Digital HR skills


HR professionals must become proficient in a few key areas in order to execute the organization's digital HR transformation plan and adopt digital HR. Key competencies in digital HR include:

Digital agility

This is the capacity to use technology to boost HR's influence and get the company ready for the adoption of digital practices. Digital agility has three dimensions:

  • Technology empowered: HR practitioners who master digital agility are able to integrate technology to build efficient, scalable, and impactful HR solutions.
  • Digital aptitude: Digitally agile HR professionals are motivated to learn and experiment with digital ways of work. 
  • Digital adoption: HR professionals who have developed digital agility (co) create an environment ready for digital adoption.

·         Digital agility is one of the five core HR competencies identified by the Academy to Innovate HR; the other four are Data Literacy, Business Acumen, People Advocacy, and Execution Excellence.

·         These core competencies form a solid foundation for every HR professional to build on and should, therefore, be part of HR’s skills starter kit. 

·         If we focus more on specific digital HR skills and technical skills, then there are a few more that come to mind: 

HRIS knowledge

As we saw earlier, the HRIS forms the backbone of a company’s digital HR. In today’s digital world, HR professionals must be familiar with and knowledgeable about an HRIS solution.

Knowledge of relevant HR software

Depending on your role within HR, you will need to know how to use specific software.

As a talent acquisition specialist, for example, you want to know how to use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and how to use different social media platforms.

As someone overseeing the organization’s talent management strategy, you want to familiarize yourself with Talent Management Software (TMS).

Cloud technology

Almost every HR software solution out there is cloud-based. This means that as an HR practitioner, you need to know how to operate a cloud-based HRIS, ATS, TMS, or LMS.

Prompting

Prompting is becoming an essential digital HR skill due to the growing use of generative AI-driven tools in work processes.

These tools rely on clear prompts for tasks like generating candidate outreach messages, creating onboarding plans, and analyzing employee feedback. HR professionals need to master prompting to ensure accurate outputs.

As AI tools evolve, effective prompting enables HR professionals to leverage advanced capabilities fully and strategically.