The HR tech landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation, from the integration of responsible AI to VR reality training,
In recent years, HR software has adapted to diverse demands ranging from data security and privacy concerns to hiring challenges. Keeping up with HR technology trends may feel like a race against a freight train, but it’s imperative for staying ahead of the curve and revolutionizing how to attract, engage and retain talent in the intricately evolving HR field.
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In this article, we’ll take a closer look at top HR tech trends, helping you kickstart 2024 with a proactive approach. After all, success is when preparation meets opportunity. Let’s jump in!
Key Takeaways
- Responsible AI simplifies core HR processes like recruiting.
- Hybrid work models remain a top priority for most businesses in 2024, with 45.5 percent of people adopting this approach.
- The key to enhancing employee engagement lies in adopting an employee experience platform (EXP) and digital employee experience (DEX).
- The HR industry is currently grappling with the challenge of talent acquisition and retention, as 3.7 million U.S. employees resigned in 2023.
- Augmented reality is changing the way HR teams train new hires.
- Skills-based hiring has seen increased adoption, with 60% of companies increasing their investment in this approach.
- 45% of employees experience fatigue due to workplace changes and integrating change management into HR technology ensures smoother transitions for staff.
- Blockchain integration is key in enhancing cybersecurity by providing a secure framework for managing and verifying digital transactions.
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Top HR Technology Trends
Check out our list of top HR technology trends to keep on your radar in 2024:
1. AI Integration and Machine Learning
Key Question: Why integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into human resource functions?
Bringing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the mix gives your human resource game a serious upgrade, adding capabilities like predictive analytics in recruitment, employee engagement and talent management into your HR toolkit.
How can AI benefit HR teams?
Simplify Recruiting: AI automates screening resumes, streamlining qualified candidate identification and reducing the time spent on manual reviews. Machine learning algorithms analyze data sets and create comprehensive candidate profiles, ensuring objective and informed decision-making.
Example: Without implementing AI, your HR team would have to manually review each resume, checking qualifications, work experience and skills to shortlist candidates. After adopting AI in recruiting, your company has access to machine learning algorithms that screen resumes and identify key qualifications.
Reduce Turnover: Predictive analytics enables HR professionals to proactively identify potential turnover risks among existing employees, facilitating easily targeted retention strategy implementation.
Example: Your company experiences high turnover among software developers. Using predictive analytics, you can identify turnover risks by gathering data from sources like job satisfaction surveys. Advanced analytics then help pinpoint indicators like frustration with outdated technology. With this insight, your HR team can proactively identify at-risk employees and implement necessary adjustments.
Personalized Learning and Development: Enable personalized learning paths by assessing individual employee skills, preferences and performance. By analyzing sets of data, AI can recommend tailored training programs and development opportunities aligning with each employee’s unique needs.
Example: Imagine you have a digital marketing specialist who excels in creating engaging social media campaigns. However, your business is expanding and now you need more data-driven analytics. Recognizing the need to upskill your employee in this specific area, you utilize AI to create a tailored learning and development plan.
Workforce Planning and Succession Management: AI-driven workforce planning tools analyze current workforce data and market trends to predict future talent needs. These tools assist HR professionals in developing strategic plans for talent acquisition, succession management and workforce optimization.
Example: Picture yourself as the head of a small business on the verge of franchising on a global level. AI-driven workforce planning tools assess market trends, industry benchmarks and talent availability to predict skill gaps and identify critical roles for succession planning. The data-driven approach enables the HR team to proactively address talent needs and ensuring a seamless transition during periods of growth.
According to Paychex 2024 Priorities for Business Leaders research, 98% of businesses anticipate utilizing AI tools in the coming months.
While AI has won most businesses over, some remain skeptical. Take, for example, a recent Retool report. They surveyed over 1,500 tech industry employees, including software engineers, designers and executives. Participants expressed their feelings on the current state of AI. Out of those surveyed, 51.6% deemed AI overrated and the primary pain point in developing AI apps was model output accuracy, according to 39.4% of respondents.
We asked HR specialist Sahana Rao how HR specialists can ensure employees feel comfortable with the implementation of AI technologies, addressing concerns related to job security.
HR specialists play a pivotal role in communicating transparently and clearly articulating to employees as to how AI is intended to augment and not replace human capabilities. Besides addressing any concerns about job security directly, it is important to include employees in the decision-making process regarding implementation in terms of seeking inputs, addressing concerns, incorporating feedback, maintaining ongoing dialogues on updates, etc, which fosters a sense of ownership, trust and reduces anxiety in the organization’s approach to technology integration.”
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2. Tech That Supports a Hybrid Work Model
Key Question: Managers tend to lean toward working in-office full-time. Where do employees stand when it comes to the hybrid work model?
The typical 9 to 5 job model is long outdated. The new normal — the hybrid work model — has arrived, and seems to be here to stay.
From October 2022 to January 2023, SWAA surveyed full-time U.S. workers. The findings revealed that among respondents aged 20-64 who had the option to work remotely, the most popular choice was a hybrid schedule, with 46% of people adopting this approach.
We asked human resource professional Ricky Torres how HR technology has evolved to support and optimize virtual collaboration. He explained:
As remote and hybrid work persists, our HR platforms have focused on simplicity and integration. Centralizing tools, using single sign-on access, building virtual water cooler moments into workflow — these tactics reduce friction. I’m also bullish on VR for immersive training and new techniques like computer vision to support safer, more engaging virtual environments.”
So, what tools should your HR team implement to support a hybrid workforce?
- Collaboration: Collaboration tools like Slack facilitate team communication and collaboration, enabling real-time messaging, file sharing and project management to keep everyone on the same page.
- Virtual Meeting Software: Video conferencing tools like Zoom ensure remote and in-office employees can participate in discussions and collaborate seamlessly, fostering a sense of connection regardless of location.
- Cloud-Based HR Systems: Transitioning to cloud-based HR systems allows easy access to employee information, payroll and other HR functionalities from any location. Enable HR teams to manage personnel matters efficiently, whether employees work in the office or remotely.
- Performance Management: Monitor employee engagement, productivity and well-being. Some platforms like 15Five provide 360-degree multi-level feedback for a more holistic approach to employee performance management.
- Scheduling: Invest in scheduling tools that take into account employee data like availability and scheduled time off, like When I Work, which also allows for repeat schedules by week or month.
3. The Employee Experience Platform (EXP)
Key Question: How does utilizing an EXP benefit your staff and influence productivity?
The key to employee engagement is having an employee experience platform.
In Josh Bersin’s whitepaper, The Employee Experience Platform Market Has Arrived, Bersin explains that with an EXP implemented, the software should exist behind the scenes, enabling employees rather than limiting them.
EXP Benefits:
- Address every touchpoint in the employee journey, including role changes and benefits selection for life events.
- Unlike traditional self-service portals, EXP systems are more automated and intelligent, using AI for features like break reminders.
- IBM’s Watson Career Coach, a part of EXP, offers career guidance, facilitates opportunities, and supports continuous learning for employees.
- Despite uncertainties in this emerging market, EXP has broad potential and is considered the future of HR tech by experts like Bersin.
- It’s recommended to explore the employee experience platform and its role in organizational processes.
Digital employee experience (DEX) is also gaining traction in evolving the HR landscape — especially for remote teams. DEX is an employee’s overall experience with the digital workplace, including network performance, device performance, applications and user sentiment. A positive device performance directly influences an employee’s ability to carry out tasks efficiently, promoting a smooth workflow.
Enhance your employees’ digital experience by:
- Providing support and training, ensuring they know how to use digital technology to its full abilities
- Choosing an intuitive, user-friendly design
- Providing customization, enabling employees to tailor it to their needs and preferences
- Checking device performance, checking the responsiveness and reliability, reducing frustration from poor technology performance
In The Ultimate Guide to Digital Employee Experience by Applaud:
You invested in any given digital tool to help your people do a specific task. Like collaborate remotely, manage projects, give feedback, or a million other things. It’s critical to understand whether each tool achieves that objective and optimize accordingly.
“That’s where digital employee experience comes in. A great DEX strategy helps you understand your current tech environment and determine which changes will maximize productivity. So you can build the right combination of digital tools that best suit the task at hand. To empower your people to be more productive.”
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4. Retaining Employees With Learning Development
Key Question: With talent shortages increasing, how can you strengthen employee growth?
One of the hot topics in the HR space has been the ongoing battle for finding and maintaining talent. With 3.7 million employees in the U.S. deciding to call it quits in 2023, companies are still scrambling to find skilled workers.
Another report highlights that 77% of companies report talent shortages and difficulty hiring — a 17-year high. At the same time, businesses are dealing with high turnover rates and the ongoing retirement of the boomer generation.
If your company struggles to fill roles, you have three options: invest more in recruiting, turn to the alternative workforce or hire internally.
Indeed explains how to address a skills gap in four steps.
Step 1: Identify your organization’s needs
Start by conducting a skills gap analysis. Align organizational needs with business goals to identify necessary skills and qualifications.
Step 2: Evaluate Your Staff’s Current Skillset
Evaluate your staff’s current skills by conducting a survey where employees list, discuss or rank their capabilities. Evaluating employees’ existing skills also helps find learning opportunities and note strengths.
Step 3: Determine Which Skills Employees Need
Identify necessary skills by comparing survey results with job descriptions and consulting department managers. Accurately define essential skills, helping prioritize employee improvement areas.
Step 4: Create Learning and Development Plans
Develop learning plans based on skills gap analysis. Use the data to design training programs, workshops or courses tailored to address identified skill needs. Consider department-specific plans to prevent future skill gaps proactively.
An important aspect of learning management is reskilling employees and developing training for new hires.
Bersin explains that the entire learning market is going through a period of reinvention. Organizations now have access to various systems that fall into several categories. These include but aren’t limited to learning experience platforms, micro-learning platforms and learning content platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Udemy.
The learning management system stands resilient and far from obsolescence. Yet, in the dynamic landscape of HR technology, where innovation reigns supreme, it’s paramount to chart your course wisely. What opportunities and advancements will you embrace to propel your organization forward? The answer lies in navigating the shifting tides of HR tech and the range of training applications on the market today.
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5. The Role of VR and Immersive Learning
Key Question: How can immersive learning benefit your team?
Employee training has come a long way from paper handbooks and grainy VHS tapes. Virtual reality (VR) for training provides an immersive learning experience, revolutionizing how HR professionals enhance their skills and navigate complex scenarios.
Here’s how:
Leadership Training
VR facilitates hands-on lifelike scenarios that mimic real-world leadership challenges like decision-making exercises, conflict resolution simulations and communication scenarios.
An added benefit is that these VR exercises enable HR teams to refine their leadership skills in a risk-free environment, fostering confident and competent leaders.
Recruitment and Interviewing Skills
VR enables HR teams to fine-tune their recruitment and interviewing skills by creating virtual job fairs, realistic interview scenarios and candidate interactions. This immersive experience allows HR professionals to practice evaluating candidates, asking pertinent questions and making well-informed hiring decisions.
Onboarding
Enhance the onboarding process by providing new hires with virtual workplace tours, interactive introductions to company culture and day-to-day task simulations. This immersive experience helps acclimate employees to their new environment, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding from the outset.
Conflict Resolution
VR simulations replicate workplace conflicts, allowing HR professionals to practice mediation, conflict resolution techniques and empathetic communication.
In our interview with Torres, we asked how HR technology facilitates employee learning and development.
Lifelong learning opportunities mixing AR, VR and AI could reshape development substantially by allowing deeply immersive upskilling. Imagine step-by-step expert guidance visible as you perform complex manual tasks or simulations replicating leadership challenges at scale for management training. This blending of working and learning shows enormous potential.”
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6. Skills-Based Hiring and Soft Skills
Key Question: What makes soft skills important to a successful workplace?
Instead of emphasizing general qualifications, skills-based hiring targets the specific skills and competencies required for a particular job role. In 2023, 60% of companies boosted their investment in skills-based hiring.
Situations where HR teams might utilize skills-based hiring:
- Promoting Diversity and Inclusion: Focusing on specific skills ensures that individuals from diverse backgrounds who may have acquired relevant skills through various paths receive fair consideration.
- Project-Based Roles: HR professionals can identify candidates with the exact skills required for projects, ensuring teams are well-equipped to meet specific objectives within a defined timeframe.
- Startups: In dynamic and fast-paced startup environments, where roles may evolve rapidly, skills-based hiring allows HR professionals to prioritize candidates who possess the specific skills needed to contribute immediately.
Skills-based hiring benefits:
- Streamline the recruitment process by emphasizing the most critical qualifications
- Reduce hiring costs by filling vacancies faster
- Stay competitive by quickly onboarding individuals with the most relevant and up-to-date skill sets
- Build skills-based teams, ensuring each member contributes specific expertise and creating a well-rounded and high-performing group
The Focus on Soft Skills
The importance of soft skills has gained significant traction alongside the traditional emphasis on technical expertise. This shift stems from recognizing that success in the workplace isn’t just based on technical proficiency but is equally dependent on navigating complex social situations and collaborating effectively.
According to a Wiley University report, half of the surveyed HR professionals observe a growing demand for soft skills compared to early 2020, with 44% expecting workers to require continuous training.
The same research shows key soft skills being prioritized include:
- Problem-solving (42%)
- Time management (36%)
- Adaptability to change (35%)
7. Change Management
Key Question: How can you set your company’s future up for success in the face of unpredicted change?
According to the Harvard Business Review, “three-quarters of change efforts flop.”
Luckily, in the words of Oscar Goldman, “We have the technology.”
Change management features include:
- Survey tools like SurveyMonkey collect feedback and assess employee sentiment during workplace changes.
- Talent management tools like TINYpulse measure employee engagement and help identify opportunities for improvement.
- Document management helps detail changes, providing context for employees.
Gartner reports that 45% of employees are fatigued by workplace changes. The article goes on to explain:
Change fatigue has clear ramifications. HR leaders must help employees to navigate change and mitigate the impact that change may have on their work and, more importantly, their well-being.”
By incorporating change management into your HR technology toolkit, you can ensure a smoother transition for your staff and simplify identifying areas where you may need additional support throughout change initiatives.
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8. Blockchain Integration
Key Question: How are you protecting company data?
A Statista report about cybersecurity highlights the following:
During the first quarter of 2023, more than six million data records were exposed worldwide through data breaches. Since the first quarter of 2020, the highest number of exposed data records was detected in the fourth quarter of 2020, nearly 125 million data sets.”
Cybersecurity is an increasingly pressing concern, especially in HR, where personnel data and confidential information are significant concerns.
To put it simply, blockchain technology handles sensitive data better. It’s essentially a digital ledger that duplicates and distributes information across the entire network of systems on the blockchain.
David Rodeck, writing for Forbes Advisor, explains how blockchain works.
The digital ledger is often described as a ‘chain’ that’s made up of individual ‘blocks’ of data. As fresh data is periodically added to the network, a new “block” is created and attached to the ‘chain.’ This involves all nodes updating their version of the blockchain ledger to be identical.”
How can blockchain help HR?
- Protect data and prevent unauthorized access with key-based protection.
- Provide secure, high-level management of extensive confidential company and employee data
- Streamline payroll processes with automation and secure payments to employees, contractors and vendors
- Offer expense control for companies outsourcing background checks and verification
- Go paperless and work with transparent digital contracts
- Empower employees to control their personal blockchains with their professional identity (when employees quit, access to maintain control over their records gets revoked)
On the subject of security, data privacy and security are paramount concerns (especially with the rise of AI in HR). We asked Torres how HR technology should address these concerns and what trends can help enhance data protection within HR systems.
Advanced multi-layered security protocols across systems are table stakes today given escalating cyber threats. But I foresee AI itself strengthening data protection via pattern monitoring, automated threat response and more. There’s also potential for blockchain to secure identity access and records in decentralizing data. Adoption of zero-trust models will be key.”
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Tips To Adapt To HR Technology Trends
By staying informed and embracing emerging technologies, your HR team can stay ahead of the competition and boost your employee experience. Below are some ways you can help your business adapt to HR technology trends:
Invest in AI-driven Recruitment Tools
Leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in your recruitment processes. Implement AI-driven tools for resume screening, candidate matching, and predictive analytics to streamline and enhance your hiring efforts. These tools can significantly reduce time-to-hire, improve candidate quality, and provide valuable insights for data-driven talent acquisition decisions.
Integrate Remote Work Technologies
As remote work continues to be a prevalent trend, invest in technologies that facilitate seamless virtual collaboration and employee engagement. Explore innovative communication platforms, project management tools, and virtual team-building solutions.
Optimizing your HR processes for remote work environments attracts top talent, contributing to a more agile and flexible workplace culture.
Prioritize Employee Well-being with HR Tech
Focus on employee well-being by integrating technologies that support mental health, work-life balance, and overall satisfaction. Consider implementing wellness apps, employee assistance programs, and digital mental health resources. These tools demonstrate a commitment to employee welfare and contribute to higher productivity and positive company culture.
Embrace Data-Driven HR Decision-Making
Harness the power of data analytics to make informed HR decisions. Implement HR analytics tools to gather employee performance, engagement, and retention insights.
By analyzing data, you can identify trends, predict future challenges, and tailor HR strategies to meet the evolving needs of your workforce. Data-driven decision-making ensures that your HR practices are agile and responsive to the dynamic nature of the tech-driven workplace.
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Wrapping It Up
The evolution of HR technology impacts by simplifying core HR processes and supporting a more engaged, productive workforce. From advances in responsible AI to augmented reality training, HR technology trends are driving significant transformation to the landscape. The key to your organization’s success is the ability to adapt.
Need help navigating the ever-evolving HR technology world? Check out our free analyst comparison report for relevant software solutions and use our proprietary selection management platform to find the right HR system based on customized requirements.
Which HR technology trend do you see as a stand-out affecting the HR landscape? Did we miss anything? Share your insights and thoughts in the comments!
Contributing Thought Leaders
Sahana Rao is a human resources specialist with a background in Engineering and Management Studies and a specific focus on talent management. She currently works as a Human Resources Specialist for the PA team and has earned recognition as a “Top HR Voice” on LinkedIn.
Sahana’s educational foundation underscores her commitment to a comprehensive understanding of the business landscape. Grounded in Management Studies and specializing in Human Resources and Talent Management, she has crafted a unique career trajectory that seamlessly integrates technical proficiency with a people-oriented approach. She’s good at identifying talent and giving it the support and TLC it needs to thrive. She’s currently pursuing AI in HR from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ricky Torres is a seasoned Human Resources professional with a Master of Science in Human Resources Strategic Management from Bellevue University and a Master of Science in Management from Excelsior University, showcasing his commitment to continuous learning and professional development.
Before his current role as Human Resources Operations Manager at 3M, he’s held key positions in Human Resources including Business Consultant at Upwor and HR Business Partner at Charter Communications and Amazon. Torres is a published author, with his book titled “The Inspirational Leader, Inspire Your Team To Believe In The Impossible.” He actively mentors and volunteers, serving as a Business Mentor with SCORE Mentors since November 2022. He’s also a Senior Contributor at The SMB Guide, providing valuable insights into HR consulting, management and business development.