Human resource in the digital age

KARACHI: Human Resource (HR) can be said to be the backbone of any company. Without HR running things smoothly, the rest of the management could fall into disarray with no one to come to their rescue.

CONNEX 2018 is a conference that aims to bring the best in human resource under one roof and this year's meeting in Karachi was no different.

Hosted by The Pakistan Society for Training and Development (PSTD) and the Pakistan Society of HR Management (PSHRM), the conference brought together some of the biggest names in HR to raise the standard of professionalism.

Its mission is to build and broaden professional leadership, capacity, and capability in Pakistan.

With a running theme of 'The Future Of Work!', the speakers at the one-day conference talked about how they can make their work better and more efficient. 

Speaking at the event, Hasan Azhar, CEO of HRSG, said we need to “adapt or die”. 

For him, in order for people to evolve, they need to adapt themselves to technology that they have around them.

"If we do not, we will be left behind," he warned.

Taking inspiration from the popular Bill Gates quote, “How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose”, Sadaf Hatif, who heads the outsource department at HRSG, said by bringing HR and technology together, the world of tomorrow will be delivered today.

On the other hand, Faisal Qamar, who is the managing partner at HRSG, said that striving towards an inclusive company is what each and every company should be doing with the focus towards bringing each and every member of the company in the loop about its affairs.

Ghazanfar Ali, the country manager for IBM Pakistan, was of the opinion that innovation is important nowadays. 

He gave the example of Netflix, which started off as a company which rented out DVD's but as soon as it knew what customers wanted, which was a particular television show or a movie at a particular time, it moved onto the stage of becoming a streaming service. 

Iman, one of the organisers of the event, said that the idea for the conference came from the post-industrial revolution and bringing those involved in human resource under one roof.

Having had a successful conference in Lahore last year, she said that it was time to bring the conference to Karachi. 

According to Iman, Karachi has given a pretty good response so far with 500 participants at this year's conference.