Find the HR Tech Landscape Confusing? There are Reasons Why.

Organisations must continually find innovative and effective ways to transact and analyse employee data, understand workforce trends, and provide business leaders with proper guidance to keep driving their organisations forward.

Investments in the development of Human Resources (HR) Tech has been reaching an all time high. It is estimated there are around 2400  companies now innovating in HR technologies (1). The prize seems rewarding for vendors that can find the right HR technologies that companies like and can rely on.

Applications in HR Tech range from the most basic levels of digitising everyday workflows such as electronic timekeeping, payroll & benefits, recruitment, talent management, and training through to the more complex and thoughtful approaches around employee engagement & experience, development, collaboration, safety and smart AI responses.

With all this innovation occurring organisations have a widening range of HR technology applications to choose from. This is good news and all of these new HR technologies have innovation at their core, with some more effective and useful than others. They are moving from data processing to a new focus on employee experience (2).

With the proliferation of SaaS based platforms it can be as easy as signing up your organisation, sometimes with just some basic level system configuration needed, allowing employees access, then viewing and downloading results - often in real time. Basic user training and guidance can be received online within the application. 

Unfortunately when multiple new platforms are installed across an organisation they often operate independent of each other. Even with application programming interfaces (API’s) the HR Tech landscape within an organisation can quickly become complex, leading to confusion within the workforce. Quickly the gains from the technology can be undone, and amplified if employees don’t perceive a more positive experience or receive feedback on the inputs they share for example after completing multiple employee engagement or pulse surveys.

So plan and choose your future HR Technologies and their intended use carefully to capitalise on the wonderful benefits many of them can deliver for your organisation. We may see the larger Human Capital Management (HCM) systems, such as Ceridian, lead in the consolidation of multiple platform solutions but this will take time.