Employees are the backbone of any business. What’s more, the workforce is even more important than a product. It’s no wonder that many organizations invest heavily in human resources (HR) technologies to improve workers’ well-being and performance. More than 88% of businesses want to adopt at least three HR tech solutions over the next two years.
Many tech startups are now taking advantage of such a high demand, pushing HR transformation even further. In this article, JatApp offers to dive deep into the biggest HR tech trends, so you could define some alluring business opportunities.
6 biggest HR technology trends
Technology is reshaping many HR practices, from the basic functions like the way businesses onboard their employees, to introducing more innovative strategies, such as analyzing job satisfaction levels. Let’s take a closer look at the most prominent HR technology trends dominating today’s market.
Use of chatbots to streamline HR operations
Data shows that HR professionals spend 50% of their time on workers’ repetitive queries. Chatbots free the HR team from this burden by engaging in a humanlike conversation with employees. Such bots are programmed to provide not only general information about employee benefits or company policies, but also immediate feedback from performance reviews and engagement surveys.
Companies also use chatbots to navigate newly employed team members and inform the workforce about organizational changes. The technology offers 24/7 user support, automating many HR processes and helping to meet employees’ urgent needs.
A good case to discuss here is Senseforth.ai, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that enables workers to adapt to the new workplace and gathers their feedback on the employer. This HR digital assistant also helps to automate several hiring stages, like profile submission, documentation, and assessment tests. This, in turn, reduces the time to hire, filling the communication gap between a candidate and a recruiter.
Senseforth.ai chatbot functionality
People analytics has become a workplace necessity
More and more companies are now focusing on analyzing employees’ feedback to improve workplace culture and business processes. This strategy helps to understand team members’ pain points, gauge their emotions quickly, and engage them in decision-making.
But how can employers know that this feedback is honest and reliable? This is when HR technology comes into play. When combined with the data on sick leaves and paid time off, the sentiment analysis of employee surveys can provide valuable insight into team members’ authentic experiences.
Technologies with natural language processing (NLP) can evaluate employees’ emotional state during an organizational change. For example, NLP can spot the changes in the levels of fatigue, thereby revealing the early signs of burnout. HRs can use quantitative data, such as number of meetings and hours worked, to validate the results of such an assessment.
Besides, employee-related data is often fragmented, which makes it difficult for HR specialists to see some important correlations. For instance, they might not see the connection between how long it usually takes to promote a worker and why top talents are quitting. This, in turn, influences an organizational culture, including its approach to inclusion, diversity and equity.
People analytics tools help to process different data from across the organization. As an example, eqtble is a technology that offers dashboard insights and visualizations related to four main domains: workforce, recruitment, compensation, and engagement. Eqtble helps HRs understand why top candidates are turning down their job offers. For instance, the tool can define that some people are dropping out because of the long interview process, while others are tired of waiting when hiring managers can tackle their applications.
eqtble summary dashboard
The platform also helps HR teams recruit and retain a culturally diverse workforce. Of course, an organization can simply hire a large percentage of people of color or have the same number of male and female employees. But still, it would make no sense if most women or Black workers aren’t being promoted into leadership positions or getting raises based on their performances. Eqtble highlights these biases in decision-making for HR teams to timely take an action.
eqtble people analytics
As for our personal experience, JatApp helped one of our Danish clients create an application for employee engagement. This people analytics tool keeps track of how employees feel and invites them to take part in engagement surveys. What’s more, the app has a video recording feature, so that HR managers can offer video feedback based on the survey outcomes. Such an employee-centered approach allows companies to quickly respond to staff’s bad mood.
Engagement survey feature
Technology supports workplace habits and routine
Workplace habits and routine are important for maintaining organizational culture and employee satisfaction. That’s why companies need to be aware of how their people are choosing to work. HR tech delivers metrics related to where and how staff is working, including favorite collaboration tools, whether workers use computers or smartphones for work and so on. Based on the results, HR teams can incorporate other tools that help to meet staff’s needs as well as encourage positive habits at the workplace.
For example, we assisted our customer, a startup from Cannes, in building the IoT technology that enables the staff to work on their laptops anywhere they want. Instead of being glued to their desks, employees can rent a power bank and enjoy a new work environment, without worrying about the battery charge level. By letting workers establish their favorite workplace routine, HR managers can boost employee productivity and improve job satisfaction levels.
The power bank rental platform functionality
Another good example is a Near Miss Reporting App that we developed for a leading company in workplace experience. The tech solution aids HR teams to promote a culture of safety by encouraging employees to report near misses, unexpected situations that can result in an injury or equipment damage. To make reporting more engaging, the application offers gamification features, like achievements and missions, as well as social media elements, such as comments, likes, profiles, and chats.
Near Miss Reporting App gamification features
Technology ensures seamless onboarding
New staff members tend to decide whether they stay or quit during the first three to six months. The last thing HR teams want to do is to make a bad first impression when onboarding new personnel. Needless to say, a confusing and slow onboarding process can repel new hires, showing an entire organization in a negative light.
HR tech solutions help to make sure that such a situation won’t happen. In fact, there are many ways managers can make onboarding more efficient, such as using tech to automate paperwork, keeping new employees engaged using virtual reality, connecting them with the right team members through collaboration tools, and so on.
Rippling makes an on-point example of technology that facilitates an onboarding process. This tool streamlines learning management, benefits enrollment, payroll, and administrative data entry. With this application, managers can send e-documentation to new hires to electronically sign on the spot. Moreover, the platform helps to make sure that new team members have all necessary applications installed and passwords well protected before they ever get to their working place.
Rippling dashboard
Virtual reality has become the new normal in the training process
Practical training of emergency skills can expose employees to numerous hazards. Luckily, digital technologies, like virtual reality (VR), came to save the day and ensure a safe training space. HR managers can use VR to encourage their employees to learn the first aid skills skills and brush up the existing competences without worrying about potential dangers.
With VR, the personnel can also have fun while practicing their soft skills instead of making expensive mistakes with colleagues or customers. Apart from that, it frees employees from reading a dull handbook or watching a mediocre video training about everyday interactions, which many people see as red flags and would rather look for another job than watch them. As a result, new employees quit, leaving their former employers with retention issues.
Equal Reality refers to a diversity and inclusion training tool that offers employees different VR learning experiences. With this technology, HR managers can teach their teams what it’s like to deal with inappropriate behaviors or discrimination at the workplace. Employees learn to identify various biases and properly respond to them in real time.
Detecting disability biases with Equal Reality
People can also walk in someone else’s shoes by practicing difficult conversations from the perspective of others. One day, a staff member takes the role of a company’s leader who needs to break bad news about layoffs, while another day they’re an upper manager that gives a tricky performance review.
Wellness technology is on the rise after Covid-19
Employees’ health and wellness have become a number one priority for businesses as they keep on grappling with Covid-19 pandemic. That’s why many companies have long included wellness tech solutions into team members’ benefits packages.
These technologies are especially helpful for employees who started to work from home. A wide range of coping technologies help workers to handle different remote work issues, from a sedentary lifestyle to bosses’ expectations to be available 24/7. Be it a timer to remind an employee to move around or do stretches during audio calls, HR professionals can incorporate technologies to improve staff members’ well-being and productivity at work.
Since many employees have shifted to remote or hybrid work, it’s never been a better time to carve out at least twenty minutes for a power nap during a break. The Power Nap App allows workers to set a time for up to half an hour and fall asleep to the relaxing sounds of rain or forest. The solution also has pleasant alarm sounds, such as birds chirping, to make users calmly wake up. HR specialists can introduce this app to boost employees’ energy and creativity throughout the day.
Power Nap App functionality
A final word
Businesses are approaching a tipping point when HR teams will rely on technology in all aspects of their work. The demand for engaging tech solutions that help companies meet their HR objectives will continue to grow. If you’re ready to be a part of this HR transformation process, you’ll need to partner with a service provider that can help you to build a truly impactful solution.
JatApp has been successfully delivering HR technologies for six consecutive years. We pride ourselves on the ability to provide high-quality products that succeed on the market. As an example, one of our recent IoT HR tools has 40,000 downloads and is actively used by twenty four registered organizations. So it’s not surprising that the average duration of our projects is three years and many customers cannot but leave rave reviews on Clutch.
Now it’s time to move from words to actions. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your HR digital transformation strategy.