The Future of HR Technology – Top 5 Trends You Need To Know!

by Laura Belyea, COO at KonnectAgain

Technology is changing at a rapid pace and highly impacting the way organisations are working.  HR Technology is a hot space to be in at the moment.  It’s a huge market globally and organisations are trying to stay competitive to attract talent, provide training, engage employees and reduce costs.

According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report, “Globalisation and demographic shifts are shaping a new world of work, where the emphasis is towards employees who are more connected, tech savvy, and expect services to be ‘always on’.”

With new HR Technologies emerging, it’s allowing SME’s to have access to similar systems that were once only accessible to Fortune 500 organisations.  There have been lots of market disrupters that even provide freemium

So what are the biggest trends to shape the Future of HR Technology?  
 
1 – HR In The Cloud
One of the key things in modernising the HR Function is to move out of the filing cabinet and into the “cloud”.  HR needs to be leading the way in the digitalisation of the workforce.  Innovative HR Digital Technology is key in redesigning the workplace for the new work generations to thrive.   
 
2 – HR Goes Mobile
 
Mobile web usage has now surpassed desktop usage.  Mobile enabled HR solutions will be critical as Managers and Employees communicate through mobile devices.   As part of your HR Cloud Solution, mobile is key in providing a great employee experience and maximising efficiency for self service.   
 
3 – Artificial Intelligence 
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a big role in offering business advantages in the near future.  HR and Recruitment will be one of the business areas highly impacted.  AI can reduce human bias in the recruitment process where often stereotypes, gender, ethnicity and age influence selection.  
AI will also be key in the employee experience from onboarding to offboarding.  HR departments can use AI to answer & support frequently asked questions and processes.  This will then allow HR to focus on the more complex queries.  AI will assist in administration and repetitive tasks so HR can focus on value add activities.  
 
4 – Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is another booming business which is transforming the future of work.  Bringing VR into HR has a lot of benefits that could increase productivity, efficiencies and employee engagement.  Within recruitment, candidates could get a better sense of what it’s like to work for your organisation and your culture.  Onboarding could be automated and the ability to design and create a rich onboarding experience would be endless.  Lastly, Learning & Development has a big opportunity using VR to enrich employee training.  Also, with the rise of the “Gig Economy” and Global Mobility, VR will enable engagement with remote workers.   
 
5 – People Analytics
People Analytics is one of the hottest topics in HR these days.  Analytics are key in enabling organisations to make business decisions by giving insights into workforce trends and predictive analytics.  As HR has become more digitalised, they are producing large amounts of data but often are struggling to analyze the data and provide insights.  The CIPD has identified that HR professionals need to focus on developing skills in Data Analytics to future proof their careers

About the author
Laura’s role is to successfully support the start up growth and strategy for KonnectAgain, as well as provide product support with her expertise within the HR industry. Previously posts were director of HR & operations in Telefonica, Elizabeth Arden and ICON