The ongoing global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic, Great Resignation, and Talent War are some of the greatest challenges influencing the HR Cloud and Automation Technology industry in 2022. We saw in recent months how CHROs are increasingly using top HR Technology tools to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their HR strategies. The use of technology for various HR operations has enabled large and small HR teams to improve their overall resource management and cross-functional strategy management, enabling tech-driven organizations with agile decision-making capabilities. As we head into another New Year in the HR Technology era, Business intelligence groups (BIG) have their hands full in deciding what tools and platforms would help them in their digital transformation journeys. Recent analysis on HR Technology Trends of 2022 demonstrate how CHROs have been using different HR technology solutions to match benchmark standards in HRIS, employee data and experience management, digital HR content management, talent acquisition, leadership development, training and development, remote collaboration, and workplace communication.
In 2022, we expect HR leaders would prioritize their investments in HR Tech stacks by bringing in matured AI and automation applications and solutions, a trend that has been continuing since 2018. We have identified the biggest trends in the HR technology innovation landscape that would become mainstream in 2022.
Blockchain: #1 Development in HR Technology Trends of 2022
Blockchain helps build greater trust for all. In an enterprise, the role of HR is similar. When HR functions start using blockchain solutions for digital HR operations, CHROs can make “trust” the universal token of employee branding.
Organizations pushed the bar higher in their Blockchain technology spend in 2021, investing more than $10 billion USD globally across markets and industries. From building more transparent supply chains to developing secured financial services, blockchain has an invincible presence in the current tech stack.
Blockchain is not just revolutionizing the core IT functions, but also HR.
Newer blockchain applications such as smart contracts, DeFi payroll, and compensation apps, tokenized rewards and recognitions, and smart HR assets management has shown great promise in the current IT-HR integrations.
As organizations become more and more data-driven entities, handling a large volume of data from different sources can prove to be a daunting task, especially for HR groups involved with candidate background checking, employee data management, security and access management, and data governance as per CCPA/ GDPR norms.
According to many leading HR leaders, finance-based payroll management shows the best results for blockchain adoption at an enterprise level, providing employers with the greatest control on how they want to invest, reward, and retain top talent using the latest cryptocurrency payment models.
Blockchain for Hiring: Job.com Acquires Blockchain Startup Talenting
Here’s a snapshot of how CHROs can deploy blockchain for HR functions using Gartner’s “Blockchain Spectrum” study.
Virtual Assistants for LMS
CHROs would continue to invest heavily in HR Knowledge Management tools. By bringing AI and chatbots to the knowledge management stack, HR teams can develop an optimal path to world-class training, learning, and development (TLD) working model for their skilled and talented workforce.
AI-based learning management systems (LMS) are transforming the way CHROs envision their training and development programs for the employees. AI virtual assistants (AVAs) simplify the whole learning process by delivering hyper-personalized experiences at every step during the training programs. Chatbots and AVAs make the interaction more productive and contextual even as trainees get answers to their FAQs and non-FAQs in just a few clicks.
Recommended: HR Tech Interview With Georgina Gray, Internal Communications Officer at Air France KLM
We have listed down some of the ways AI-based Virtual Assistants and chatbots could simplify an HR manager’s work in 2022:
- Provide contextual information to aggrieved employees looking for an HR solution such as leave policies, payroll status, offer letter update, and meeting schedules;
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Analyze the various employee engagement trends across different employee segments from every department;
- Inter-departmental hiring and recruiting trends for better decision-making at the time of HR budgeting;
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Create a single-pane overview of all the HR systems and compliance guidelines, easily accessible to staff from on-site working and remote workplace;
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Build agile query shortlisting and conflict resolution systems for HR and non-HR functions;
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Create a personalized and private KMS online classroom for every employee based on skill levels, performance, and competency mapping.
By utilizing AVAs in LMS programs, companies can ease the trouble human trainers take to answer FAQs and non-FAQs personally, thus saving a lot of man-hours that can now be utilized to perform other creative tasks, such as developing competitive online TLD and Sales enablement curriculum for the remote workforce.
Unified and Omnichannel Employee Communication
Did you know that more than 80 percent of the global workforce don’t have access to internet messaging tools at their desks or workplace, in general?
Every business seeks a flawless HR communication channel to smartly manage the expectations of customers and employees. Unified and omnichannel communication platforms sync these expectations powered by data analytics, AI, and automation.
HR communication budgets saw a slow but steady rise in 2021.
A majority of the HR executives are unaware of the different channels available in the HR software industry that can improve their organization’s internal employee communication. During the initial stage of COVID- induced pandemic, managers adopted creative means to stay connected to the bigger workforce groups, often taking unconventional messaging platforms (channels that are not listed as “Contact Us”) such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. These confused everyone. Employees felt a fluttering disconnect with their managers and the top management initially. For new employees, this proved to be a major reason for disgruntlement when they joined the company. As they spent more time in the company doing their functions, the ease of messaging improved but the lack of initiative to invest in quality Internal Communication tools widened the gap during critical processes, especially those where matters of security and conflict management were involved.
HR Automation Trends: What HR Should Know About AI, Blockchain, and Chatbots
But, why do HR managers and line managers wait so long to break the ice with their peers when there are so many HR technology suites available in the market?
There are three known reasons for this behavior:
- Lack of leadership initiative
- Lack of skills in operating new tools and IT solutions
- Unplanned hiring with silo-ed approach to growth during the strategic period of expansion
Thankfully, this is changing now as revealed in our conversations about HR Technology Trends of 2022.
Unlike customer experience management, employee experience management (EXM) is fairly straightforward. Consistent communication and interaction with employees can streamline the whole employee engagement and performance management lifecycle using data, sentiment analysis, and NLP tools, which have become the norm in many top-tier employee communication and collaboration suites offered as part of advanced HCM solutions. In 2022, these HCM suites will rule.
Online communication channels remain the CNS of any business model. As businesses head into a new era of hybrid working culture, HR teams demand new ways to streamline and improve employee communication technology stacks for better connectivity. It is impossible to meet the current demands of pro-social activism, peer-to-peer collaboration, social media advocacy, and video interfacing using old HR technologies.
In 2022, we all need a powerful unified HR communications channel to stay relevant in the business.
Unified omnichannel employee communication would remain a dominant technology in 2022, just like how it was for 2020 and 2021. Despite burgeoning demand for real-time employee communications, most businesses still overlook unified omnichannel messaging tools for workplace collaboration. In 2022, this would change. CHROs and HR leaders acknowledge the need to modernize the entire HR communication stack, bringing in sentiments and analytics-driven platforms to manage employee communication.
By adopting unified omnichannel employee communication solutions, companies can improve their performance management, accelerating their pace of digital transformation with end-to-end AI and machine learning EXM capabilities.
Top HR Tech Update: RingCentral Acquires DeepAffects Conversational Intelligence Pioneer To Enable Smarter Video Meetings
Video Intelligence
Have you seen the recent surge in the number of LinkedIn video and Twitter video posts announcing a new CXO hiring or Performer of the Year awardees? Compared to posts that contain normal text or static media, posts that contain videos garner a higher volume of engagement with audience groups.
Video intelligence stats from the last two years show a remarkable momentum for all functions in an organization. Obviously, Marketing, Sales, and Advertising have always reaped the highest benefits from deploying video intelligence tools for their campaigns. HR teams are following this trend to shed the conventional avatar of one-way interactions between HR managers, vendors, partners, candidates, contractors, interns, and employees. From developing recruitment ads to attract high-quality talent to rewarding performers online, video marketing for internal teams can drive better outcomes for everyone.
Videos have become a very important asset in company branding and they will feature prominently in HR Technology Trends of 2022. If done sensibly and honestly, video content can transform the way HR managers function and achieve their organizational goals. What’s best about adding video intelligence tools to the HR tech stack in 2022? You generate instant ROI. Video intelligence tools can help you market your corporate identity with employee-focused content created with “in the moment” themes.
I have mentioned some of the coolest ways how HR teams encourage the use of video platforms for various purposes.
- How to use online employee management portals?
- How to set up a team meeting?
- How to conduct video interviews with candidates?
- How to ace employee appraisal using video interviews
- How to announce the change of leadership with your employees?
- Tips on how to manage your social media handles
Immersive experiences created using AR VR software could be layered with video creation platforms for an enhanced level of personalization. AR VR resources can be used to show workplace infrastructure to new employees who recently got hired or older employees who had been working from remote locations and never been to the office during the pandemic months.
Check out our resource on video analytics and other HR Technology Trends of 2022 here.
Mobile Connectivity
Did you know that wearable trackers would become the core hardware component to track employee performance in the coming years?
Mobile usage now accounts for as much internet traffic as web-based usage. With employees moving to remote work locations, the onus to improve mobile connectivity at an organizational level has fallen on the laps of CHROs. CHROs are now working with CIOs and Chief Data Officers to encourage the use of mobile devices for key operations within the organization. HR managers are making more calls for hiring and recruitment using their mobile smartphones, achieving success rates of over 60 percent compared to calls made from their desks.
Contactless access management, IoT-driven desktop login, wearable notifications for health checkups, and push-alerts to update emergency contact numbers for vulnerable employees — HR technology stacks in 2022 would be all about staying “on the go” and “connecting with people” in virtual space.
In 2022, it would be a fascinating journey to expand on this “connecting with people” idea by leveraging mobile connectivity trends. If BYOD ruled the last decade, 202X would be all about doing HR business using mobile smartphones.
To be continued…
At HRTech Series, we never stop with predictions and insights gathered from leading HR professionals in the world. In 2022, we shall continue to provide the latest updates and analysis on conventional HR SaaS and Cloud developments, in addition to innovations happening in the worlds of Blockchain, Video, AI Machine Learning/ Data Science, and Automation.
[To share your insights on HR Technology Trends of 2022 with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]