Revolutionizing HRD through Digitalization

Abstract

Technology and its applications have had a significant impact on human resource development (HRD), and they will continue to do so at an ever-increasing speed. We used our a priori opinions and experiences to identify application areas. We then searched, within each of our identified areas to find published sources, including journals, blogs, and websites, to describe the application areas that have impacted, and will impact, HRD. Areas identified and described include authoring, performance management and coaching, personalisation and continuous learning, analytic metrics, robotic continuous improvement, employee engagement and autonomy, employee wellbeing and life balance, attrition reduction, simulations, digital dialogues, communities of practice, credentialing, soft skills development, and ethics. Given the extensive impact on HRD, practitioners must be ahead of the wave of change. Further, academic programs must assess their curricula and make modifications so graduates of their programs will be well prepared to meet the demands of the marketplace. While a critique of these applications of digitalisation and AI is important, that is not the purpose of our article; we limited ourselves to describing the applications only.