Earlier this year we published our top 10 predictions for HR technology as provided to us by industry thought leaders in the IHRIM community. As we head to the end of the year, we thought it worth visiting these predictions by reprinting the article below.
Top 10 Predictions for HR Technology
2012 has been a big year for HR technology. With growing use of HR in the cloud; the rise in popularity of Big Data; significant mergers within the vendor arena, a highly successful IPO from Workday; and increasing conversations coming from the boardroom about analytics, 2013 promises to make even more waves in the industry.
We’ve asked various luminaries of the IHRIM community to gaze into their 'HR Technology Crystal Ball' to provide a forecast for next year. So what will 2013 bring? The following predictions are what this group feels will be the most significant trends that will impact HR Tech in 2013.
Social Networking: As businesses strive for greater employee engagement, they will continue to leverage social networks with their processes and systems – especially with performance management and learning management. Additionally, as there is a lot of content clutter in social, the use of platforms
like Pinterest, YouTube and Slide Share will continue to grow as a way to help information stand out in infographics, videos and images. Collaboration will also play a large part in tying the organization’s workforce together, providing forums for new ideas and acceleration within the business.
Personal Devices: Since more and more employees are using mobile devices and bringing them to work (and expecting to use them), HR will be partnering more with IT in not only encouraging companies to allow the use of personal devices in the workplace but also helping create policies around their use.
There will also be a drive to “‘appify” everything, as there will be a move from traditional PC/Mac programs and a push to making things user‐friendly for an employee’s iPad/Tablet. Compatibility and security will bring new challenges to IT in making these devices a part of the workplace.
Mobile vs Desktop: The “desktop” workstation will start to be replaced by the mobile device – especially with the increasing use of tablets among consumers. And as more consumers use their mobile devices (both in and outside of the workplace), companies will spend time & resources on developing and/or improving processes designed for a smart device – particularly when it comes to recruiting, information access and learning.
SaaS: Organizations worldwide will continue to look to Software‐as‐a‐Service (SaaS) as a way to drive down Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – especially since it offers more configurable, always up‐to‐date and functionally rich applications. There will also be a growing breed of newer “as‐a‐service” products: integration (iPaaS), service (SaaS2), entire platforms (PaaS) accompanying the SaaS growth challenging the consumer with many varieties of configuration for technology and service.
Predictive Analytics: While workforce analytics will keep growing as a key HR and business management tool, there will be a huge push to integrate this HR data to help influence decisions in the boardroom. Predictive analysis will start to encroach on the metrics/analytics space as vendors start providing tools
for gathering and interpreting trend data for purposes of predicting business environments and the accompanying workforce demands and individual potentials.
Cloud Computing: More and more companies are moving their HR applications to the cloud. And, more and more vendor companies – if they are not already there – are putting their software in the clouds. Because of this, there will be a big drive to meet the demands of complex and/or global organizations, as the HR Tech vendors that get this right will have a remarkably competitive edge to their cloud HR systems.
Systems Integration: As companies continue to merge or be acquired, the need for developing a single, global system of record (SOR) grows. And with the increasing use of talent management applications in the workforce, the real need for integration of these processes will become a bigger topic of discussion
in the C‐Suite. And to complicate this trend, cloud‐based systems integrating with premise based systems present challenges likened to “storm clouds on the horizon”.
Metrics: Metrics will no longer be considered an optional part of HR Technology, as vendors will be showing off user‐friendly dashboards that can be configured used to provide the reports and information an HR manager needs. As such, the HR teams that leverage the full power of workforce analytics will see a tremendous payoff for their companies (and their own respective careers).
Big Data: Big Data has invaded the HR space, but the understanding of what use it has and what HR and the business can do with it is still in its infancy. The focus will be on not just collecting the data, but ways to convert the data to information – the need will be for applications that allow meaningful interpretation and analysis leading to better decision making.
Gamification: As the top levels of management recognize the business value of using gaming principles to their advantage, the use of ‘play’ will be expanded to enhance employee engagement. As this grows, it will become a bigger part of all HR processes/rewards/recognitions and help to leverage the expectations of the newer workforce which already sees the value in “experiential learning”.
There’s no doubt about it: the HR Technology industry will not only see some big changes ahead in 2013, but it will also be an agent of change in business.
List of contributors (alphabetically):
- Karen Beaman, CEO/Founder/Strategic Advisor, Jeitosa Group International
- Rich Berger, HRIP, SPHR, Senior Director, Global HRIS, Citrix Systems, Inc.
- Damon Lovett, HRIP, Senior Consultant, KnowledgeSource Consulting
- Alexia Martin, Director, Research and Analytics, CedarCrestone
- Lynne Mealy, HRIP, President & CEO, IHRIM
- Marc Miller, President, Marc S. Miller Associates
- Nov Omana, HRIP, Founder/CEO, Collective HR Solutions
- Bennett Reddin, CTO & Founder, CloudMills
- Robert Scott, Practice Director: Human Capital Services, Presence of IT
IHRIM Volunteer Spotlight – Jim Pettit, HRIP