About Indi Seehra
Indi Seehra is an experienced HR professional, currently the Director of HR of London School of Economics, focusing on talent management, employee engagement, and cultural initiatives. Passionate about driving high performance in organisations, Indi combines his practical experience with academic involvement, teaching in MBA programs and researching leadership and organisational behaviour. He has a keen interest in the intersection of technology and HR, actively participating and speaking at HR tech conferences to keep abreast of the latest industry innovations.
How has the evolving nature of work impacted your HR strategies, technology and processes?
Historically, human resources departments played a very hands-on role in administrative activities, but today, technology has enabled us to take a completely different approach. Now, HR provides the tools and systems that empower managers to handle many tasks themselves in the most efficient way possible.
There can be a legacy mindset of HR controlling administrative workflows. With technology, those manual processes disappear and managers access information directly through self-service portals. HR's role becomes maintaining the technology, contractual elements, system updates, and enabling managers to leverage the tools successfully. The work transforms from repetitive tasks to valuable insights delivered through automation.
People instinctively want HR to handle steps we've always owned. But our focus today is empowering stakeholders with instant data and efficient workflows through digital systems. We must overcome legacy perspectives to transition successfully. Leadership, after all, is about overcoming legacy. Great leaders inspire progress because they've either broken away from, or they've changed legacy, that we thought never would be changed.
As an example, in a new organisation that I'm working with as an Independent Director, RESAVER are building from scratch, having hired the first employee. Our thinking is, how should we design HR in 2023-2024 without any pre-existing processes? It's a blank slate to embed the latest innovations from day one. That avoids the baggage of traditional models and frees us to reimagine every process.
How would you evaluate the adaptability and flexibility of current HR solutions and technology?
Though innovation fast advances HR systems on insights and efficiency, it is essential to be able to tailor and adapt the solutions to attune to organisational needs. When thinking about HR technology, the focal point must be the people who are going to use it. Listening to and understanding the needs of the user when designing the HR solution, and continuing to adapt it in the changing world of work is vital.
Even so, certain intrinsic elements of emotional intelligence, intuition and collective "humanness" defy automation, so must remain central. In fact, the most effective HR professionals innately sense scenarios through experience. Replacing human connections risks losing aspects valued in organisations exceeding mechanistic constructs. Since the pandemic, excitement around expanded HR technology frontiers continues deservedly building. But rather than full substitution, systems should enrich capabilities for more ethical and meaningful interactions between people.
The act of effortless communication draws on intricacies we perform intuitively - assisting, not supplanting, brings optimal impacts. As advancement persists, principles of upholding "humanness" must prevail as technology permeates workplace facets. Overall there is promising potential if deployment carefully considers inherent limitations while augmenting human strengths. But this demands continual mindfulness.
What role does technology play in ensuring HR strategies stay current and effective?
HR technology is central because seamless day-to-day operations must underpin executing longer-term strategic priorities. If fundamental processes falter, that undermines strategic buy-in.
Secondly, it's absolutely essential that technology allows HR to work in any way you want in terms of distributed work modalities - solutions must enable flexibility regardless of physical footprints.
Finally, there's still an unmet market need for tools bridging operational gaps between transformational vision and pragmatic integration across functions. Systems that smoothly consolidate data streams and workflows position HR leaders to guide organisational development more responsively despite volatility.
Ultimately HR technology should allow professionals to derive insights and make decisions more adeptly rather than just passively administer.
How important is it, and how do you measure whether your HR platform remains flexible and adaptive to the changing needs of your business?
Well, one key measure is feedback from our internal customers. This includes both staff and line managers, as they're the primary users of our platform. Their input is crucial to determine if the platform meets their needs and expectations.
In our case, at LSE, we have staff members and also students, and students can also be staff, this is a real life example. It might seem simple but we have a whole variety of data, so we require flexibility to adapt the HR solution to address these scenarios. And we need to think about not only in terms of our current needs, but how we may wish to evolve our HR platform to address new challenges going forward.
Another important consideration is that the technology providers listen to their customers, and are focused on incorporating the feedback of their customers into their product roadmap to align and attune to real life scenarios and requirements. What's important to customers today might not be in five years, so it's vital that our HR solution partners are invested in evolving their offerings and co-creating with their customers.
How do you anticipate the future of HR management given the rapid changes in the work environment?
There's no escaping the growing centrality of data-driven insights after the pandemic accelerated digitization. Employee wellbeing, engagement, productivity, pay fairness - data is indispensable for monitoring all these areas.
Each generation probably claims uniquely high needs, but today's youth do seem to require more reassurance and feedback to stay motivated. My generation was more resilient without the same support in our early careers.
So yes, we absolutely rely on sophisticated analytics that turn raw data into prescriptive actions around turnover, burnout, work-life balance, and related issues. Those provide an edge in talent retention and workplace culture. However, it's still an emerging science as these digital tools and remote environments are so new.
The pandemic dramatically amplified those challenges. Anxiety and alienation profoundly impact staff across sectors, especially younger cohorts. However, we're still learning how to interpret correlations between work models, engagement levels, and productivity. There are more unknowns than definitive answers at this stage.
In my view, the future of HR management is increasingly intertwined with data driven insights. The challenge for HR professionals will be to judiciously select the right areas to focus on, making impactful decisions. We are seeing a new era where data provides not just information but also actionable insights, guiding us towards the most crucial aspects. This advancement is poised to reshape the HR landscape significantly.
What are your top priorities when considering an HR solution or platform?
First and foremost, the look and feel of the system are crucial. It's about the immediate impression when you open up the system. And then how easily you can navigate and find what you need. Despite trends, aesthetics still play a significant role.
Secondly, the system's adaptability and flexibility is key, to attune to the unique needs of your organisation. The HR platform must have the capacity to be tailored to specific customer requirements, which is a major factor in its usability and effectiveness.
Thirdly, the system's adaptability to integration is important. I'm currently not convinced about the effectiveness of a single ERP type system handling all organisational functions. The best HR system might not be ideal for other areas like sales or supply chain.
The goal is flexible integration, allowing the choice of the best systems for each function without compromise. Although the idea of one system for everything sounds appealing, diversity in specialised systems is more practical and beneficial.
The HR solution’s adaptability to integrate, along with the system’s design to fit to end users, and the ability to tailor the technology to the customer’s needs are critical considerations.
About RESAVER and The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
RESAVER Pension Fund has been created to facilitate the free circulation of researchers by removing pensions as an obstacle to mobility across Europe and by supporting research performing organisations, regardless of their size, to operate cross-border and increase their attractiveness to international employees.
RESAVER is a pan-European occupational pension fund that is exclusively open to public and private institutions employing researchers in the European Economic Area.
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a prestigious university in the heart of London, renowned for its focus on social sciences, including economics, politics, sociology, law, and anthropology. It offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs, attracting a diverse and international student body. LSE is distinguished by its influential alumni, including Nobel laureates and global policy-makers, highlighting its significant impact on global political and economic discourse.