5 Experts on HR Technologies Transforming the Employee Experience

There’s no denying that HR technology is crucial to the employee experience, especially now that we are transitioning to a new way of working – socially distant, focused on well-being and safety, and most importantly, agile. Some HR technologies are more critical to this experience, and five experts discuss the technologies that are transforming HR and the employee experience.

HR technology is having its moment in the sun. In the third quarter of 2020, HR tech venture capital investments soared to $1.5 billionOpens a new window . This is the highest it has  ever been since 2017.

Even though COVID-19 has impacted how companies will spend on HR technology in the coming year, there’s no denying that it will be the key to modernizing HR for the new world of work. HR is in a position to impact the development of the workforce going forward, and now is the time to take charge by investing in HR technology that will drive this development.

5 Leaders Talk About 5 HR Technologies To Help Ease HR Into 2021

In conversation with 5 HR leaders, we look at the technologies they have been using to transform human resources and the employee experience in 2021.

1. Cloud-based intranet for employee communication

Employee communication and collaboration category was the leading area for HR tech VC investments, according to Unleash, in Q3 2020. With several organizations going permanently remote, collaboration and communication are a top priority – and HR tech vendors are listening.

Jo Skilton, chief commercial officer at Unily, a cloud-based intranet platform, talks about how Unily has helped employers collaborate on a large scale – indicating the growing value of communication platforms such as cloud-based intranets.

“From the number of social reactions to the quantity of articles published, platform usage continues to climb. From late January to late March, social usage has increased by over 103% and article consumption has climbed by 70%. This indicates that clients aren’t merely skimming headlines but rather reading content and discussing updates with their colleagues.”

“Our data also reveals an ongoing demand for news about COVID-19. The number of Coronavirus searches is now over 70x greater than it was just two months ago. Simultaneously, we’ve seen a 235% increase in the number of articles viewed that include the term coronavirus.”

Email broadcasts also remain important, says Skilton. “To feed this need for updates, many of our clients are turning to their Broadcast Center. We’ve seen a 35% increase in the number of clients who utilize this feature, as well as close to a 20% increase in the amount of email broadcasts sent out weekly.”

To identify how employees communicate with company messaging, Skilton offers a meaningful recommendation. “Looking at views, comments, reactions, and shares on digital communications will indicate whether employees are engaging with company messaging and what kind of communications they are interested in. It is a good temperature check for the zeitgeist of your workforce and helps to define a communications strategy that resonates with employees and drives meaningful experiences.”

2. Virtual reality for training

Virtual reality is undoubtedly more expensive than traditional classroom training or e-learning. But its returns are far more significant. With its immersive experience, it offers greater retention and enables an empathetic approach to learning.

Emerging technology leader Scott Likens of PwC, U.S., says, “When PwC evaluated the price differences between building a VR course versus a classroom or e-learning course, we discovered that the VR custom course cost 47% more than the classroom course and 48% more than the e-learning course. This involves the cost of creating the content and developing the VR experience, which may require 3D artists and software developers.

“However, VR training achieved cost parity with classroom learning for 375 learners. At 3,000 learners, VR training became 52% more cost-effective than classroom. The more people trained, the higher the return will likely be in terms of employee time saved during training, as well as course facilitation and other out-of-pocket cost-savings.”

And virtual reality training is out of reach for small and medium businesses (SMBs). In fact, Likens recommends that companies with low or no budgets use no-code tools to develop VR training courses or purchase off-the-shelf courses. And how do you identify cost-savings?

Liken explains, “If a classroom-trained employee requires six weeks of supervision before being able to perform the job without supervision, that is a metric that can be measured. If a VR-trained employee can complete those same tasks without supervision in two weeks, that’s four weeks of the supervisor’s time that can be used for other tasks. At $50 an hour, that represents an $8,000 savings for a single training session: 40 hours a week for four weeks at $50 an hour. If you train 20 employees, that saves you over $100k.”

Learn More: How Virtual Reality Works to Help Create a More Inclusive Workplace

3. Artificial intelligence for recruitment

Recruitment has provided one of the best use cases for artificial intelligence, and as the world shifts to remote work, investments in recruitment automation are likely to increase.

Sergei Makhmodov, co-founder, APAC, DaXtra Technologies, tells us about the benefits of automating the recruitment process. “AI-based products can deliver impressive efficiency gains for recruiters in the increasingly tough game of ‘who puts the right CV on the hiring manager’s desk first?’ Features such as ‘watchdog’ auto-searches automatically and delivers highly relevant matching profiles directly to the recruiter’s inbox. One-click matching from jobs on the applicant tracking system (ATS) (or even from a vacancy URL on your client’s site) can bring down extra efficiencies and a 50-60% reduction on lead times required to come up with a shortlist of suitable candidates.”

Another way recruitment automation with AI saves time is by keeping candidate databases up to date and avoiding candidate profiles’ duplicates.

Makhmodov says, “We are seeing that 60% to 80% of the candidates who apply to recruiters’ jobs posted online are, in fact, already on their databases. On one hand, this is great because you are getting updates, but on the other hand, without an accurate automated de-duplication these candidates just end up as duplicate records on the database. Because candidate data is not routinely updated, recruiters often do not even search their databases, preferring to pay third parties like job boards or LinkedIn to download more recent profiles of the same candidates they already have.”

But AI can fix this problem. After clients moved to DaXtra’s solutions, says Makhmodov, clients have reported significant growth in the number of profiles they see in their database. “From as low as 5-10% to as high as 60-70% after the solution is in place. And, if you do the math, it is quite staggering how much money can be saved!”

Learn More: How to Use Recruitment Chatbots for Maximum Efficiency

4. Talent analytics for employee listening well-being

The focus on employee well-being has been unprecedented this year. Companies have been forced to take a close look at their employees’ wellness, physical, mental, and financial, to help them sustain through this pandemic. At this point, talent analytics is a useful tool to find out how employees are feeling and then define strategies to use the information to design an employee wellness program.

Mai Lan Nguyen, SVP of human resources, North America, Schneider Electric, says, “At Schneider Electric, for several years we have been leveraging various analytics tools to measure employee sentiment and engagement. We have a yearly employee survey and we also focus on surveying our people on moments that matter in their career lifecycle. We partner with Qualtrics to deploy people pulse surveys that cover important topics such as engagement, ways of working, health, and safety, etc. We recently launched a global pulse survey related to COVID-19 to hear from our employees and monitor the pulse of our workforce. Additional methods are used to hear from our employees beyond our pulse survey. These include active discussions on Yammer, Webex digital events, and town halls, etc.”

5. Automated payroll for employee benefits

Payroll is another area ripe for disruption, says Colin Brennan, president, global solutions & services, Alight SolutionsOpens a new window . In the wake of COVID-19, we’ve seen several on-demand pay technologies launched, and with AI, the error rate that can soar because of multiple pay modes can also be in check.

Brennan tells us, “We’re also excited about AI-powered machine learning that can identify payroll anomalies using an algorithm that relies upon historical data and not just the expertise and judgment of payroll analysts.

“For example, our intelligent assistant, Eloise, assists payroll teams in performing quality assurance and preventing and predicting costly errors in payroll. Through pattern recognition, we can quickly scan new inputs for errors based on previous payroll payment history, including employee earnings, deductions, and taxes.”

Brennan also talks about innovations in payroll. “Among the new tools we’re using with Daily Pay is eChecks, which allows employers to email links to workers so they can access funds immediately. This is possible even for workers who don’t have direct deposit.”

Learn More: 5 Critical HR and HR Tech Insights From Sapient Insights 2020–2021 HR Systems Survey White Paper

Where Are You on the HR Tech Journey?

Though most companies use some form of HR technology, a consolidated HR tech ecosystem would be optimal for the best employee experience. And this is where most companies tend to go wrong, says Jo Skilton.

“One of the biggest challenges facing enterprise departments while undergoing digital transformation is the temptation to gravitate toward specialist technologies for every need,” says Skilton. “For example, a specific rewards and recognition system, followed by an employee benefits platform, followed by an expenses technology and a separate holiday booking system. The result is a confused technology landscape that becomes laborious for both system managers and end-users.”

The solution, she says, is to “select interoperable technologies that can be accessed from a centralized system with consumer-grade UX.”

This is sound advice when evaluating HR technology for your future needs.

Colin Brennan is of a similar opinion with regard to recruitment and workforce management. “Companies need nimble processes that run in a paperless fashion, pull in data collected via the application or recruitment process, and drive mobile as a channel to bring people into the organization.”

What according to you are the top HR tech solutions that’ll help HR and the workforce ease into 2021 with an elevated employee experience? Share them with us on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window .