In our modern digital society, data is abundant, and storage is affordable. Businesses, governments and even individuals can (and do) collect every transaction, click, swipe, location, message and attribute in their datasets. With just a few clicks on my smart device, I can review data on every place I’ve been, how much I spent, every step I took, what the weather was like and who I was with. Businesses collect the same abundance of data.
Sometimes I walk through the grocery store and marvel at the way customers float through the aisles, blissfully unaware of the logistical nightmare it probably took to stock the shelves. They have no idea how many people, systems, and modes of transportation it takes to make everything magically appear on their grocery shelves. But I do. As the Senior Director of Software Engineering at KlearNow, I spend my days preserving the bliss of those grocery shoppers.
A slow car has never won a Formula One race. The Olympics doesn’t reward slow times in swimming, track or any other clock-timed sport. Likewise, slow data speeds don’t win over customers or colleagues in the real-time business world. Microsoft’s own research once reported that a person visiting a website on a connected device is likely to wait no more than 10 seconds to see it before moving to a competitor’s site.
With COVID-19’s ever-changing conditions – growing infection rates, shifting and new vaccine mandates, variant outbreaks and office closures and re-openings – HR has stepped up and taken on a significant role in helping organizations navigate every employee’s personal and work life needs. COVID-19 accelerated the evolution already underway in HR, with HR growing beyond being a policy and procedure hub into a strategic business partner.
