This year could be pivotal in the quest to save people’s time. And the time for workforce enablement to take a giant leap forward may be now, according to Christa Manning, an independent market research analyst at Eudemonia. HR technology released in 2015 will help the workforce of the future get the right work done.

There is a “Watershed Moment” and everyone seems to be struggling with workforce productivity. Manning said at SuccessConnect 2015 last month. “Everything is competing for workers’ attention, so there really is an emphasis on running simple.”

The desire to run simple is helping to fuel a technology revolution. New performance management tools have simplified complex processes into things that anyone can do, often quickly and efficiently — freeing up time to do more important work.

The workplace management technology revolution has gone from self-service to smart service. SuccessFactors and SAP are helping to connect the dots and accomplish stuffs not just for HRs sake, but also meaningful activities.

Striking balances

“Whether it’s serving a customer [or] learning something new, that’s what’s going to keep workforce of generation next engaged and retained in organizations,” Manning added. “Work-life balance and workload balance are some of the things HR will start to really focus on enabling for their workers.”

See: Building a People Ecosystem to Develop “Future-Skill” Workforce

This kind of engagement requires software that can easily guide employees through administrative processes — so people can get back to their work.

New technology, such as intelligent services have evolved beyond the last decade’s isolated self-services, improving the employee experience with end-to-end tools that work across software modules and otherwise unrelated processes.

“I really see HR as transforming into workforce enablement,” Manning said. “Compliance will still be very important, “but HR will really start to be about workforce support and workforce enablement using technologies in the cloud that are a little more seamless and integrated with other solutions, and then honing in on the best use of workers’ time.”

According to Forrester Research, The Workforce Enablement Playbook for 2015 states, “What’s missing from most employee technology strategies is a fundamental understanding of what makes people truly engaged and productive employees.

Forrester calls “agile workforce enablement” to rethink how you deliver technology to the people who drive your business. Some of the suggestions for workforce enablement include driving the workforce up into distinct personas and tailoring digital workspaces for those personas.

By 2020 and beyond, the world will have few workers with advanced skills to drive high growth economies. And on the other side, there will be fewer job opportunities for low-skilled workforce. This will create challenges for any enterprise to stay competitive and relevant to its customers in a rapidly changing business scenario.

The changing times and economic climate signal need for repositioning your workforce to make them rightly skilled and stay competitive.

Views in this news piece are from: Derek Klobucher in SAP Business Trends

Also read: What are the Workplace Expectations of the Next-Gen Workforce?

Image credit: flickr.com