Information, Communications and The Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Eliud Owalo has called on human resource professionals to embrace effort to migrate into the digital working space.
Owalo told the leadership of the Institute of the Human Resource Management (IHRM) to create a pool of human resource professionals who can advise state and non-state actors on matters of people management, productivity and skill development for the digital economy.
Speaking during a breakfast meeting with the Institute of Human Resource Management at a Nairobi hotel, the CS told HR professionals to align their activities to conform with the digital world.
“This is the question everyone must ask themselves, how is the workforce you have transforming itself with the technology,” posed Owalo, adding that the emerging new world is one in which digital technology is the engine, fuel and driver of work and life.
The CS said digital technology is changing the way people do old things while at the same time bringing up new things to be done, an indication that the global community was on the verge of a new brave world.
“We are entering a new brave world of automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, and the internet. We must reimagine the future and re-engineer ourselves for it” said Owalo.
He at the same time urged the professionals to be predictive and create their own spaces in the digital world.
The CS also encouraged the HR professionals not to resist change but to develop the right attitudes towards technology.
“We need HR professionals to help to generate environments with people who have the relevant skills and attitudes for the emerging workplace and which, I must emphasize, is a virtual world,” he said.
Owalo further urged the professionals to reimagine the jobs and the competencies that are required for the new digital world.
Present at the meeting were the IHRM National Chairman, CHRP Phillip Odero, IHRM Executive CHRP Director Quresha Abdullahi, Chief Executive Officers, IHRM Council Members and Human Resource Management Professionals’ Examinations Board members among others.
By Hamdi Mohamud
