AltifyHR 2019 – Review

The Change

This year’s Altify HR was a different event for me personally, as I was attending the event not as an independent HR Technology analyst, but as part of Peoplestrong team. It was my first day at work with People strong, having accepted to lead the Customer Success team for the West region.

This change in my perspective made me look at aspects of the event beyond the obvious and I was keenly observing the organizational processes that operate to make this event.

This post is written in my personal capacity and not as a spokesperson for Peoplestrong. All observations and opinions expressed here are personal.

The Event

This year the event moved to Mumbai. Away from the home base of Peoplestrong. The fact that the company was holding such an important event in Mumbai, told me the importance of the market.

I arrived at the venue about 5 hours earlier than the actual start time. As I entered the venue what caught my attention was the scale. In the beautiful ITC Maratha hotel in Mumbai, the event occupied substantial space with 2 large conference rooms combined together. The stage was being set up and I loved the overall energy that I sensed in the room.

As I continued to get introduced to various individuals from the Peoplestrong team I kept on noticing the various moving parts that go into making an event of this scale a success. The event expected more than 300 people in attendance including customers, analysts, and partners.

Open, Connected and Intelligent

The event theme of Open, Connected and Intelligent world of work was interesting enough and I was very curious to know what lay in store. I was told to wait for the event to unfold.

I continued to find my way around the flurry of activities happening.  I started to notice some familiar faces. It was yet another opportunity for me to spend some time with Abhijit Bhaduri. The pre-event space allowed me to interact with Abhijit about various things on technology and the world of work.

I also happened to meet with Holger Mueller, Vice President, and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. In my HR Technology analyst avatar, he is one of the leaders from whom I have been learning from a distance. This was the first time that I had an opportunity to interact with him up, close and personal.

Another individual I had the privilege to interact during the pre-event activities was Rajul Garg. He is a board member and an accomplished investor in technology companies. I was awestruck and struggled to find the right words or conversation topics for our interaction. I chose to shut up and listen more to make the most of this first opportunity of interaction with him.

These interactions were held in a very open environment which made me feel connected. It also made me feel stupid at times and told me that I am in the company of people who are intelligent. This realization helped me stay grounded and curious to learn more. I believe the world of technology at work is no different. Each individual app should know exactly what it is doing yet no app is superior to the other as in an open and connected world, collective intelligence is far more superior to individual one.

The Products

The real stars of the evening were the product. I loved the way Peoplestrong team introduced each one of them. The products were kept in focus and the people behind the products were acknowledged. It gave each product a character of its own and I am sure each product like an individual will have a journey of its own.

The Updated Alt Messenger is a collaboration platform and is now capable of replacing Whatsapp for enterprise use. It addresses issues of security while ensuring usability via the connection, collaboration, and appreciation within and across organizational groups. This allows the platform to quickly become a system of productivity.

The Developer Community is a great way to invite everyone to connect with the Alt platform. The API’s provide programmatic access to various Peoplestrong products. Organizations can use these API’s to connect Alt with their internal products while other HR Technology companies can build custom solutions for their clients using Alt.

The Alt Builder is a great tool for HR professionals. With its drag and drop interface, anyone can build an app without any coding. This platform as a service (PaaS) product is an exciting development in the HR technology space and one of the unique offerings from Peoplestrong.

Alt Analytics uses the power of Data Lake to help you build various storyboards focused on specific business outcomes. Since it connects HR data from multiple applications its insights and prediction capabilities are greatly enhanced. The platform allows for dynamic drill down to a quick root cause analysis (RCA). I am personally most excited about this one.

Interpretations

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a working paper which simulates the impact of technological change on labor markets and income distribution. It is an interesting read on this topic.

When one combines what we saw at the event and what we read in the above report along with a few other similar reports, the implications for business and HR become clear. In my opinion, they are:

1. Technological innovation allows us to transcend boundaries. It enables talent and businesses to explore opportunities outside their immediate available market. This established fact will continue to rise with a more open and connected world.
2. We need not fear technological advancements, as long as we are committed to the life of continuous learning. Historical pieces of evidence prove that technological changes trigger realignment across jobs and sectors. We have to be prepared to learn and adjust to technological advancements.
3. Growth and Innovation are closely coupled with individuals and organizations. We have to learn to balance the risk of innovation with the risk of non-innovation. Nobody likes to work for organizations that don’t innovate, but nobody likes to be part of a failed innovation effort either. We need to learn to innovate without killing ourselves in the pursuit of innovation and growth.
4. Multiple possibilities for the future of individuals and organizations exist depending on the context, choices, and adaptability. The changes present opportunities for wider access, better models of governance and organization of work.

Altify HR 2019 has definitely given me a great start to my journey with Peoplestrong. It is exciting to work in this Open, Connected and Intelligent world of work and brings transformation to self, organization, and customers.