Trends 2016: The game of HR technology

By Pradeep Agarwal

The firms are increasingly investing on HR technology to address the HR needs and ease the work of their HR staff, thereby creating a strong company profile/brand to attract the best talent in the market.  The unpredictable nature of the current dynamic market makes it harder for organizations to carry out their day-to-day work.

The need of being ready to face the future consumer and market trends and overcome the issues that may arise would be the best way to take the business ahead without any hiccups. There are many trends that are building up in the current business world. However, all of these will not make a huge impact on businesses immediately.

Some of the key trends to look for in 2016 are listed below.

1. HR system for the end -user

Typically, an HRIS/HRMS system would address the issues faced by the HR staff of an organization. Current systems focus mainly on how to ease the workload of the HR management and related staff.

However, the new trend is that many systems are designed with the end-user in mind.  Making the system user-friendly for the employees and enabling them to collaborate, give feedback, set goals, and drive their own career and managing their own HR- related activities and also to manage other people.

The systems are focusing more on the user experience than just providing a set of tools only to streamline the workload of HR administration.

2. Mobile platforms

Mobile is a strong aspect that is growing in India which cannot be ignored. Mobile growth in India is among the highest growth rates in the world. It is vital that this trend should be leveraged by the HRIS/HRMS vendors to give the user a better experience and make the processes easier.

This would help in driving employee engagement which is an important aspect of an organizations in the market.

3. Feedback, culture and performance management - a new separate software category

Fostering culture, feedback and engagement through software will be the future for many organizations. Performance management with feedback and development planning would push the vendors to provide software that enables interactive platforms which would be more useful and productive.

4. Internet of things

Looking at global trends, IoT is among the top trends for 2016 in many countries. Most of the organizations in India also could embrace IoT platforms when it comes to their day-to-day work. A proper IoT strategy means that the competencies of the organizations are increased to uplift their competitive advantage as well.

HRIS providers have to keep these in the back of their mind when operating in the industry. Catering services/products that suit/comply with IoT platforms would be wise to be ahead of their competitors.

5. The emergence of ERPs

ERP vendors are catching up in the market and growing at a rapid pace. They also capture the market with comprehensive talent management solutions along with recruitment, learning, and other people management tools.

This means that the HRIS/HRMS vendors need to pull up their socks as these ERP vendors possess a huge threat to the industry. They are considered credible, effective and comprehensive by the clients in most of the countries.

(The author, Pradeep Agarwal, is COO, hSenid Business Solutions)