Vendor briefing - The State of HR Technology in NZ

Human Resources New Zealand (HRNZ) and Probity Consulting, in conjunction with Victoria University of Wellington recently released a Technology for HR in New Zealand report. Some of the findings are not comfortable reading for technology vendors, but the research provides a number of opportunities for the future.

The results show that most organisations who participated in the research have a core human resource information system (HRIS). Yet the market for these systems appears to be highly fragmented in New Zealand, with no dominant vendors.

Key Findings:

• Most organisations use a core HRIS, but there is no dominant system.
• Standalone systems are popular for payroll, occupational health & safety, remuneration.
• Satisfaction is higher with Standalone systems than core HRIS.
• Many organisations reported to be planning to add or enhance systems, but there is limited detailed consideration of AI.
   

Core HRIS

There appears to be no one dominant core HRIS in New Zealand. The only systems identified by five percent of participants or more as the one used by their organisations are PayGlobal (8%) and Datacom HRIS (6%).

Among those who said that their organisations use a core HRIS and know how it is deployed, on-premise (36%) and software as a service (SaaS) (34%) were the most common forms of deployment.

The core HRIS systems used in participants’ organisations tend to be relatively new, with 48% of survey participants whose organisations have a core HRIS system and know when it was deployed saying that their organisation’s core HRIS system was deployed in 2015 or later.

Only 13% of survey participants believe that their organisations are extremely satisfied with their core HRIS system overall or in terms of its features. Reports of extreme satisfaction are greater for customer service, with which 18% of survey participants said their organisations are extremely satisfied.
 

Solutions by function:

Not surprisingly, most survey participants said that their organisations have a technology solution (either their core HRIS or a standalone system) to help them manage payroll, with 57% saying they use a standalone system for that function and another 37% saying they use their core HRIS for payroll.

Half or more of respondents also said that their organisation uses a technology solution to help manage OH&S, remuneration and workforce management, and HR analytics and intelligence. These applications were even more skewed toward standalone systems rather than using their organisation’s core HRIS for that function.
 

Challenges

Common challenges faced in using technology to support HR, as identified by research respondents;

• Too many systems and alignment/integration of systems
• Affordability
• Organisational support for investing in HR Tech and staff to support it (29 mentions).
• Usability and capability of systems
• Staff access to and comfort with computers and Poor digital literacy engagement
• Agility / flexibility / customisability to needs of the organisation and new technology developments
• Time and skills required to configure and update software
• Availability of people to support they systems and support quality.
   

Opportunities

There are plenty of opportunities for technology vendors to partner with Hr professionals to develop solutions that address these commonly identified opportunities;

• Data, analytics and BI – getting smarter with data
• Single or highly integrated system
• Automation of self-service for routine processes and work-flows
• More customisability and interactivity – including real-time reporting
• Performance management
• Training, development and e-learning
• Recruitment and on-boarding
   

Future Plans:

Among those whose organisations don’t already have them, more than half of participants said that their organisations intend to introduce a core HRIS and /or technology-supported systems for learning and development, performance management, and / or payroll within the next three years. The systems reported to be least likely to be introduced by organisations that don’t already have them were HR help desk and wellness applications.
 

Next Steps:

HRNZ plans to engage with the HR technology vendor community and share these results with them and explore the opportunities for offerings that better match the needs of the NZ market. HRNZ also aims to create an online space where members can share their experiences of working with HRIS products.

HRNZ also wants to support HR professionals to identify ways in which AI can be best used to enhance HR processes and to share their success stories about successful technology initiatives within their respective organisations.
 

Research Report:

• Report - Executive Summary
• Download full report (member only content)