Digital Transformation: IT-HR Collaboration Crucial for ‘Culture Change’
Culture change is crucial to successful digital transformation and IT business leaders i.e. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) will be key to this process, says Gartner.
In its IT business culture predictions for 2021, Gartner said CIOs will play an important role as Chief HR Officers (HROs) in establishing business mindsets, practices and culture change across organizations.
“A lot of CIOs have realized that culture can be an accelerator of digital transformation and that they have the means to reinforce a desired culture through their technology choices,” says Elise Olding, Research Vice President at Gartner.
IT-HR Partnership to Culture Change
Emphasizing on HR’s role in fulfilling organizational mission and values, Gartner said partnering with HR will help IT team make right process and technology decision-making and achieve the desired culture change.
“A partnership with the CHRO is the perfect way to align technology selections and design processes to shape the desired work behaviors,” says Olding.
While the enterprise IT architecture can adopt principles that support culture transformation, partnering with HR ensures the intended cultural traits are embedded in the process.
All this is a set of process that requires a cultural shift in overall practices and mindset and, Gartner recommends ‘culture hacking’ to start with.
“A great way to jump-start culture change and enable adoption of new technologies and processes is the culture hack. Start with a small, motivated user group and use it to showcase fast wins and results,” adds Olding.
Culture Change Initiatives
Citing one of its recent surveys, Gartner says that more than 60 percent of surveyed companies have already completed culture change initiatives or in the process.
And, existing culture was a barrier to digital transformation for many of those initiatives.
According to Christie Struckman, Research Vice President at Gartner, 50 percent of cases reported failures in transformational initiatives and CIOs say ‘culture’ is the main barrier.
“The logical conclusion is that CIOs should start with culture change when they embark on digital transformation, not wait to address it later.” Christie adds.
By 2021, 80 percent of midsize to large enterprises will change their culture as a way to accelerate their Digital Transformation Strategy: Gartner
D&I Initiatives
Quick decision-making, ideally at the frontline, stands crucial to today’s fast-moving schedules running on short timelines.
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives make this achievable, says Gartner, recommending the teams to have multidisciplinary and diverse members with autonomy and accountability to act and realize financial targets.
John Kostoulas, Senior Research Director at Gartner, says D&I initiatives perform well only if they are scaled properly and reach frontline decision makers.
“Enterprises often overlook extending D&I programs, such as unconscious bias training, to frontline employees,” says Kostoulas.
He further adds that numerous technologies can boost the D&I programs by diagnosing the current state, developing respective leaders and driving inclusion into business execution.
Moreover, D&I is also an area that facilitates IT-HR collaboration as CIOs and CHROs.
“It’s worth the investment. Gartner research shows that inclusion can improve performance by over 30 percent in diverse teams,” Kostoulas adds.
Through 2022, 75 percent of organizations with frontline decision-making teams reflecting diversity and an inclusive culture will exceed their financial targets.
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