Climb Aboard the HR Technology Train

As the conductors (HR leaders), we are certainly being asked to change our function away from compliance, administration and collecting yearly performance reviews (can you say 1990’s for many companies??) to continuing our journey as a more strategic and an advisory function, to managing growing employee needs and expectations, to ensuring the organization has an engaged and productive workforce. To fulfill increasing demands, while hiring and retaining top talent, HR must implement new workplace technologies.

But first, are HR teams tech ready? Note, I did not say tech “savvy”, I said tech “ready”. This is a question for all members of any HR team to consider. As I think through this question for our team, a few topics come to mind when assessing tech readiness.

Are we current or lagging? 

When it comes to expectations around an evolving HR function, the bar continues to rise. The expectations around driving business change fall squarely on our shoulders.  The expectations and opportunities around the intersection of technology and people in business is almost endless.  Arguably, no other business function is undergoing the dramatic changes that HR is experiencing. We are charged with becoming more strategic than ever before, we must become exponentially more tech-savvy and simultaneously more focused on the softer side of our ever changing (more educated, more involved, more demanding) workforce.

At work – do our technologies provide­­ an experience that employees are accustomed to?

Outside of work, our employees log on to their Facebook or Netflix accounts, everything they see revolves around them. Their name, their recent activity, their recommended next activity, etc.  And this hasn't just made it easier for them to shop and entertain themselves; it's conditioned them to operate in a personalized environment, where their needs and preferences dictate the process—whatever the process may be. So when it comes to work, our employees have come to expect a similar degree of personalization.

How often will we need to adopt change in order to stay ready?

Change in our HR function and technology is continuous and consistently moving faster.  Let’s take a look at just the growth of devices since 1992.  In 1992 there were about one million connected devices.  In 2003, about a half billion.  The Internet of Things inception was around 2009 and by 2012 there were over 8.7 BILLION connected devices.  By 2020, we will have over 50 billion connected devices.

Technology in our workspace design

Typical office buildings are in use for around 40 years.  The actual workspace design typically lasts around a decade.  Your workforce turns over about every 7-8 years.  Organizational changes happen about every 2-3 years.  Technology capacity and speed doubles every 15 months.  15 months!  Today, our physical and digital worlds continue to merge, as our workplace is reshaped by artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), voice recognition (conversational platforms), drones and bots, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), predictive software and augmented reality (AR).  The list goes on.

"We'll no longer need to learn the software," says Rephael Sweary, president and co-founder of WalkMe, a technology company based in Raleigh, N.C. "AI is already learning more about our individual roles, behaviors and actions to personalize how we use HR and other business software."  If you don't factor these technology trends into your innovation strategies, you risk losing ground.

What can we do?  We can start by creating business scenarios using technology to inform new HR business designs – at Gannett we are looking at voice recognition software to assist with basic employee service issues (as an example).  That said, we need to create a more natural and immersive user experience for our employees with conversational platforms and augmented reality.  And… we need to support and understand how the Internet of Things is developing and exploiting greater use of the cloud and edge computing.  With all that, we must also adopt a strategic approach to security and risk. 

How can this help?  Well, we can use these technological advances to greatly improve communication, improve our people data analysis (sometimes less is more),  enhance our employee data security, improve our training and development opportunities, enhance “whistle blower” platforms, implement more mobile availability, enhance video interviews and conferences, take advantage of the big data in talent explosion, create more connected wellness apps, enhance feedback tools, and enhance self-service – to name a few.

HR technology is growing at breakneck speed as we all look for better ways to attract and understand talent, as well as boost our employee experience.  HR consultant, Steve Boese agreed. "We've been talking about [HR technology] for almost a decade, but a lot of things are finally maturing," said Boese, who serves as the co-chair of the HR Technology Conference. (SearchHRSoftware publisher TechTarget is the media sponsor for the HR Technology Conference.) "The next couple of years will see HR technology focused on how to actually drive more business value out of investments rather than just improving HR systems."  From programs that gauge employee performance to employee-facing chatbots that accept feedback on sexual harassment, there are several "must-have" -- or at least "must-consider" -- HR technologies on the market, according to Boese, Hamerman and other industry observers.

Technology is more important now than ever in our personal lives as well as in the HR environment. With the digitization of everything and the fact that we all have better technology in our hands than most of our workplaces provide, technology is and will be a key part of the employee and candidate experience.  We need to understand, evaluate and implement or risk being left behind in the battle for talent.

Jump on the train. Together.  We.  Win.


Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr

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