It is that time of the year, when we need to look back on what has been achieved during the months in terms of advancements in HR technology and how this in its entire endeavour is influencing daily workings of corporate enterprises.
It is important for HR managers to understand how HR and technology intersect to provide modern organisations with a futuristic outlook to accelerate their workings, while focusing on talent acquisition and retention as the goal.
HR analytics, data management, cloud computing, big data, talent analytics, integrated HR and payroll management are soon influencing the working dynamics of many HR professionals, who at times find themselves incompetent to stay abreast of the latest technology trends in HR.
How can these technologies be leveraged for organisation benefit, irrespective of the size of the company, is a decision making call for many companies.
Here are top 6 path-breaking hottest HR technology trends in 2015 that HR professionals should make note of:
Moving HR to the cloud and shifting information to be easily accessible, anytime anywhere has revolutionised our lives in many ways – to bring in more flexibility in workings, greater innovation and agility, ability to consolidate and control business costs using a focused management system etc.
Cloud computing is helping businesses make the paradigm shift and foray into ambitious border-free frontiers of workings, by infusing intelligence at work.
Big data has become the talk of the town, not just in HR but across industries. Big data in HR can be used in terms of attaining objectivity such as talent management, retention or acquisition. A singular point of centralised information storage can be tapped in to be parsed into endless directions and variations.
“Big data” is a term used to describe the new volume, variety, and velocity of data now confronts company legacies of data storage— especially vast information that can be difficult to store, search, and analyze with legacy systems and tools.
The process of breaking down different pieces of big data embedded with so many components will only help drive your business the most.
See: Will Wearable HR Technology Revolutionise the Workplace?
Predictive HR analytics combines new objectivity with a real sense of human behaviour and patterns to come up with decisions based on predictors. The predictors help fill gaps before they actually happen, thus allowing the leverage to maintain fluidity and productivity in the workplace.
Well there are now buzzwords like “advanced analytics” which refers to those specific data crunching predictions that are both future oriented and aimed at driving practical changes to the business.
HR technology is developed to measure performance and rank them in metrics – this involves tracking and making sense of data to arrive at a meaningful conclusion. Performance targets are usually set based on these metrics and employees are required to meet these goals.
Metrics are used to measure customer satisfaction score – VOC (Voice of Customer), CSAT (Customer satisfaction), NPS (Net Promoter Score) etc. Scores are also provided based on employee productivity, job satisfaction index, gross margin, cash flow indicators and more.
The choice of metrics for performance measurement has to be reviewed periodically, since the sense and tools to measure metrics today, might soon become irrelevant tomorrow.
No metric is useful unless there is an action plan that arrives out of it and is communicated and implemented with urgency. Otherwise, a metric becomes just another number on a report that nobody pays attention to till it is too late.
Companies are gearing up efforts to fight the war for talent with vigour and enthusiasm to retain valuable talented workforce within organisations. They are optimising work efficiencies to include variety of connections and technology in employee engagement as a key to boost productivity.
Some of the employee engagement tools that have seen phenomenal increased usage in the major half of 2015 are: use of social networks to engage employees, gamification, BYOD concept, embracing mobile, more flexi work options and use of video communication to bridge the void between hierarchies in the corporate ladder.
L&D is now seeing an increasing flux of investments from many corporates who are looking at skill upgradation to mentor and train talented employees, thus utilising their skill sets for maximum organisation benefits.
A variety of e-learning programs, tools, workshops and seminars are conducted to motivate employees to learn and unlearn certain areas, and how to optimally use the knowledge they possess to derive maximum returns and support mutual growth benefits.
Also read: What is the Future of Predictive Analytics in HR?
