What are the challenges faced by management in handling technological changes in a public organization? How does the HRD framework support structured organizational set-up in managing technological change? Explain with relevant examples.
When used correctly, technology applications drastically save money and time. It helps workers improve the decision-making process and the speed of collecting, analyzing, and processing data. When not used well, sensitive data can be compromised and disrupt critical services, fraud, and theft. Therefore, it is essential to understand how the technology works in government because most governance systems are converging and consolidating into shared databases and support systems. Today, every federal agency has a chief information officer (CIO) and other officers to coordinate the development of secure and uniform technology systems. Therefore, civil servants have to learn to manage change as technological reforms occur regularly.
Today, organizations need to employ productive and flexible management that meets the human resource needs of a firm. Technology gives government agencies many advantages. For example, it expands the skill set of employees. As a result, a firm can increase the participation and involvement of employees in all regions of a country, including remote areas. It expands the pool of participants by sharing data through cloud computing, intranets, social media, among others.
One of the main challenges that federal, state, and local government employees face is the responsibility to maintain the integrity of the data they collect and store. Most of the security breaches that occur concerning technology are due to human error and public management lapses. When that happens, workers can expose sensitive information to the public, such as social security numbers of customers or losing laptops with vital government information. Such lapses are not technological problems but public administration issues that the leadership of agencies should address. However, with proper training and sensitization on workers can maintain the integrity of the information in their possession. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Another issue that is handling technological changes possess to organizations is knowledge management. Knowledge management involves the development of internal administrative procedures or more comprehensive or enterprise-wide policies and procedures. Internal processes ensure that there are no disruptions due to illness or long term leave of absence. Knowledge management policies address most questions regarding the storage of data, passwords, network, and computer workstations. The plans address the length of time that data can stay in government databases. Thus, governments must also change to remain relevant to the provision of services. Therefore, state agencies must do is to improve their processes to gain an advantage.
The human resource department (HRD) plays a leading role in the management of any change in an organization. One of the best ways of implementing changes in managing people to transition them to learn to use technologies to benefit the organization. Managing change entails ensuring that the workers have the necessary skills to implement emerging changes, business strategies, and products that minimize adverse outcomes. The human resources department must at all-time guide organizations in making critical organizational changes from the start to their conclusion. The HRD is vital in influencing employee’s understanding of evolution; improve communication between the leadership of an agency and the workers. It identifies and mitigates risks and enhances employee satisfaction in the office. It also boasts trust between the management and employees as well as improving employee skills to deal with the emerging changes.
The human resource departments work with the executive management. It is essential for the leadership of an agency to buy-in to the technological changes taking place in society. The concurrence of the management of an organization is also critical because it can unify the institution towards the achievement of common goals. They are also contributing to making institutional reforms part of their corporate strategies and support the human resources departments to win employee support. It is also essential to involve the management in creating changes in a society because it has the skills to coach the employees who report to them to ensure that they understand the vision of the firm. Managers can have one-on-one conversations with workers to train them on the consequences of the changes and, in the process, determine the commitment of the workers to cause. The involvement of management in the change process makes it easy to explain to workers what is changing, why it is changing, and how it will affect them and the organization.
One of the main challenges that organizations face when pursuing any form of change is the lack of change management skills among its leaders. Human resources management has to play this critical role regularly and train the majority of the leaders on the best way to manage the transition. Since the majority of the workers and their leaders have difficulty appreciating, it is essential for HR to develop specific training toolkits about change. Therefore, the human resource department is a critical facilitator for change that other branches and institutions initiate. The HRD serves as the focal point for answering questions and concerns by explaining to staff the impact that the changes would have on them.
Human Resources Department plays strategic roles in calculating the post changes returns on investments. It identifies key performance indicators that measure and track the results of the workers as well as communicate them. When the HR champions the need for change, it can help the organization increase comfort, buy-in by all departments and staff. As a result, it increases the success rate of the change initiative.