Creating organisational readiness for virtual assessments

“Today, companies have to radically revolutionise themselves every few years just to stay relevant. That’s because technology and the Internet have transformed the business landscape forever. The fast-paced digital age has accelerated the need for companies to become agile.” – Nolan Bushnell

Managing any kind of change in organisations is challenging. Change, of course is considered the new normal. As we move to a more digital world, many HR processes will be run increasingly virtually.
That said, the larger and more widespread the organisation and business, the transition from physical to virtual becomes that much more complex.

People assessments, be it for recruitment, development or promotion, are a very sensitive part of talent management. Taking these processes virtual has the challenges of change management, which are usual. These are further coupled with additional people challenges around managing talent in a meaningful and sensitive way.

To discuss these issues and how organisations can deal with these, Think Talent organised the Thought Leadership Series event this time around— ‘Creating Organisational Readiness for Virtual Assessments’. Ajay Choudhry, CHRO, SRF Limited, P Dwarkanath, director-group human capital, Max India, Yuvraj Srivastava, head-HR, MakeMyTrip and A. Sudhakar, CHRO, Dabur as panel members.

Overall session was moderated by Bimal Rath, founder-Think Talent Services. The session focussed on five major questions related to change management:
• Any change has challenges and issues. For large complex organisations, what’s different when ‘going digital’ with people processes, such as assessments?
• What does it take to gain executive sponsorship in going virtual for any kind of assessment?
• What are key people sensitivities with regard to virtual assessments?
• How does one enable HR managers and employees to make the ‘technology transition’?
• How does one establish credibility and the human touch for a virtual process, as touchy as assessment?

Senior HR leaders from various organisations were a part of the session. Following the panel discussion, all the guests discussed in groups various issues related to the challenges they face during the transition and key learning they had during the change management.