you would have noticed there's a lot of people you know who's renewed their their MVP status, which is great. And I think there are 3500 MVP's across the globe now so.

Ivo:
Nice. Well, apparently you're helping the community, and that's a great thing. I think we set basically the background and expertise, your view on platforms. Now I want to go a level deeper into tech and HR. So the question I have for you: What in your view is the importance of tech in HR? You know, how can actually technology enhance the lives of recruiters, HR professionals and IT alike?

Kamal:
Yeah. Let's take an example of any business, right? So let's take the automotive industry. We have a company and they manufacture cars. When you look at what makes the business work is: Yes, technology makes it work and it gives the product that comes out of the company which can be sold. But when you look at it, people are the key part of the business, so it's the people within the company that are making the rest of it work and. And the people aspect traditionally was considered to be part of HR, and it still is, so human resources as a business function, so to say, understands how, all the people in your company are feeling and how are they growing and what do they bring to the table.

And when we look at how that has changed, so in the past, like a long time ago, human resources as a business function was maybe looked at more from a compliance and back office function, so to say. Support the business to get the end product out into the market, right? But when you look at it now over a few years already, Human Resources is a strategic partner of the business. So they support the business to understand what people skills are necessary to make the business sustainable over a long period of time. So you know any company can have awesome technology today and you know it's a breakthrough in the industry, and that breakthrough will never stay the same for 10 years. Because the rest of the industry will adopt that breakthrough and learn from it and make the the end-product even better.

So the products and technology keep changing and keep getting better. The people in your company are your real assets. So when we look at, you know this perspective of human resources and see how technology can support, when you look at it from an HR perspective, technology helps everybody stay connected. So a simple example: You have different types of workforce in a in a company. You have executives, you have back office, you have professionals, you have IT professionals and shopfloor workers who are blue collar for example. But from a human resource perspective you would want all of them to know each other and also understand what each other are doing. And one of the things can be like having a simple org chart on the Employee Self-Service application.

So that is the technology that can link things together, or it can be something like: OK, you have a compliance process from the HR perspective that you you need to, let's say, have a regular performance interview in a specific country. And then having a self service application helps people do it quicker and stay connected. So as employee and manager you can have a conversation digitally. Everything is easy to go about and maybe in a mobile for example. So HR depends on technology to enhance the experience of employee in the company. And when I say this you can. You can broadly say employees and managers are the key stakeholders from the HR perspective and in the background. Of course, HR professionals themselves, they drive the technology, but in many cases you would also want the support from your executive office to look at technology and HR in the same way as HR would like it to look at, you know, for the rest of the company. So yeah, HR and tech enable the business to be sustainable is what I feel.

Ivo:
Oh yeah. Do you think IT plays a big role as well? Or not at all - what do you think?

Kamal:
So IT is the most critical part of the equation I feel, because the way HR as a function changed over the years is: now all the HR professionals are tech savvy and they want to use technology to support every process within HR. Like it can be simple compliance process where they need to submit some audit reports to external organization. They would want it to happen quickly. They would want it ready to send reports available from your technology platform, and also on the end-user side, like employees and managers staying connected, the amount of information they have to access at their fingertips. I think technology is the key enabler in the process, so it is the the main factor of the equation.

Ivo:
Yes. I'm asking that because a couple of episodes ago we were talking with Ana about, you know, sometimes one of the challenges that she finds as a consultant when she gets to to a customer, is that you have small budgets, sometimes displayed to HR. And then they invest in solutions without aligning with IT and then it's a whole Frankenstein of a small solutions here and there. So it's important, I think, to get the message out there that involve your IT with it. If you get a dysfunctional landscape of applications or even blend in your IT, involve your IT so you have an integrated solution. I think that's a good message to put out there, don't you think?

Kamal:
Yeah, I agree so. So basically when it comes to how your HR technology is evolving over a period of time. I think it should be a technology driven transformation rather than a business driven transformation. Of course they go hand-in-hand. So there cannot be a scenario where you say from an IT perspective having this technology makes sense, but if it doesn't solve a business problem then it would also complicate the situation. I think it's a very good balance between how business looks at IT and how IT looks at business, so you know there should be a common playground for both to come together. And say this is the technology that would solve a specific business problem, there can be scenarios where you really have a use case which would make you adopt a technology which is not supported in your landscape. So when you look at it as a company, let's say for example you take any of the bigger corporations, they either adopt one of the big vendors into their landscape. Like let's say if a company is using Microsoft Technology, we can take a real example:

I won't name the company, but if a company is using a Microsoft technology and they see that there is a specific business case. For example, to expedite the recruitment process with the automation and then they see "OK. The standard solutions may not support it" - then what you would do is try to understand how much value is created for the business. By adopting external solution, it can be a Phenom People or it can be iCIMS for example, where Microsoft is saying "OK, we would support a standard integration with the external technology stack". So then then the decision comes down to: "Is investing in this technology, which is out of our standard landscape, worth it or not?" And that's a very critical decision to take in many situations. You may say "Yes it does", and when you ask the business, it always is a yes. But when you ask the IT team they would say "Yes, but how do we look at it from a long-term perspective?"

There was a point in time when all the companies were moving to the cloud, that it is always good to invest in one application and one bigger solution as a standard go-to. But I also see nowadays because not everybody knows everything, right? Everybody has the expertise and there is a specific vendor which knows heavily about recruitment. And as a company, we would want that expertise to solve our business process, and then you would adopt different solutions. But the key is to make those decisions critically. So you should understand the value it brings in, the technology's complexity, how it adds to the landscape and then make a decision and say "OK, this is what will help us in the next five years". And this decision can be totally wrong in five years time and yes which is also OK. So that is how technology is evolving.

Ivo:
Alright, that's how business goes. That's you know, you sometimes need to make decisions. It's better to take a decision that no decision at all, sometimes.

Kamal:
Exactly and also as a business, maybe you're in a high growth scenario now and you know you're growing so rapidly that your recruitment processes is the key now. And in five years time you have become a stable organization. You know you have a stable growth and recruitment process can take a back step in five years time. So I think it's really complex to say in a general way, but if we have to really analyze each scenario and then make a decision. But in general I think the standard approach is still 'stay as close to standard. Don't try to adopt too much complexity in your landscape'. Because it adds to your technology depth. You have to maintain the solutions. Maintain the integrations. Like Ana said, you know having a different applications in the landscape is always complex, but it also needs a different objective look sometimes. So as a standard, I agree with that statement, but I think yeah, there are other scenarios also that come across in my mind.

Ivo:
Yes it's very complex indeed. It depends a lot and I think that's actually a good segue to the to the next question. Since there is so much complexity in businesses, in companies, different sizes of HR, the business as a whole, different markets, technologies involved, stakeholders involved, everything different geographies with different legal entities and all that. Do you think every company or at least most companies should actually have someone in HR? That it's and what you're doing now, like an HR solutions architect, you know someone that actually thinks about the processes and only his job is actually to make everything function better. In terms of processes, but also like what are the systems that we need right now as the company? That we need to have in, you know, in relation and manage those relationships with IT with the executive management and all that. Do you think that person would be a great addition or every company should look for?

Kamal:
So when you look at How the organizations grow. So you have companies starting off, let's say 50 employees as an example, and then you have a few IT employees, let's say three or four of them who specialize in getting things up and running. Then you have back office functions like finance, human resources, supply chain management, etc. So they know they are the SME's, the Subject Matter Experts in the process and everything. And then you, let's say as a chief executive, and the Financial Officer. You say "OK, we are growing now and we need some technology to support our growth" and the experts in the company check a few things and say oh we need to adopt XYZ technology to support this process. And then you start using the technology. like I said, every technology is safe. Everything is perfect. But you still have your own ways of doing things and you end up in scenarios where you can optimize more. And then few years down the line, what happens is: You continue to use the technology you have and adopt a few new technologies into your landscape and then, you don't really look at it from a perspective of how everything is working together. And that continues for a longer time and your organization is 100,000 employees now, and you still have this same tech in place, right? So the architecture, and it's something I'm curious about and I'm learning it. So when you look at different things of how HR technology or technology in general connects. So you have business as a team of professionals who say "What is needed to make sure the end product of the company is coming out to the market?"

So if it's an auto company, then the cars have to come out so that is the end product and the business teams like the supply chain team, the manufacturing team are are letting us know what is critical to make that happen and then you have the IT team which is maintaining the applications to support the business requirements. And when you look at architecture as a practice, so it's basically connecting the IT and business together and making sure you have like a North Star in mind and say "OK, we have these business requirements, which will also evolve in the future and we have these IT solutions which should also evolve in the future. And how can we connect these two together to make sure we have a road map - that will make our lives more easy?" So the decision can be that "OK, we want to streamline all our technology investments in one landscape", which can be Microsoft for example. Keeping a view of things and say "This is what we want to achieve 10 years from now. What is step one? Step two, step three, step four. And how do we continuously make the business and IT talk to each other to understand that goal, right?

So every time we have a discussion of deviating from that Northstar. How can we? Try to explain this is what is our goal and if we do this we have an impact. Architecture, in a way, is trying to connect those two dots with the with the long-term vision and it is.

Ivo:
Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but if I understand it correctly. It's still very complex. Like you, you should benefit from having someone thinking about that back road map in HR. But it also depends on the business needs and all the size of the company. All companies can focus on that.

Kamal:
Exactly, right. Also, having a HR solution architect as a dedicated role depends on on the amount of complexity you have in your landscape. So if you have the complexity. Then it automatically derives the need to have the role, but at the same time you can have like enterprise architect who can support all the business domains also.

Ivo:
So not only HR.

Kamal:
So it definitely adds value. But I would say you know if your size is big enough and your technology landscape is complex, then it is a must to have. So it is a small company and a simple landscape, maybe the HR consultant can already do that, you know, because it's more about thinking a bit long-term than the current project. So that's that's my view of it.

Ivo:
Yeah, I think the main the main theme of this conversation will be "Watch out. You know HR is a very complex. Don't take it slightly."

I have one last question for you. I think we are already with the with the good timing on this episode. It's basically the future. What do you see coming in the future of HR technology? Are there any trends as we talked about before in this podcast, about automation and diversity and inclusion, but especially in HR technology? There are any trends that you see coming? Do you think companies in which areas do you think companies will invest more?

Kamal:
So when you look at trends, it's always related to disruption I feel. And at the moment, for example, electric vehicles, is a disruption that's happening in the industry. And when you look at how that specific disruption impacts HR as a business function, is a movement of skills, right? So if you look at, let's say, a big auto manufacturer who is specialized in manufacturing diesel vehicle. All the workforce that they have will be specialized in that technology and now suddenly there's this. This huge change in the skills that are needed to build or manufacture electric vehicles, for example. Like Volkswagen cars comes out with Apple technology in it,so there's a collaboration. Or if you go, if you drive any car today so you have a lot of IT within the car. So when you look at the company which is manufacturing, there's a skill shift that is happening within the company, so you need more IT people who are specialized in how to align the car with the technology that is necessary. From a HR perspective, the trend would be to make sure we are able to assess the disruption and depict what the skills are that are critical for the organization.

This trend is going to impact the way we look at HR tech. So what is the solution we have to be able to predict that skill gap in the future. So you know, how do we plan the changes in the workforce and how do we understand to invest in training for example. So we have a set of people so it can't be a scenario where you change all the people right? So you have to create the people to be able to meet the requirements. So I think that's a big disruption, I feel. And that impacts the way we look at transformations in HR space and the way we look at all these technologies. You know, related stuff that supports HR as a business function, to train the workforce, etc.

The next one I feel is specifically related to mixed reality. Being a Microsoft MVP, I'm very excited about the Hololens. I'm still learning the basics of it. Of how mixed reality can support two things. So one is, how can you train your employees? So if you're like, again manufacturing industry, or let's say retail company or anything. You hired a new employee and the new employee has to start picking stuff and putting it on the shelves in a supermarket for example. So typically what would happen, you have another employee helping that person and say OK, this is what you need to do right? And when you look at mixed reality. So I think we are used to it from from different perspectives of using it, for games, or PlayStation, etc. But when you adopt it into a business scenario I feel it's going to disrupt the industry heavily. So it would optimize a lot of jobs and say "OK, you know, I want to train somebody on the job then then mixed reality solution can help them". Not just save the time for the other expert, but also make the new person get up to speed faster. So I think those are the two things I'm quite curious about and interested to learn more and how it's going to progress in the coming period.

Ivo:
For sure, they sound the really good trends. Very interesting ones for sure, especially that last one. Yeah it would be very cool. Well I think everything is moving there, so yeah, why not virtually?

Kamal:
Yeah. And you can see. I think last year there was also a surgery that happened with HoloLens. and you know you see a lot of you know impact coming through from that, because like you know there was a use case where the experts in a specific area of like a surgery that was happening, like they were all geographically situated in many countries and you know, having Hololens looking at the same, you know, seen in one physical location helped get the, you know get the surgery successfully done but involving 18 or 20 specialists from across the globe. So that kind of training- and learning experience with mixed reality is going to impact HR. Heavily because HR is the one who's planning those trainings and learning exercises.

Ivo:
Absolutely, very interesting. I think we had enough time. I think I took enough of your time. I really appreciate that. Maybe just, since you help so much the community of Microsoft, maybe it would be nice to give a shout out on the on the podcast about your blog. So it's No Code HR. Nocodehr.com - so if people want to know more about your work and what. To do with the with the with the Microsoft Community, they can find a lot of information there, right?

Kamal:
Yeah, so and I'm active on LinkedIn most of the time, so if there's anything in the world of dynamics 365 Human Resources that I can help with, I will be happy to to support and have a discussion. So I'm always open for a coffee chat.

Ivo:
Cool! So we're gonna leave all that information in the summary of this episode. Once again Kamal, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Kamal:
Yeah thanks. A lot Ivo for having me. I'm a ex-FourVision family member. So yeah, I'm happy to be here and share my thoughts. So it's really nice of you to have me and it was an exciting conversation for me and I would definitely cherish this. Thanks a lot.

Ivo:
For sure. Let's maybe do it another time. Why not talk about something else?

Kamal:
Definitely, thanks a lot Ivo.

Ivo:
Thank Kamal, I'll see you next time!

Kamal:
Bye bye!