The top 10 post-pandemic digital HR trends
For the first few months of the pandemic, organisations were in crisis management mode dealing with the immediate impact of the changes. However, almost two years in, organisations have started to look to the future.
Sven Elbert, Senior Analyst for Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent at Access People partner Fosway Group, explores the ten digital HR trends that will emerge in 2022 and beyond.
The top 10 digital HR trends to watch
- Digital HR continues to reach further into the organisation - COVID-19 accelerated digitisation across many areas of HR, including digital learning, virtual recruiting, workforce planning and digital shift swapping, digital leave and absence tracking and HR service delivery. More HR services will be digitised in the coming months and rolled out further into organisations.
- Vendors wake up to the needs of operational workers – HR technology vendors have neglected the operational workforce for years. That’s starting to change as many of the latest systems come with easy-to-use digital experiences that provide precisely what workers in operational roles need to get their job done efficiently.
- Digital systems play a bigger role in supporting hybrid work – Hybrid work is becoming the new normal for many office workers. Next-gen digital HR systems promote proactive conversations between managers, employees and teams, increases shared commitment, energises relationships to deliver exceptional results and maintains the focus of individuals and teams.
- A frictionless people experience starts to become a reality – Whether it was approval requests sitting in inboxes, or headcount reports that took HR weeks to deliver, the function has not been perceived as agile. Intelligent HR Assistants and Employee Journeys provide the next leap forward for digital HR, automating standard requests to deliver a frictionless people experience.
- HR Service Delivery drives efficiencies in HR Operations – HR Service Delivery has established itself as a specialism in the digital HR ecosystem. It covers far more than just ticket management and knowledge base maintenance, but covers elements such as employee workflows and document management. HR suite vendors have recognised the trend and provide their own solutions. Strong integration into the digital HR suite is a pivotal key to success to drive further HR Ops efficiencies.
- Fixing payroll will help transform HR – Fixing digital payroll platforms is becoming a higher priority. HCM Suites have recognised this, and some aim to deliver multi-country, if not global, payroll natively out-of-the-box as a central pillar of their strategy. More and more HR teams are starting to actively fix the payroll mess.
- Talent & People Success is on the rise – Traditional approaches to talent management have not been sufficiently agile or transformational. The future focus for organisations is to enable every employee to succeed. This ground-up, more democratic approach to talent management will help build a more motivated and flexible workforce.
- Reskilling and Upskilling is a top priority – With organisations grappling with digitisation, automation, the COVID-19 pandemic and decarbonisation, Reskilling and Upskilling remain a top priority for HR across all industries. HR Technology has to provide a unified approach to skills that works across all areas of HR and is interoperable across all digital platforms.
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) moves centre stage – With DEI moving front and centre in the US, diversity has also had a significant push across Europe. Across HR, employers are underpinning a glossy marketing layer with more robust DEI practices. Expect to see HR Technology with improved DEI Analytics.
- HR becomes a digital solution ecosystem – As HCM solutions converge, their functionality has become less differentiating at the core. An easy-to-activate digital ecosystem of Cloud HR Specialist solutions can be a big driver of success for the overall HR IT strategy. Planning out this HR ecosystem landscape and understanding how it impacts the vendor community is an increasingly important step for every mid- to large-sized organisation.
Written for Access by Sven Elbert, Senior Analyst for Human Capital Management (HCM) at Fosway Group.
How Access People customer, Co-operative Bank transformed their HR during the pandemic
Divisional Head of GTM at Access People Teri Atif said “During the pandemic, we saw customers not only upgrading their HR systems to ensure employees had the ability to work remotely, but were also looking to really invest in futureproofing their digital HR tech stack more generally.”
For example in 2020, The Co-operative Bank PLC approached Access to provide a People management system and integrated payroll managed service for its 3,200 employees.
The Bank’s project lead was Ruth Clarke, Head of People Delivery. She explains:
“Our existing payroll and HCM systems had serviced us well earlier on, but in recent years the supplier’s systems and services had fallen well behind our needs. We sought a much more cost-effective, reliable and most especially intuitive Payroll and HCM set of services and solutions that would require less time to operate and provide a better user experience.”
“From analyses we’d undertaken, we also targeted ourselves and Access People with achieving a minimum 40% reduction in total cost of ownership, which we have already exceeded”.
Teri said “The fundamental developments underpinning the digital HR trends right now, are the ability to provide an exemplary employee experience whilst having access to the data and analytics to demonstrate the success of any investments in technology.
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