HRD’s pocket guide Personal development
HRD’s pocket guide to...
smart cities
Why do I need to know
about it?
You have a smartphone, a smart TV…
you might even consider Alexa a
member of the family. All of these
devices operate on the Internet of
Things (IoT); a system of interrelated
computing devices that transfer data
across a network. It’s a technology
we’ve come to rely on to make our
personal lives easier and more
efficient. Yet mention the term
‘smart cities’ and few are able to
define the concept.
In basic terms a smart city is an
urban area that uses data collected via
the IoT to improve the efficiency of its
services and infrastructure, and
ultimately improve the lives of its
citizens. You might have rubbish bins
with sensors detecting when they’re
full or live in a town that collects
traffic data to forecast air quality.
With the UN predicting that 68%
of the world’s population will live
in urban areas by 2050 how we
operate our cities will become
increasingly important if we are to
cope with the increased numbers of
residents and workers.
What do I need to know?
According to the most recent Smart
City Index the number of cities with a
‘smart’ strategy has almost doubled in
the past two years, rising from 87 in
2017 to 153 in 2019. London currently
ranks as the second-smartest city in
the world behind Vienna, with
Birmingham occupying seventh place.
Both London and Birmingham have
put digital transformation at the heart
of future investment. Birmingham set
out its Smart City Roadmap as far
back as 2012, while the capital
appointed its first chief digital officer –
Theo Blackwell – in 2017.
While digitisation of services might
seem like a silver bullet for the
problems created by increased
HR to keep the internal workforce’s
capabilities up to speed with the
external digital transformation
of smart cities.
“Our core digital
transformation programme,
Expedition DNA, builds digital
capability at all levels of the business,
and engages employees directly
in learning about digitisation
and human-centred design,”
explains Moore.
As the infrastructure of smart
cities changes there will be an obvious
impact on the ways people work, she
adds: “To address congestion issues
cities may take a variety of
approaches that provide more flexible
options to travel or provide services in
a way that does not require people
to travel at all.
“This has implications for
employment – from the location
of your office, to the changing
expectations of the workforce, and
the need to provide a frictionless
employee experience to attract and
retain a more mobile and digitallynetworked
workforce.”
Anything else?
HR can also benefit from the
development of smart infrastructure
by using it to leverage its internal
working environment, adds Graeme
Rees, UK&I digital energy marketing
manager at Schneider Electric.
“Employee attendance, sickness,
productivity, wellbeing and
engagement are affected by the
working environment,” he says,
highlighting that the ability to measure
and improve air quality can affect
employee wellbeing.
Smart building technology can also
be used to monitor the use of office
space in real time, leading to better
office layouts and more comfortable
conditions, which in turn lead to
enhanced productivity. HR
Going
further
hrmagazine.co.uk October 2019 HR 51
Illustration: AdobeStock
The HRD’s pocket guide series offers an explanation of areas outside day-to-day
HR that business-savvy HRDs need to have a handle on. By SARAH RONAN
urbanisation (congestion, air
pollution, mobility to name a few), any
successful ‘smart’ strategy must be
integrated properly if it is to achieve its
overarching aim of improving the lives
of citizens.
“A smart city is a very blended but
holistic ecosystem,” says Jacqui Taylor,
CEO and founder of FlyingBinary and
smart cities advisor to the government.
“It has public organisations, private
companies and a third sector presence
and its citizens are actively involved.
It’s very much a collaborative
environment as opposed to a
competitive one. If an organisation
already has initiatives that improve the
health and wellbeing of its employees
then sharing those as part of the wider
community through collaboration is
key to making a smart city work.”
However, 90% of the 153 cities
analysed by the Smart City Index
currently do not have an integrated
strategy, explains Taylor: “What’s gone
wrong is technology has been the
outcome, not the enabler. We need to
reboot the whole smart agenda.”
Where can HR add value?
Taylor believes that HR is perfectly
positioned to help reboot that agenda.
“HR should lead the board on the
future of smart cities, because that
future is much more of a partnership
model and HR directors already have
that focus,” she says.
Mirroring Taylor’s view on the
collaborative nature of smart cities,
Carolyn Moore, global HR lead for
digital transformation at Arcadis and
former director of HR and corporate
services at Future Cities Catapult, tells
HR magazine that it’s important for
Recommended
reading:
Shaping Future
Places
by Jacqui Taylor
Smart Cities: Big
Data, Civic
Hackers, and
the Quest for a
New Utopia
by Anthony
Townsend
From Intelligent to
Smart Cities
by Mark Deakin
and Husam Al Waer
/hrmagazine.co.uk