Prioritising workplace compliance, policies and procedures is non-negotiable for all human resource professionals. But, as the tumultuous pandemic years have so starkly shown, it can’t be done at the expense of an organisation’s purpose, values, culture – and more importantly, employee experience.

Covid-19 has totally upended the way we live and work. Where and how we earn a living has changed so dramatically and quickly in the last two years, it is barely recognisable. And although the worst of the global lockdown is over, there’s no going back. On some levels, we shouldn’t want to. The pandemic, as devastating as it was, wasn’t all bad. For companies lagging behind in technology, it has sped up digitalisation, and it’s brought much needed changes to inflexible, controlling and often hierarchical workplaces. Critically, it has shifted attention to people over profit, and with it, the importance of connection, responsiveness, and the need for a healthy employer-employee relationship. Ultimately, it has forced those in charge of people management to put the human back into human resources.

An evolving post-pandemic HR function, with different priorities, calls for a different approach. It also calls for different tools to support it. In a recent survey of US and UK HR professionals, 73% said they didn’t have the tools and resources they needed to do their jobs well.

“As workplaces transform, so too do HR professionals need to transform,” said LexisNexis South Africa HR director, Gcobisa Ntshona. The legal tech giant’s human capital chief believes changing dynamics in the workplace require a new way of thinking and doing.

“If we are to become people-first organisations, the focus needs to be on protecting, motivating and empowering people. This means leveraging HR tech solutions to free up time to focus less on transactional tasks and more on purpose, employee experience, workplace culture, rebuilding staff morale, and integrating HR vision with business strategy,” she said.

Ntshona is part of the innovative, digital-first team at LexisNexis SA which, based on key customer feedback, has developed a new and bespoke HR/HC software solution, Lexis Smart Human Capital, offering the latest compliance and regulatory content, together with workflow and intuitive online document filing, easing the workload of overburdened and distracted HR professionals.

Through access to curated, easy-to-digest, relevant content, customised HR documents powered by Lexis Smart Documents, user-friendly guidance tools, and exclusive access to a bank of CCMA cases, HR practitioners – along with labour relations professionals and all those in employee-related leadership roles – are able to make faster decisions and resolve disputes speedily, making more pressing HR challenges more manageable.

“Rather than outsourcing tasks and increasing manpower to manage workload, this new tool saves time and boosts productivity so overstretched HR professionals can focus their efforts on the things that are important to them and the people they serve,” said Ntshona.

Game-changing solutions like Lexis Smart Human Capital reduce reliance on labour consultation and the number of resource centres HR professionals need to maintain a proper HR governance structure. The solution also provides analytics that assist the rest of the business to formulate and implement company strategy and vision.

For more information on Lexis Smart Human Capital, visit https://bit.ly/3CHuqkI