Technology is taking over the world. However, the HR department may sleep soundly. Looking at the expected trends, human resources will still have plenty of work to do in the upcoming years. As long as companies employ humans, HR will remain crucial for boosting employee engagement and continue supporting business growth.
The Covid-19 pandemic obviously had a major impact on HR as people started working from home full-time. Problems like employee productivity and motivation arose. Apart from that, HR departments focused more on cost optimization and how to remotely serve their businesses.
This article will give you an insight into the top HR software trends you should keep an eye on in 2022.
Table of Contents
HR challenges: What should HR focus on in 2022? Responsibilities and concerns.
HR leaders have lots of responsibilities and concerns related to the well-being of employees. They are dealing with everything from payroll automation and soft skill management to making use of technology to improve mental and physical wellbeing. Some of the top challenges they will be facing in the upcoming year are:
1. Recruiting the best talents
The main goal of any human resource specialist is to find the best talent for their company that will not only fit the requirements but also the culture. They deeply understand their organization’s needs and make sure they are met during the recruitment process. Apart from that, they are dealing with coordinating hiring efforts and onboarding new employees as well as handling the paperwork.
2. Purpose-driven organizations
HR trends are all about purpose. Business leaders believe that purpose is the key to success and that purpose-driven organizations are the remedy for many challenges of motivation. This means that behaviours, conversations and decisions across all levels should be integrated within one purpose.
3. Understanding younger employees
Many organizations have as many as four generations among their employees: traditionalists, baby boomers, generation X and millennials. Soon, generation Z will also join the market. This will result in the rise of a younger workforce of different career priorities and values. HR professionals have to be aware of the emerging working styles and career values in order to prepare adequate corporate policies that will keep the younger generations happy.
4. Employee engagement and retention
Companies are constantly adjusting their compensation and benefits in order to remain attractive to the modern worker. Apart from parental leaves or flexible working hours, some of them offer expanded fertility benefits or non-health-related casual dress code and wellness programs. HR professionals keep their employees satisfied by strengthening their corporate social responsibility, which helps them feel empowered to speak up.
5. Skill building
The pandemic supercharged the trend of companies prioritizing upskilling their workforce. They are creating new roles to address that, while identifying current skills that might become redundant in the future.
6. Diversity, equity and inclusion
25% of HR leaders say that diversity, equity and inclusion are their top focus for 2022. Candidates also want to know an organization's position on DEI when applying. It has become a competitive advantage and a differentiation in the labour market. Diversity, equity and inclusion are viewed as a strategy that ensures businesses performs better.
What to expect: HR technology trends in 2022
1. Remote teams
In 2020, nearly everybody was forced to work from home at some point. This switch has changed the game for many companies and provoked a shift in mindset. Previously, many businesses were sceptical about remote work, but now, they are announcing their staff is allowed to work from home forever. Many of them are also creating specific remote work policies that evolve and change accordingly to different scenarios and situations.
Companies need the right HR technology to help them deal with one of the most widely spread human resource trends. This includes
- remote paychecks and payroll
- virtual performance management
- employee self-service portals
- absence and leave management
Businesses are also looking for project management and messaging suites like Slack and Trello to keep everybody up-to-date and retain high-level of communication.
2. Employee wellness with a focus on mental health
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic companies directed their focus towards their employees’ well-being. Coworkers made a great effort to stay connected, organized virtual coffee chats or played games remotely.
Due to worldwide quarantine, many people started to prioritize their physical and mental health. This drives companies to take a more serious approach to employee wellness and ensure the program creates a happy and thriving workplace. The days of office-specific perks like fruit or coffee machines are gone. Instead, organizations focus on mental health support, creating relationships with coworkers and creating a better work-life balance. Those efforts will have a major impact on the company as a whole, on team productivity and performance while helping to prevent burnout.
3. Learning and development
Another HR trend we can observe is concerned with learning and development. There already was a strong need for personal growth, yet the pandemic deepened it even further. Companies decided to upskill their HR teams rather than look for new talents.
For HR, there are three main capabilities:
- business acumen
- HR professionals should perfectly understand the business, its strategy and customers in order to make good and quick decisions.
- data literacy
- to make data-driven and evidence-based decisions. This also involves the ability to create, understand and communicate data as information.
- digital integration
- digitization of the HR department allows delivering the HR strategy effectively. This can be one of the biggest skill gaps in HR that is even more visible in the remote reality.
One of our projects - Neutopia - is a social eLearning platform that encourages and motivates the curiosity of learners. It allows its users to create playlists of their favourite educational materials, organized into specific categories. Solutions like that can be useful for the growth of employees, aiding them in gaining new skills.
4. Personalized and enhanced recruiting experience
Key technology for successful recruitment and hiring is a customized applicant tracking system. This ensures that only qualified candidates get through the initial screening. It can also make it easier for candidates to submit their materials online, which, in return, makes them easier to access. Artificial intelligence can also aid in managing large amounts of candidates and selecting perfect matches.
In recent years, Selleo worked on a project that connects students with schools looking for teachers. Humly allows students to take part-time jobs as replacement teachers for schools. Managing large amounts of data can be difficult, but with algorithms that provide perfect matching, it is easy and leaves both sides satisfied.
Many elements need to be taken into account during the recruitment process: location, technology stack, skills or experience. Technology helps to sift through big amounts of data in order to find the best match.
5. AI in HR
AI-powered programs are playing an important role in the recruiting and hiring processes. They speed up reviewing and filtering of applicants, help to analyze the labour market, match skills and identify competencies. Chatbots can also aid in the first interaction with candidates, which greatly decreases the time needed for the hiring process.
AI can also speed up employee training and development through virtual reality or augmented reality. Some of the tools can help HR leaders uncover potential reasons for turnover and avert employee departures. They can analyze web browsing patterns or email activities.
Artificial intelligence is involved in tasks such as payroll, applicant traffic and job postings. What is more, we can notice a demand for faster decision-making with HR analytics. The ability to predict effects on business and make necessary changes may be the key to survival.
6. Self-service tools EES
Employees want to access and update their personal information through employee self-service (ESS) systems. It gives them the ability to perform HR-related tasks without filing any paperwork with HR. They can:
- access payslips online
- view federal, state or local tax withholding information
- view and print forms
- update personal information
- confirm employer-initiated employment status, rate of pay, etc.
Self-service technologies may allow leadership to communicate changes in health plan coverages, company holidays and other time-sensitive information. It can assist employees in expanding the range of skills and knowledge.
Summary
In the world dominated by technology, each year we can observe trends arising in various industries, human resources being one of them. HR software is becoming not only an innovation but also a necessity, especially when the world goes through a lockdown.
Many HR processes went through a digital transformation and thanks to artificial intelligence or self-service tools some of their activities like talent acquisition or availability of crucial information are better than ever.
2020 showed that technology is crucial to maintain a stable level of employee engagement, satisfaction and stability. If you want to build an HR system that will aid teams in their daily job it is crucial to follow technology trends as well as cloud-based solutions.
If you are looking for an outsourcing partner that can help you build a fully-functioning HR software, Selleo is here to help. Visit our portfolio to find out more about our work on Humly and contact us to schedule a call with tech experts.
