In December 2015 we began the journey of taking an unprecedented look at the people functions powering some of the world’s most technologically advanced, engineering led businesses.
We set out to find where the HR industry has come from, where it is heading to – and quickly realized that it already is, and will continue to become an enormously strategic pillar of organizations worldwide.
And so after a lot of research and peer-driven nominations from the Hot Topics community, we settled on a ‘Tech HR 100’ list, filled with the world’s foremost HR leaders, whose astonishing achievements have helped contribute to the position their organizations are in today. Be that Box’s Evan Wittenberg and his dislike of old HR, SoundCloud’s Caoimhe Keogan, and her data-driven preparation for global expansion or WeWork’s Soo Hong (Now VP People, Tinder) who grew the $16bn valued company from 250 to 1,200 people in just over a year.
To those of you who were kind enough to contribute, thank you for your time. We hope you continue to share knowledge with your peers, and that in turn, it will encourage others to do so too.
Initially, we wanted to see how data fed into the HR proposition of these companies more broadly, and so off the back of the top 100 list, we conducted a series of interviews. What became apparent as the series progressed, however, is that the ‘new HR’ is so much more than data.
Data and technology are both a key foundation and enabler, but the point that was made over and over again, was this:
Data in a vacuum is useless. It is what you do with it and where you take it that makes all the difference.
Although brief, the Digital HR Report represents an amalgamation of our findings from the 25 interviews with those on the Tech HR 100 list, and a survey conducted once the dust had settled with 20 individuals from the list too.
We hope you’ll be able to use some of the insight to your advantage, and take a nugget or two of wisdom from these leading executives and gain a strategic organizational advantage through your people.
The Digital HR Report can be found above in full.
