How a Hackathon Can Help Your Business’s HR Team

We're only getting deeper into the digital age, and that only means that more businesses are finding ways to adapt to new technologies to establish an edge in the market. However, many businesses don't realize that marketing, sales, customer service, and development aren't the only departments that will thrive in positive digital shifts; your HR department will too. 

As the modern workplace is continuously shifting, you need to find an edge that would help you stand out from a competitive market, and one way to do that is by redesigning existing HR approaches. Even if innovation is good, simply letting your employees jump on the digital train won't do the trick.

So instead of surprising them with this big digital transition, why not organize a hackathon to help your HR team immerse themselves in innovative planning and business transformation. 
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What is an HR Hackathon?

Many people think that hackathons are for tech enthusiasts, computer hacking, and coders. The truth is, hackathons are a collaborative programming event that helps individuals and teams develop new tools and applications that improve different areas of our lives and businesses.

So when it comes to an HR hackathon event, your employees are encouraged to engage effectively and collaborate to create tools and plans that will help improve their roles in the business.
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Why Should I Organize an HR Hackathon?

You might be thinking, "why should I organize a hackathon for my HR team?" The answer is quite simple—it boosts employee engagement, innovation, and collaboration. By doing so, they get to develop new methods and concepts that will help elevate mundane tasks, such as onboarding, looking for new candidates, and even conducting employee evaluations and interviews. 

With a hackathon, you provide your team the opportunity to work with experts to help manifest their goals for your department. With this space, you help them realize their talents and identify their needs, allowing them to take full ownership of their department and help them thrive in a competitive HR field. 
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How Do I Setup an Effective HR Hackathon?

When you organize a hackathon, you allow employees to approach issues in a workplace with more engagement and collaboration. With that, they become more proactive in solving these issues, improving their intrapersonal and critical thinking skills. If you want to know how to set up a hackathon, here are some tips to remember:

• Before starting a hackathon, you'll want to pitch the hackathon to your team and get them excited. You can do this by sharing that some of the biggest companies do this for growth, that it will help streamline their workflow, and if you are giving rewards, don't forget to mention that, too!
  
  
• It's important that you clearly define the goals of your HR hackathon. By doing so, you ensure that everyone is on the same page and has the same expectations for the event. So if you want to develop a new platform, make sure your team knows that.
  
  
• One of the elements of a hackathon is speed, but instead of squeezing out ideas from them in a time-pressured environment, give your employees enough time to generate ideas by giving them a week or two to collaborate and discuss.
  
  
• The great thing about hackathons is that it's a safe space for feedback. Because of this, have your teams provide feedback and critique each other's work. At the end of the day, they'll be using the tools they'll develop. 
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The Bottom Line: An HR Hackathon Might be the Key to the Department's Improvement

As business owners, you may constantly be looking for ways to improve the workflow of your team. And when it comes to your HR department, you want to ensure that they're using the right tools to help them perform and hire the best people for your company. To that end, consider organizing an internal hackathon to encourage collaboration and motivate them to produce tools that could help boost their performance. 
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How Can Hackathon Help You?

Are you looking to organize a hackathon for your company? If so, you've come to the right place. 

Hackathon.com is the largest online hackathon community worldwide. We connect over 2000 hackathon organizers with over 10 million member innovators globally. We’ll help you create a hackathon that will help boost your team's engagement and collaboration today!