Why Real-Time Technology Matters to Human Capital

The Real-Time Imperative

Posted by Joseph Fung on Mon, Oct 22, 2012

The business environment is no longer a closed, easily controllable ecosystem. For the first time in history, we have four generations in the workplace at the same time. Many of these workers make a habit of publicly sharing personal information in ways that have never previously been possible. And most employees are connected to friends, family, co-workers, and the world, 24 hours a day

Creating a high-performance culture amid such complexity and connectivity requires new tools and new approaches that work in harmony with this new fluid environment. Not only will compliance, control and enforcement fail to produce the exceptional culture you need to remain competitive, they simply don’t work in today’s workplaces.

Don't waste time! The real-time imperative demands that you act on what you learn from feedback as quickly as possible. Photo by Ben Dodson.

This is what we call the Real-Time Imperative.

Competing in Real-Time

Change is happening now, not later: If things are not going well in your organization, your employees are searching for the next opportunity as you read this article; When your company makes a mistake with a customer, she is telling the world about it within seconds; An awesome product you sent back for further review is about to be pre-empted by one that was quicker to market. Building a high-performance culture today means embracing and competing in real-time.

Your competitors can duplicate just about any advantage you have. They can poach your people, reverse engineer your products, dispute your patents in court, and beat your price. The one thing they can never replicate is the high-performance culture that enables your sustained competitive advantage.
At the same time, employees won’t buy into a culture that endorses outmoded methods, superfluous structures, slow response times, lengthy review cycles, and cumbersome procedures. High-performance cultures in today’s organizations are user- friendly, dynamic, agile, and open to feedback.

Real-Time Feedback

One of the most effective changes a company can make to foster a high-performance culture is to open the doors to feedback while shortening the feedback loop. Receiving and giving real-time feedback at all critical junctures is the ultimate goal; it means immediate, relevant feedback is continually offered in response to specific actions and circumstances that directly impact organizational performance.

How you implement real-time feedback will vary depending on your job role, but some tools that are available to you include:

• Comment Boxes
• Surveys
• Focus Groups and Group Discussions
• Interviews and Other Conversations