7 HR tech trends that will drive your business in 2022

The days when people at HR departments handled only paychecks and recruitment are gone. Long gone.

Anyone who works in Human Resources would probably take it as an insult to even imply that it is all they do.

Nowadays, it is crucial to the success of your business, that you let HR specialists care for the people first.

Of course, everyone needs their salary on time. Especially in the economically-challenging world we live in right now. But. There’s more to HR than meets the eye.

One industry that actually noticed, is IT.

Here are the top 7 tech trends that help HR specialists oversee Employee Experience in 2022.

1. Remote or hybrid teams management

What else could we start with?

Think of the biggest trend in HR at the moment… Given the Covid-19 situation, there is no other choice than to speak about Home Office first.

It has become a permanent option for employees is various industries. Without a doubt – very popular in IT.

No wonder the tech world tries hard to make it as convenient as possible. The remote work is our reality. And it looks like the trend is here to stay. (Even though Elon Musk, may say otherwise).

If you incorporated at least the hybrid model – you should be interested in the time and space management software. The best way is to add such features into a thorough HCM solution. But a dedicated mobile app will do the work as well.

Imagine how easier it will be to manage the absences and the office spaces if everyone would use one tool and provide you with their when- and whereabouts.

The usual approach is to visualize it on a calendar and let others see what their colleagues are planning. It saves a lot of time. And makes it easier to plan meetings and future endeavors. Even from various locations.

2. Employee wellness and experience

More and more organizations notice other factors (besides the salary) that shape employee experience from the inside. It’s not only how much you earn. It’s also what you do, with whom, where, whether you have fun and room for self development.

Therefore, the software that you are using (as a part of the working culture), has a lot to do with the perception of the business environment.

If everyone follows a well-thought procedure that has been incorporated into a user-friendly system, you will feel that much more welcome at the organization. It matters during onboarding. But it also matters after you’ve already settled.

Two powerful tech solutions which support employee experience are gamification and the adoption of wearables. Both are great motivational tools. And both should be incorporated into a company IT platform.

Let your employees collect awards, take part in challenges and use cool gadgets – and you’ll see the employment retention process slowing down immediately.

3. E-learning

If you’re lucky, the job you do is also your passion.

It’s only right to improve your skills. And it will come that much easier when you like what you do.

How about, instead of showing up to long and tiring trainings, you log into to an interactive e-learning platform from your own living room? Or form a conference room? But on your own terms?

Professional HR-focused software means also e-learning solutions. They can come in handy during onboarding, when you need to pass on a huge amount of knowledge. It’s also useful later on, when it’s time to update information about a new product or strategy.

Give your employees space for self-development, and they’ll repay you with additional engagement. It is also likely they will recommend you as an employer. There’s no better employer branding campaign you could plan than the word of moth spread by current happy employees.

4. Recruitment and onboarding management

Recruitment is definitely one of the most challenging projects any business takes on. It is fair to compare it to acquiring clients. In a sense, candidates chose their future place of work the way customers look for the right offer. And in times of employee market – you need to try twice as hard to get their attention.

The best you can do to hire top specialists is to:

It is possible to handle that manually. But why would you? You can get all that in one place, integrated into your Human Capital Management software.

There are ways to connect job portals with internal recruitment CRM. Thanks to that, you will keep track of both candidate database and your common team efforts to hire the best specialists out there.

And after you have singed the employment contract – starts the onboarding. We have mentioned its importance in the employee experience bit.

When the first day of work comes for your new teammate, there’s quite a lot going on at the same time. You will need to do some paperwork, give out equipment, provide training. At this point, it won’t surprise you that the tech world have already thought of automating also those processes.  

Surely, you have heard  unpleasant stories about people joining a team that was not ready to welcome them. It adds to the stress of arriving at a new place. 

In order to avoid that, you should look into software options that equip the HR employees with a set of predefined checklists, drafts, and templates. Such features will help you take control of the situation. They will also ease the anxiety and nervousness for the newcomers.

5. AI for better HR analytics

AI is the buzzword of anything software. We entered a new era in the way we do business. Artificial Intelligence is able to help us with more and more activities. And the world of HR is no different.

Over the years, it has become pretty obvious that information is a very valuable currency. We probably do not need to convince you to collect sales data.  Modern companies are eager to use their software not only to manage current endeavors, but also to plan business moves and forecast future outcome. And if they do it to drive profits, why wouldn’t they do it to empower their workforce?

AI can help you oversee demand on employment, source new candidates, and even perform some repetitive tasks during recruitment.

Moreover, it unlocks powerful analytical abilities of the HR systems.  It is easy to assume that HCM and other similar types of software are good only for knowledge disposal. The truth is, they actually empower management with lots of useful corporate data. It is time to make use of it!

Example: based on AI-powered reports, you will notice trends in employee retention.  It will be so much easier to prevent them in the future.

6. Data security

We list it as a trend, but it actually is more of a responsibility.

When it comes to software for HR, you need to be aware how sensitive data it holds. Once you implement it and start using it at your company, it will quickly fill up with a lot of personal information. Names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, IDs, salary and employment details… You should take care of that. And for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost – because of your employee’s safety. Personal information put together with credit card details or identification documents hold a lot of value. People who trusted you with that really need you to follow the latest data security regulations.

That’s actually another reason. In the European Union, for example, you are legally obliged to ensure personal information’s safety. You need to follow strict General Data Protection Regulation, known as GDPR. Otherwise, you may expect very expensive fines.

And if people’s safety or penalty payments do not speak to your conscience, and you still wish to gamble with data security – there’s the last reason. Your credibility. If you become the cause of public data breach, you will lose not only your employees but also your clients. No one will trust you with their information or money anymore.

It all sounds very serious. And it is. But there are ways to ensure data safety without entirely abandoning IT systems. Actually, there’s nothing safer than properly fire walled servers.

Modern cloud solutions come with anti-theft protection by default. You can expect frequent backups, security audits and certifications.

Some software providers also let you host their systems On-Premise. If you really don’t trust public clouds (even though its High Availability standards) you are free to host your system in private infrastructure. The responsibility of its safety lays entirely on you then. But some organizations may actually prefer it. It even  sometimes is a requirement, for example for government institutions or large corporations.

7. Software as a Service

The previous trend leads to the last we would like to mention.

SaaS.

People love their subscriptions. It has become very popular to pay monthly rates for music, movies, games, gym, cosmetics, even cars and apartments. We often times rather to “rent” things than to own them. It means less commitment and more freedom to change our minds.

Lately, the situation with global economy, politics and most importantly public health, has become very unpredictable. No wonder, we like to leave more room for agility in decision-making.

It shows in how we live our private lives. It also shapes the way we do business.

Many companies decided to put their software in the cloud for safety reasons (as described above) but arguably more did so, to take advantage of easy subscription plans. Or for a combination of both.

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. And in times when almost everything becomes a service (XaaS) it’s only appropriate to apply the same rule to Human Capital Management IT solutions.

If you want to jump on that train and like many others, get your own subscription-based software, ask us for options. A couple memorable mentions are:

Key takeaways

In this article, we analyzed 7 trends, that in our opinion will continue to shape businesses in 2022… and later.

The main takeaway is that IT solutions for HR change accordingly to general tendencies in the tech world. What we currently observe among systems for job agencies and HR departments, also shows in other types of software for other industries. 

The most vivid examples are:

Do you wish to know more or see the necessity of implementing those trends in the way you do your business – contact us directly.

We will be glad to help you kick-start the digital transformation of your company, and most importantly, your HR department.