HR technology trends: What to expect in the future of work

Technology advancements have revolutionized HR management, providing software applications and HR platforms to store key data, automate tasks, and inform decision-making.

It also has a positive impact on employees: A study by Qualtrics found that workers who use technology to boost productivity are 158% more engaged than those who don’t. They are also 61% more likely to stay with their employer.

The challenge is choosing which HR tech to use. New HR technology trends surface all the time, and identifying the ones that will most benefit your organization can be tough.

The top 11 HR technology trends shaping the future of work

Below is our list of the top HR technology trends that should be on your radar right now.

We’ve gone beyond individual software products to look at the broader human resources tech emerging trends that are impacting businesses and shaping the future of HR.

The top 11 HR technology trends: Summary table

Already know the basics and just need to know the future HR technology trends to watch out for? Here’s a summary:

1. Adopting skills-based practices

In the past, employers primarily focused on candidates’ experience, particularly during the hiring process. They used resumes to gauge whether they’d be a good match for the role, paying attention to details like their previous role and whether they had a four-year college degree.

Employers shifting their focus to skills-based HR practices in place of these traditional processes is one of the most significant technological trends in HRM.

Skills-based hiring involves using psychometric tests on candidate assessment software instead of resumes, objectively assessing whether candidates have the required skills for the role.

Including skills testing platforms like IceHrm in your recruitment automation software can reduce time spent on shortlisting candidates by automatically ranking them based on objective data.

According to our research, 70% of employers agree skills testing is more effective than using resumes while hiring, and 82% of employers reduce time-to-hire with skills tests.

Skills tests can also be used to assess your workforce before hiring – for example, identifying skills gaps so you can:

• Prioritize which roles to hire for based on which skills you need
• Spot employees in other teams with the necessary skills to plug the gap
• Target employees’ skills training at the weak areas of their skillset

Speaking of which…

2. Developing employees with upskilling, reskilling, and continuous learning

Another of the top HR technology trends is employers’ focus on employee development, inspired by the need to adapt workforces to an increasingly digitized work landscape.

Many employees require upskilling strategies to cope with the changing requirements of their roles – for instance, a social media manager upgrading their analytics skills as they implement more complex ads.

HR departments benefit from having employee reskilling as part of their talent management, with workers learning new skills to change their job function completely.

This is becoming more common as roles are replaced by automation. Business leaders predict around 40% of workers will require reskilling in the near future.

With the greater insight into employees’ skill sets that comes from regular testing, employers have more power to strengthen the skills available within their organizations, targeting weak areas and gaps in their resources with training and mentoring programs.

Indeed, research by McKinsey shows organizations that align their HR processes with the skills needs of their workers increase engagement by 50%, lower training costs by 50%, and boost productivity by 40%.

Start by installing a strong learning management system that enables you to:

• Create courses for your employees
• Assign courses of training to your employees
• Track their completion and success rates

3. Establishing an inclusive culture with unbiased tools

One of the most powerful tech trends in HR is establishing an inclusive culture with the help of bias-free HR and recruitment tools, which goes hand in hand with implementing DEI initiatives.

The incentives are powerful. McKinsey found employees who feel very included at their workplaces are almost three times as likely to feel committed to their employers.

Choosing skills-based hiring over traditional methods removes many types of bias from the hiring equation:

Skills-based method

Impact on bias

Using skills testing to screen candidates

Supports data driven recruiting by “screening in” candidates based on their skills, instead of eliminating them due to unconscious bias

Hiring for “culture add” instead of “culture fit”

Replaces the subjective concept of “culture fit” with “culture add,” which looks for diversity of thought and shared values between candidates and employers

Using structured interviews instead of unstructured

Ensures all candidates are asked the same questions based on the core criteria for the role

Employers can also use applicant tracking systems to take advantage of this trend. This HR software ensures candidates don’t fall through the cracks and do get a fair shot at the role regardless of their background.

Resume screening software can also offer a less biased – and much faster – alternative to human screening in the recruitment process.

4. Harnessing AI strategically

Using AI in HR, although much-celebrated, is not one of the latest HR technology trends.

Many of the tools used for HR automation employ AI technology to streamline administrative tasks. Resume screening software, for example, often uses AI algorithms to identify key information and organize it into standardized candidate “profiles” in an applicant tracking system.

However, increasing numbers of employers are using AI to support strategic tasks and not just administrative ones, chiefly when it comes to data analysis. Research into HR tech trends shows the most common uses for AI in HR are:

1. Using attrition modeling to identify employees who are at risk of leaving
2. Predicting candidates who will become high performers
3. Choosing the “best fit” candidates for a role based on resume analysis

You might take advantage of these technological trends in HRM by using an AI-powered performance management system.

This system could flag employees who exhibit warning signs for quitting based on previous data from your own organization – for example, persistent failure to meet upskilling goals.

5. Increasing transparency for candidates and employees

One way human resources technology trends reduce the administrative load for HR workers is by streamlining tasks; another is removing them altogether.

With employee self service technology, HR leaders don’t have to waste time fielding frequently asked questions from employees. Instead, employees can check for themselves.

One example is using an HR chatbot to answer these inquiries. An employee could simply log into a remote work tool like Slack and ask the chatbot when their next paycheck is due.

This chatbot would already be connected to your payroll software and deliver the relevant information without having to involve a human HR worker.

Likewise, a candidate who has applied to your organization could simply go to your website to ask for updates on the role without needing to call or email a rep.

This leaves your HR team free to focus on higher-value tasks. It’s also part of the larger human resources and technology trends toward giving employees and candidates more transparency and access to their own information.

Another example of this in action is the increase in organizations opting for pay transparency or making all salaries publicly available to make pay negotiations fairer.

6. Supporting alternative work models, including remote and hybrid

Companies are also giving employees more control in how they work by adopting flexible schedules or embracing remote and hybrid working – or both.

Accelerated by the pandemic, these HR tech trends offer a way for employers to cut costs and for employees to achieve better work-life balance. Especially as retirement ages continue to climb, employees will likely try to take more control during their working lives.

To meet this desire, you need the best remote working technology. That means using:

• Instant messaging providers like Slack
• Remote collaboration workflows like Trello and Monday
• Payroll software with global compliance features, such as Deel

If you maintain a physical office in addition to allowing remote work, you also need to consider hybrid work technology to facilitate hybrid collaboration.

This doesn’t mean only software but also hardware such as microphones that can be passed around in meetings for remote joiners to hear loud and clear, or roving webcams that switch to focus on the in-person team members who are talking.

If you do this right, you can keep employees happy at less cost to your business. Research by the International Workplace Group found nearly three-quarters of office workers would take long-term location flexibility over a pay raise.

7. Upgrading internal mobility with an internal talent marketplace

One of the most impactful technological trends in HRM is the use of skills-based tools to improve internal mobility.

A study by the Society for Human Resource Management found employees who are promoted within three years of hiring are 70% more likely to stay on board than those who aren’t. For employees who make lateral moves, the figure is 62%.

Boosting internal mobility can have a dramatic impact on employee retention, which is especially important during talent shortages, and many employers are turning to skills tests to do it.

Testing your employees’ skills helps identify internal candidates for open roles and enables less biased hiring choices by administering the same unbiased test to internal and external candidates alike.

For the best results, collect your skills test data in an internal talent marketplace attached to your HRIS system. This enables you to search your database for relevant skills when hiring for a new role.

More complex HR systems even empower employees to “shop” for new internal opportunities or use machine learning in HR to notify internal candidates in real time for open roles they’d be eligible for.

8. Improving company processes with people analytics

HR is one of the most analytics-driven functions. The same Harvard study that explored AI tech trends in HR found more than half of HR staff can perform predictive or prescriptive analytics, compared to just 37% of finance workers.

Increasingly, HR teams are engaging in people analytics, looking at data pertaining not just to hiring but also:

• Workforce planning
• Onboarding and employee engagement
• Turnover and retention
• Employee wellness
• Employee performance

The key to successfully taking advantage of HR technology trends in people analytics is to integrate your HR tech systems into a central HR dashboard.

This software enables you to monitor different HR management systems from one central screen, accessing insights about employee turnover and training completion at a glance.

One of the most important people analytics tools is a performance management system.

This helps you monitor perhaps the most important aspect of a worker’s employment, their performance and connects the dots between your other analytics systems.

By connecting it to your hiring software, you can track which hires become top performers and identify commonalities between them (for example, whether they all come from the same source).

Likewise, by connecting it to your learning management system, you can analyze which types of training have the most impact on performance.

9. Training and onboarding with AR and VR

We’ve seen there is an increasing focus on training among employers – now let’s discuss the cutting-edge tools they’re using to deliver this.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are both powerful tools for employee training.

They enable employees to experience hands-on learning without incurring any of the costs of making errors. In other words, they create the perfect learning environment.

AR and VR tools are especially useful for hybrid and remote workforces since it’s not always possible or economical to train employees under one roof.

One of the future HR technology trends we expect to see in the coming years is for VR training to expand from technical areas like flight simulators to more social scenarios, like teaching teams how to deliver a dynamite sales pitch.

The technology is ideal for onboarding because this is when employees have the least experience with your protocols and techniques.

By training employees in a risk-free virtual work environment, you avoid throwing them in the deep end and leave a good impression of your organization, which could determine their longevity at your organization.

With this in mind, consider adding VR and AR tools to your employee onboarding software.

10. Using blockchain for advanced security

Blockchain is one of the more controversial human resources tech emerging trends.

Defined as an “immutable public ledger,” blockchain is best known for securing financial payments through cryptocurrency.

One of the potential uses for blockchain in HR is paying employees in cryptocurrency, but we don’t think this is the biggest of the future HR technology trends that will be enabled by blockchain.

Instead, we expect to see blockchain brought into HR technology as a security measure.

Because it cannot be altered after the fact, blockchain documentation could protect employers from lawsuits – for instance, on the grounds of unfair dismissal of an employee.

We may also see more employers electing to conduct blockchain-enabled background checks, verifying key details like a candidate’s criminal history without needing to read the full records and thus preserving the individual’s privacy.

11. Investing in employee experience

The last of the new HR technology trends we want to discuss is that more organizations are investing in employee experience as a way to combat turnover and boost productivity and employee wellbeing.

Employee experience refers to an employee’s perspective on what it’s like to work at your organization, taking in:

• Their engagement in their work
• The respect they feel from their bosses and coworkers
• Their compensation and benefits
• Their work-life balance and lifestyle

Workers today can expect to be working later into their lives. Accepting a poor work-life balance in exchange for a long retirement isn’t cutting it anymore.

Offering a five-star employee experience helps you stand out from the pack and attract top talent in this context.

This, in turn, has an impact on your bottom line: Employees who feel they have a good work-life balance work 21% harder than those who don’t.

To take advantage of this trend, invest in employee experience software. This helps you keep an eye on key indicators, including:

• Overall employee turnover
• Employees’ progress toward performance goals
• Engagement with learning and development

For best results, install an employee wellness platform. This is usually an app or software solution where employees can access benefits like:

• Information about healthy lifestyles
• Health and lifestyle benefits such as health insurance or discounted gym memberships
• Mental health support through virtual counseling

Employee data can only get you so far, however.

When you identify problem areas – for example, lack of engagement with your learning and development initiatives – use feedback tools like employee pulse surveys to explore why employees aren’t engaging with these offerings and act accordingly.

Ensure you have the skills you need to leverage HR technology trends

In this blog post, we’ve covered the human resources and technology trends you need to know about, from using skills-based hiring technology to training employees with AR and VR tools.

To take advantage of these new HR technology trends, you need the right team: HR experts with talent acquisition skills who add to your company culture and are also adept at people management and data analytics.

Skills-based hiring can help you find these team members and set you on the right path for utilizing the rest of these HR tech trends.

Explore IceHrm for seamless integration and empower your workforce.