On August 1 and 2, 2019, the Leela Hotel in Delhi (India) has hosted one of the most important HR events in the world: TECHR People Matters. Thousands of delegates attended the 2 days conference showcasing the latest technologies in Human Resources. I was invited as a guest speaker as well as a mentor to the start-ups who have showcased and pitched with great passion.
Although my Tech background is quite solid, it was my first time going into a full immersion in a vertical industry like HR. I was fascinated by the myriad of tech solutions offered on different segments of the sector. However something did not sound right.
I noticed that many startups come with quite generic marketing points and without a clear unique selling proposition. For instance, I was asked to evaluate the pitch of start-ups who claim to cover the entire HR spectrum for any company and in any industry. Such claim fails to impress experienced investors, as generally a certain degree of specificity is desirable. Especially in a crowded space like the Human Resources.
My best guess is that a start-up proposing a tech solution able to narrow down, frame and solve a very niche and specific problem, stands higher chances of getting the attention of an investor. This is probably applicable to any industry, but it comes across even more strikingly in HR, as the set of problems tend to be quite common and well identified.
Other start-ups have missed the opportunity to be industry specific. For example, I would have been thrilled to come across a solution focused on selecting, attracting, on-boarding and managing employees in a very narrow vertical such as, for instance, naval and maritime. On the contrary, during the pitch to investors, many startups tried to play the “Jack of all trades, and master of none”, which left most of the investors quite unimpressed.
During the conference I have conducted a 40 minute Master Class on Blockchain in HR, trying to answer the question on whether Blockchain hold the status of special technology able to solve problems better than other available solutions. After presenting to the hundreds of delegates who chose to attend the master class, I left them with an almost certainty that either Blockchain is not ready for HR or HR is not ready for Blockchain.
My argument is that “fair tech” tends to prevail. Generally, tech evolves quickly when all the stakeholders in the ecosystem are happy with the transformation. For example, the television as an innovation, created job opportunities for artists, logistics and all the satellite industries, as well as creating a huge marketing and advertising opportunity for pretty much any company of any size. Television also satisfied the needs of government and state authorities, giving the opportunity to reach a large audience in an inexpensive way. At the same time, the audience benefited by the introduction of television, having unveiled a new way of entertainment.
It is a similar analogy for the Internet, able to create millions of jobs, entertaining billions of surfers and providing endless opportunities for investors, companies... and even scammers. All the participants in the internet ecosystem cheered the innovation. Some feared it, but that is a topic per se.
It is not the same case for HR. While HR managers, recruiters and employers might welcome the immutable records written on a blockchain, on the other side of the equation, insecure job- seekers, unethical candidates and employees with a history of termination or even criminal records, would rather hide than show their real story. As a result, the “push” and “pull” energy kept blockchain away from the whole HR. Start-ups that have attempted to implement blockchain in the candidates selection, ended up having lack of CVs loaded in their systems, making the solution irrelevant to the market.
Lastly, if the success of a technology is measured at the first 50 million users, we should have learned that speed has increased. It took nearly 70 years to the airplane to attract the first 50 million passengers. The television had the first 50 million viewers in 22 years. A silly game like Pokemon Go, took only 19 days! Blockchain, if we consider it invented at the time of Bitcoin white paper, January 2009, has failed to attract the first 50 million users in a good 10 years of history. Some recent statistics showed how 40 million crypto-wallets have been created, which means users are significantly less, as an individual users might have almost unlimited wallets.
Also Smart Contract, one of the key differentiators of Blockchain technology, being mentioned for the first time in 1997, have produced barely 1 million smart contracts in 22 years, the same time that took the television to reach 50 million individual viewers. Moreover, of those smart contracts, many are just tests done by learners trying to get familiar with the technology. In other words, blockchain has failed to attract critical mass, and it is now imploding. Hence, my conclusion is that blockchain, as it is now, cannot make any significant difference in Human Resources or in any other industry.
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