6 HR Technology Insights That Impact Your People Strategy

6 HR Technology Insights That Impact Your People Strategy

Published on: March 18, 2016

I have been to many global HR events. I've seen many HR innovators and leading practitioners from all over the world share insights on the future of HR Technology. I've learned that there's one thing for sure - as HR emerges as the priority for growth of organizations, technology will follow right behind it. How do you take advantage of HR technology?

While there are prescribed steps to building a perception that is both attractive and consistent, it is really still up to you to carve out what it means to be a great place of work.

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In no particular order, I wanted to share the most important insights I've learn that can impact your HR strategy:

1. New Job Boards Emerging, Old Ones Try to Become New

There is clearly no shortage of job boards as more and more are being repackaged, repurposed and launched to showcase intuitive design and functionality. The key is to lay down measures of success so that you don't spread yourself too thin. To align on both quality and quantity, select the job boards that have the talent you need and the functionalities to support candidate engagement and to promote your employer brand.

2. Integration Remains a Challenge

With more technology comes the concern for integration for a seamless user experience. To remain focused on meeting talent acquisition, retention, and engagement metrics, HR leaders must decide on which technologies are nice to be integrated and which technologies NEED to be integrated so that investment in time, effort, and cash (!) is optimized.

3. Asia is a Clear Emerging Market to Test and
Grow HR Technology

With strong GDP growth across several markets in the ASEAN region, expect more HR technologies to enter Asia with a concentration on talent acquisition due to the presence of candidate volume (e.g. India, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam). What this means for HR leaders is stronger choice of technology use that connects with organizational goals.

4. HR Strategy and HR Technology is Different

Sometimes, there is a notion that adopting new HR technology means having a better strategy. While this can be true for some instances, a distinction must be made to say that strategy is about using technology as a means to achieve business objectives. This means that to be truly strategic, organizations have to establish metrics to define success with any technology adoption. This can take the form of improved fill rates, conversion rate of job offer to acceptance, quality of hires up to quality and engagement of hires.

5. Recruitment Still Remains the Focus of Software Development

At least for Asia, much of the HR technologies being presented still have its roots in solving the challenges linked to talent sourcing, attraction, assessment, and acquisition. Whether it's linked to social media optimization or delivering easy-to-use data for faster decision making, it seems that Asia is breeding the next wave of recruitment tools with its current hiring volumes and adoption of social media sites.

6. Overcoming traditional thinking through Education is Needed

Openness to people technologies has been linked to how well HR leaders understand the value of using a certain platform. That being said, the "typical way" of doing things isn't always the most efficient way. We need to increase awareness and understanding of HR technologies that can help solve every problem, from converting admin tasks to automated ones, as well as using data to improve metrics on recruitment, learning, performance management, employer branding and succession planning.