Top Trends in HR Technology for 2018

2018 is shaping up to be another interesting year in the world of HR Tech. While most of the hype circulating will is abuzz with the disruptive potential of Virtual Reality, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI), for most New Zealand organisations it will be a while until the effects and benefits of these developments are directly felt. In this article we're homing in on a few trends that will affect you and your organisations on a day to day basis right now.

Workforce Productivity

We've been hearing about the shift to automation in HR for many years now, with the logic being that time saved in manual processes could be better spent on building culture, engagement and talent. With increasing (though by no means universal) uptake of automation of many HR processes like recruitment, learning, and performance management, thought around boosting efficiency has now shifted to an emphasis on productivity. Research[i] suggests many employees are overwhelmed and overloaded in their roles, which, as well as stifling productivity, has a negative flow-on for employee engagement. The ever-increasing role of technology in our jobs and day-today lives should mean we can utilise tools which make managing this load easier and faster.

Mobile-enabled workforce productivity tools are disrupting team communication and collaboration beyond the traditional realm of email.  Tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, Yammer and so on, encourage real-time collaboration in a quick message format, complete with a range of 'emojis' for a visual and social expression of emotion. Best of all, these online tools can be used anywhere, which makes them a fantastic enabler of flexible working. More and more workplaces are realising the benefits of offering flexible working arrangements, and technology facilitates collaboration among a team who need not work in the same place or to the same schedule at all times.

Indeed, here at Tomorrow's People we have moved almost entirely away from email as an internal communication tool, managing all our team-based comms through a combination of Slack and our project management tool ActiveCollab (which is integrated to Slack to provide a near seamless experience). As a workplace that truly lives and breathes flexible working, it enables us to work wherever and whenever we choose.

"Hey Siri- What's my leave balance?" Chatbots and Conversational platforms to deliver HR Self Service

Ok, we said we weren't going to talk about AI, but I see this topic as slightly different from the doomsday-infused "AI/Robots will steal all the jobs" rhetoric that has been circulating recently. Chatbots and conversational platforms are here now and being utilised already in many New Zealand organisations. If not yet mainstream in HR, their presence is noteworthy in customer service. These tools are so simple to use they require minimal to no training. In fact, my seven-year-old son happily plays music, turns on lights and asks homework questions (sorry to his teachers!) to Google Home. He didn't need any training, he learns through trial and error.

Some overseas organisations are now using Chatbots embedded into their intranets or Core HR systems. These are able to manage common self-service transactions and questions such as leave applications, policy questions and general information requests. This takes the HR helpdesk function to the next level and plays into the personalised and digitised user-experience our employees will increasingly come to expect.

Continuous Performance Management Tools

As discussed above, organisations are moving from a focus on automation to a focus on productivity. This, alongside the old models being generally very unpopular, has led to a massive shift in the way Performance Management is conceptualised. Continuous performance management seeks to shift away from the dreaded annual ratings and emphasises frequent and more-forward-looking development conversations or manager check-ins throughout the year. These trends are becoming almost commonplace and many organisations who have not yet made the shift are investigating how they can do so. Over 70% of companies surveyed in Deloitte's 2017 Global Human Capital Trends research reported they were in the process of reinventing how the performance process is managed in their organisation. A plethora of point systems have been developed specifically to cater to the new model of Performance Management so that employees and managers are getting feedback regularly and able to act more quickly to address issues.

The other major shift we are seeing is the realisation that an annual engagement survey isn't enough. Almost all the companies we spoke to last year were either developing pulse surveys to sit alongside an annual engagement survey or investigating throwing it out completely. Again, there are multiple solution providers in the market that will provide mobile-friendly, easy to use, functionally-rich tools that can sit alongside your core HR technology platform. Many of the older or large HR technology vendors are investing in or creating tools within their platforms to enable these functions.

Real Time Learning & Development

The realm of workplace training or learning and development has been an area of HR in which workplaces have been slow to adopt a digital experience. This might be evidenced by conceptualising learning as full day courses or mandatory classroom training sessions. How many of us have been to a great Excel course years ago only to discover that when the time came to apply what we learnt to our real-life examples, we'd forgotten the course content and ended up on Google anyway?

Savvy employers are starting to realise that available learning needs to be better tailored to its user community. That is, it needs to be available when employees need it, and content needs to be broken down into more manageable 'bites', so that users can quickly find the material they need, when they need it. This means having searchable content available online and a system which remembers what learning you've done, and ideally, can suggest which further learning you'll benefit from.

Digital learning experiences are increasingly seeing the influences of 'gamification' too, where acquiring new knowledge and skills is designed to be fun, interactive and sequential. This also enables learning to be more individually tailored to an employee's individual capabilities, interests and needs, and ideally should facilitate personalised career development.

Employee Experience at the forefront of HR technology design

Those that know me, or have heard me speak, will be unsurprised to see this inclusion.  Whilst strictly speaking not a technology trend, for me this is the most critical point on the list, and one which touches each of the trends already discussed.

The most important part of undertaking any employee digital transformation is understanding your employees. I hear of more and more HR departments undergoing Design Thinking training or talking about "mapping their employee experience journey". And for good reason: there's no way we can facilitate a good employee experience if we don't understand the motivations, priorities and experiences of our people.

The trends discussed here all lead towards facilitating effective, high performing teams of engaged and continuously learning staff. They speak to the opportunities that technology offers in making these processes more agile, collaborative, and ironically but perhaps most importantly, human-centred.

[i] Beyond the Numbers," United States Department of Labor / Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2017, www.bls.gov/opub/ btn/volume-6/below-trend-the-us-productivity-slowdown-since-the-great-recession.htm. 4 "Aon: Employee Engagement Declining Across the Globe," 4-traders.com, March 22, 2017, www.4-traders.com/

Jane Ward

"Jane Ward is the founder and CEO of Tomorrow's People, a specialist consultancy in HR Tech. She has extensive experience in designing, selecting, and implementing systems to support HR and Payroll. Jane is passionate about providing, enabling and disrupting the future of work."

Sarah Garland-Levett

Sarah joined Tomorrow's People after a stint implementing Cornerstone on Demand at the University of Auckland which engaged her interest in HR Tech.  Her academic background, systematic approach and passion for perfection, means Sarah is the chief blog writer and researcher for the team.

Sarah is naturally passionate about improving employee experiences  and brings in-depth experience with designing processes, creating test strategies, implementing systems and creating change and training materials.   She also still puts aside time to continue with her academic achievements, having gained her MA in Education Policy Analysis this year.