Applying Technology to HR: How and where to start

Technology changes the way HR departments contact employees, store files and analyse employee performance. When used well, technology makes HR practices more efficient. When used poorly, it can get in the way of managing the company's human resources. Technology makes it easier to gather and break down data of employees to get an overall picture. Good HR practices maximise the benefits and minimize the problems when technology is used well.

What is technology? Technology is the sum of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods and services. It helps make things easier or resolves problems since it is a practical application of knowledge. Applying Technology to HR is providing groundbreaking HR automated technology solutions that re-shape the way people work and how they think about HR.

The adoption of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) marks an acceleration over skills shifts in HR, the future of workforce. This will transform the workplace as people increasingly interact with ever-smarter machines. Technology makes the tasks of recruitment, payroll and performance evaluation more manageable and allows HR staff members to better engage with the company's employees. Automation and 'thinking machines' are replacing human tasks as well as changing the skills that organisations are looking for in their people.

These technologies, and that human-machine interaction, will bring numerous benefits in the form of higher productivity, GDP growth, improved corporate performance, and new prosperity, but they will also change the skills required of human workers. There are wide varieties of HR technology groundbreaking solutions that have begun to give shape and substance to the world of human resources. Some of them include:

Recruitment Portals

As the name implies, recruiting portals streamline the hiring process. HR specialists can post job ads, accept job applications; manage candidates and do more without the hassle of manually tracking everything by themselves. Predicting workforce demand and attrition, searching for the right candidate, primary screening and interviews can all be achieved by a few clicks with intelligent AI Recruitment Portals. Candidates no longer need to send their CVs every time there is a job opening, therefore, once they register on these portals and upload their CVs the Recruitment Portals will automatically shortlist them if they are suitable for the position.

Performance Management Applications

Performance Management is a process of ensuring that a set of objectives and pre-set goals are met over a set period. Technology has streamlined the process and eliminated a lot of unnecessary steps for evaluations and tracking of performance between supervisor and employee. The Performance Management applications can assist managers to track their staff member's performance throughout the year, saving notes and feedback to prepare both manager and employee for the evaluation with a few clicks.

Salary Portals and Advisors

Salaries portals such as Glasssdoor, PayScale and IPC PayGenius help employers and employees compare their salaries against market trends. Here technology has also streamlined the process of salaries and benefits data collection, analysis and report generation by a click of a button. It is well known that employee compensation is a business activity with constantly moving parts and it needs to be continuously updated and managed especially in these trying times. Technology has increased the efficiency of business processes and frees up HR from many of the manual tasks it performs.

Betterworks CEO Doug Dennerline says HR will see a new level of data competency in 2019 with the rapid and widespread adoption of people analytics that help managers and executives make decisions about their workforce. “The raw data pulled from analytics can be used to create actionable insights and ultimately support data-driven decisions around promotions or compensation, development and success planning, and agile cross-functional team staffing,” Dennerline says.

While technology plays a crucial role in transforming human resources management software and operations from personnel management to business execution, technology itself does not create this change. HR managers must leverage technology to drive real value to the business. If you want to get started with a powerful yet cost-effective HR software, I recommend that you start with a solution that is in tune with the technological trends mentioned above. You can contact IPC at bis@ipcconsultants.com for a free trial today.

Kudzai Derera is the Business Systems Manager at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, a management and human resources consulting firm.

LinkedIn: https://zw.linkedin.com/in/kudzaiderera

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Email: kudzai@ipcconsultants.com

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