Last month, I wrote an intro to Blockchain technology, calling it A Glimpse at the Future of HR Data. Now, I want to take you a step further and show some examples of why this technology is poised to be so disruptive to common business processes.
Get to Know "Smart Contracts"
Some cryptocurrency coins, such as Ethereum, go a step further than Bitcoin and enable a process to take place on top of the blockchain that functions almost like an app or a program integrated with the data. These "smart contracts" are instructions that can intelligently execute actions once certain conditions are met within the blockchain. This layer of automation has many in the tech world very excited because of the possibilities for streamlining workflows and boosting productivity — not only for your workforce broadly, but specifically for HR processes.
Productivity and Organization
Software giant Oracle recently filed a patent for an internal workplace blockchain to manage the office of the near future. Such a system could keep track of employee work behaviors: the status of an ongoing project, goal achievement, target delivery, and contributions from team members. Your managers would be better enabled to truly support their direct reports as team leaders rather than just managing day-to-day activities. And since the blockchain is reliably secure, it can be trusted with proprietary data and significant details.
Onboarding
It is a huge task for any organization to get a new hire up to speed. It involves a coordinated effort across teams, ranging from HR to IT to management. The process involves a template of sorts — every new hire follows a similar path: ID card, email account, access to computer systems, documents to sign, and so forth.
Much of the burden of this rollout can be automated using smart contracts on a company's blockchain network. An administrator could enter basic details — a name, a start date — and the program could take it from there, automatically populating many elements of the onboarding checklist that would previously have been done manually. Think of the time and energy your management and IT teams could save.
Transitioning an Employee's Exit
In much the same way that it is important to help someone get up and running quickly, it is often just as important to close out an employee's access when they leave. Smart contracts can facilitate the removal of someone's security clearance or building access, revoke digital permissions to files or email, and so forth.
In my experience, this is an area where many organizations drop the ball — employees are left with access they should not have for far too long. It doesn't matter the circumstances for their departure; as soon as someone no longer needs their access, it needs to be revoked because they represent a risk. Smart contracts make following through on that premise very simple. Changing one line in someone's personnel file could instantly set off a chain reaction of automated processes removing their access from every system they no longer need.
Smart contracts are an exciting application poised to make a real difference to business processes. I expect that the way many HR activities are conducted will be significantly reimagined using smart contracts through blockchain mechanisms over the coming years.
