By Furqan Qamar & Jai Mohan Pandit
‘Hallucination’ is the Cambridge word of the year 2023, largely due to its rampant usage in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly the large language models (LLMs), which return made-up and fictitious facts and figures and substantiate their argument by false references and citations. This makes many wary about relying on AI for teaching and research.
Automation and digitisation can bring significant efficiencies in hiring, performance management, succession planning, career development, onboarding, training and benefitting from other HRM functions. Strategic HRM and data analytics using AI and machine learning offer immense potential to help higher education institutions in data-driven decision-making and improving employee and institutional performance.
Technology integration is no longer an option but a necessity. Higher education is human resource-intensive. Public-funded institutions spend about 85% of their budget on staff costs; private ones spend up to 65%. As Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (PMIR) transition to HRM and technology advances, the prospect of the technology-mediated human-centred approach to people management becomes imminent.
Strangely, most higher education institutions remain rooted in conventional and archaic ways of managing their affairs. Their HR policies and practices and management are generally anachronistic. This is particularly true in the case of public-funded universities and colleges. They are invariably confined to procedural activities: inviting applications, screening, short-listing, interviewing, selecting, issuing appointment letters, completing joining formalities, and maintaining service books and personal files.
Apparently, they are often unable to discharge even these routine jobs efficiently as they ought to. Their recruitment and selection processes are marred by procedural delays, deficiencies and lacunae, resulting in innumerable litigations. Nearly a third of the faculty positions in the centrally funded technical and higher educational institutions remain unfilled at any point in time. The proportion could be as high as 50% in the state universities and their colleges. The scenario is no better for the administrative, technical, and support staff.
Obviously, people management in higher education has not kept pace with changes in HRM and technology, making them out of step with their goals and strategy. Inflexible and slow-paced, they pay little attention to career progression, staff training and human resource development. Succession planning, motivation, job satisfaction, work performance, goal congruence, teamwork, diversity management, organisational culture, citizenship behaviour, and many other important HR practices are yet to find their way into their lexicon.
Their inability to create a conducive work environment reflects adversely on teaching effectiveness, research performance, campus development and maintenance, and campus life. Ensuring a fine and win-win balance between the needs and expectations of students, staff, teachers and administration is often found wanting in most public and many private higher education institutions.
We may claim to be the Vishwaguru, but that assertion is based on accomplishments in the past. India’s contemporary higher education institutions resonate little with the Takshashila, Nalanda, Vallabhi, and Vikramashila of the ancient past. In the present, India must learn from and imbibe best global practices of highly evolved policies and practices with a high degree of state-of-the-art and cutting edge technology.
Being proud of the past is good for self-esteem, but being dynamic and in sync with time is the sine qua non. Empirical research indicates that an HRM that enable and empowers human resource is critical in all kind and type of organisation. Higher education is no exception. It fosters a positive work environment and can help them address specific challenges in diverse settings, encompassing various academic activities.
Most critical is the strategic HRM. Higher education institutions must orient their systems and processes to attract and retain human resources that are not only meritorious and motivated but also identify and connect themselves with the vision and mission of the institutions. They must care for their staff’s career progression and professional growth and go beyond the regulatory requirements.
Accountability of the institution and individuals forming part thereof is important. After all, a university’s performance is nothing but a sum total of the accomplishments and achievements of its teachers, students and staff. Managerialism and corporate university culture warrant a shift from procedure-based performance assessment to outcome-based measurements.
Unique as the higher education institutions are in their intents, objectives, activities, and societal expectations, the lock-stock-barrel adoption and implementation of HR practices from the corporate world might cause more harm than good. Extreme care and caution are warranted to ensure we do not throw the baby with the bathwater.A human-centred human resource approach in higher education settings must carefully design an appropriate performance assessment and evaluation metric and techniques and monitor them sensitively. The process must support and uphold higher education growth and standards. Certainly, there is no gainsaying that the processes must be just and efficient and enthuse trust and confidence in the system.
People management in higher education may potentially be significantly enhanced through automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Many may be averse to the idea for fear of its potential to displace humans and may mark the beginning of the end for higher education. The phobia may neither be misplaced nor unfounded. Besides, data-driven decision-making may be marred by many moral issues concerning people’s privacy in hiring, performance reviews, and professional development.
New technology is an unstoppable avalanche, and higher education institutions must brace themselves to distribute the impact evenly when it hits them hard. Better still, they must prepare to benefit from it. Their preparedness would save them from sudden and abrupt shock and minimise the cost of mental adjustment. The focus must be on a smooth transition to the new ways of leadership, management and governance.
The road to readiness may not be easy. It may entail massive investment in technology infrastructure and its maintenance. The cost of ensuring robust cybersecurity protection for individual privacy and data security would also be substantial. Importantly, organisations need astute change management to strike a delicate balance between technological efficiency and human touch. Technology brings technical efficiency but takes a toll on human connections, a value essential in the academic ecosystem.
(The author Qamar is former adviser (education) to the erstwhile Planning Commission, and Pandit is registrar, IGIDR, Mumbai)