Tech Trends in HR in 2022: Technology at the Workplace

HR tech takes centre stage as emerging HR technologies improve the productivity of remote workers, change how employees interact with the screen, reduce attrition, and utilise recruiting and learning platforms to meet changing needs.  

The first quarter of 2022 has come to a close. At the start of the year, many of us expected the world to regain normalcy. And many things did feel like that – with the increased vaccine rollouts, reopening of educational institutions, and people going back to the workplace – it almost felt like a pre-pandemic era. However, the impact of Covid-19 is long-lasting. The last year has seen many industries embrace adaptive to change and brought about a paradigm shift in how they operate.

“Emerging HR technologies are being designed to change how employees interact with the screen and in building hiring patterns, reducing attrition, amongst others. Tech will continue to act as a rather evident growth enabler even in the future.”

At the top of this list is the Human Resources industry, wherein the capital investment in this space hit record levels. A lot of this investment and financial resourcing was spent on tailored technologies, more or less cloud-based, responding to remote working environments. In fact, domain experts believe that now more than ever, there is a great need to pay attention to the technology needs of desk-less workers and build that sense of reliability and trust, even if they cannot make it to the physical workspace. Emerging HR technologies are being designed to change how employees interact with the screen and in building hiring patterns, reducing attrition, amongst others. Tech will continue to act as a rather evident growth enabler even in the future. Here are a few technology-based trends that will shape the future of HR in the coming year:

Also read: HR tech to Work tech: What is Changing?

Hybrid work models: In today’s time, it’s rare to find organisations that do not have a hybrid working model in place since remote working has become a routine. Thus, employees need to have a provision of being able to work from home and in physical workspaces. Hybrid work models can keep employees engaged even in the face of adversities, and while this shift has just begun, the transformation will be a massive growth and scalability opportunity in the years to come.

Data literacy: Process automation and digital transformation are becoming part of every day for every workspace today, as intelligent technology intervention and people analytics come to the forefront. However, the shift from understanding people analytics to understanding data literacy is apparent. It has been somewhat of a challenge for HR teams to derive insights from contextual data while considering different job roles and requirements. How they read and analyse data makes for department-wide decision making, which is why building data literacy capabilities becomes imperative today.

Virtual assistants in HR: Software applications and tech tools like chatbots integrated into HR applications make for virtual assistants to guide day-to-day decision-making. They also can transform user experience and save additional overhead costs by automating employee-business interaction. This not only aids productivity but also improves working styles and overall organisational efficiency. It can also be supremely beneficial for enterprises that operate across different geographies as it may tide over language barriers easily.

Internal talent marketplaces: The gig economy concept is not new to us today. Matching customer demands to worker capabilities is critical to providing the best experience. An internal, digital talent marketplace operates on the same philosophy to mix and match workers and consumer demands per different projects’ scales. It includes marketing features, matching algorithms and feedback functionality, and aligns with adaptive organisational design principles.

Monitoring of productivity trends and collaboration: The more transparent HR teams are with the enterprise’s employees, the easier it becomes to collaborate and drive top-level decision-making. It is essential to keep track of productivity levels and the challenges that teams might be facing to be adequately addressed. Automated data collection processes and analytics-based reporting are the way to go here. The insights derived from this help reduce attrition rates and aid time management and people management skills. In line with this, another HR tech trend is to ensure a good organisational culture that can be sustained by building collaborations between people, digital rituals, and new ways of working. This can be done seamlessly with the help of a few platforms like MIRO for collaboration, MONDAY for planning, and Trello for team activity management. Use these to your advantage.

AR/VR-based applications for corporate learning: There is no doubt that upskilling in line with changing industry demands is the need of the hour, irrespective of the sector. For HR leaders and teams, these upskilling requirements to be driven are not just for themselves but for all other groups. Augmented reality and virtual reality can support various simulating and training applications, including immersive interactions. It can also enable better operator training and sales training that enhance public speaking, build more confidence within teams, and make for better brand interactions.

Also read: How Increased Use of AI Help Managers Focus on Higher Responsibilities

2022 is shaping up to be a rather exciting year in terms of promise, innovation, and exciting trends that will bring about many sustainable changes in how traditional HR operates. HR leaders should thus focus on exploring the diversity of this tech-enabled landscape and make the most of it, one step at a time!