F E AT U R E
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
AI tools maturing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in HR tech was probably the Number One tech topic and trend in 2019. There were about 500 exhibitors at HR Tech, and I bet easily over 100 of them are developing, deploying, or at least discussing, how AI is driving their technology offerings. The good thing for HR leaders about all this investment in AI is that more powerful technologies for things like information discovery, job opportunity to candidate/employee matching and employee-sentiment analysis are all maturing, getting more capable and being used by more companies in the “real” world. Also, consultancy and analyst research is shining more light on the technologies, approaches and results being driven by the application of AI in the workplace. Bottom line, in 2019 and beyond, AI tools are moving more toward the mainstream of HR tech, and will increasingly be evaluated, deployed, and measured like more traditional HR technologies have been — with a focus on fit, capability and return on investment.
Employee experience for the win If there was one phrase heard more at HR Tech in 2019 than “employee experience” I can’t think of it. Originally, it seemed like the “experience” conversations were an offshoot of the decades-long discussion about employee engagement. “Experience” allows us to think more specifically about the individual moments in an employee’s relationship with work and the organisation, and to develop processes and
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as user needs change and different supporting features become available. For 2020 and beyond, I expect to see this individually oriented technology paradigm become more common in HR and workplace technologies. HR-technology solutions will develop even more flexibility, adaptability and modularity (like your phone’s app store) in order to give users almost unfettered ability to tailor their workplace technologies to their own preferences, giving them more control over their data, their workflows and their experiences. technologies that are meant to elevate these moments to make them easier, more valuable and designed with the employee in mind. In HR tech, the influence of employee experience has manifested in much more user-centric designs, cleaner and simpler interfaces, and technology much more focused on users, as opposed to back-office or IT administrators. This is not just “how it looks” but much more about “how it works,” or perhaps better said, “how it helps me at work” — and that last viewpoint should be what HR leaders ask when evaluating all HR tech moving forward. This last trend may be one that still feels a little under the radar for most HR leaders and organisations, but to me, 2019 was the year that virtual reality (VR) really began to mature and emerge as a viable technology for HR, and most specifically, training and development professionals. One of the sessions at this year’s HR Tech that I was most impressed by was a mega session on how many leading employers (Walmart being the largest) are leveraging
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VR technology for employee training and development objectives. While VR, not unlike the famous experimental technology Google Glass, might never become a mainstream consumer technology, it seems very likely that the workplace applications are going to be increasingly significant.
HR technology for me Above, I mentioned the familiar consumerisation of HR tech, an extension of which, I think, is individual personalisation of HR and workplace technology. My favourite consumer comparison is the smartphone: Every new iPhone and the like ships to consumers exactly the same — loaded with the same software, layout/interface and installed applications. Within mere minutes of being activated, each of these millions of smartphones becomes unique — as users add, modify, adapt and configure their phones to support their own needs. And, by the way, this unique user-defined configuration is not static — it can and usually is updated almost constantly,
A return to wellbeing Employee wellbeing is not a new idea, but rather one that will see an increased emphasis in 2020, and thus a corresponding uptick in HRtech investments. We seem to be working more than ever; we are always tethered to work via our smartphones and the “worklife balance” people have long advocated for never quite arrived. Rather, the fuzzy concept of a work/life “blend” is now the goal. Add to this the normal workplace pressures of competitive global markets for most goods and services, persistent labour shortages in many industries, and increases in the incidence of mental-health conditions in the population and, to me, this adds up to a potential crisis in many organisations. In 2020, I expect more HR leaders to look again at wellbeing technologies to play a more significant role in their organisations and for the HR-tech companies that provide wellbeing solutions to innovate even more quickly to meet these challenges and opportunities.