Maximizing Efficiency: How HR Technology is Streamlining Operations
Today, every company is focused on driving efficiencies anywhere and everywhere possible. While some improvements seem obvious, there are numerous areas for improvement within talent acquisition and talent management teams. HR departments play a crucial role in an organization’s success, but they’re typically filled with manual and time-consuming tasks that make streamlining processes difficult.
With the implementation of HR technology that leverages intelligence and automation, HR teams can optimize their operations while driving productivity and delivering engaging experiences for both candidates and employees. From talent acquisition to employee management, HR technologies have evolved to meet the needs of today.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at all the ways HR technology can improve existing workflows and how a holistic approach to HR technology implementation can create an enhanced experience for users and individuals throughout all stages of the talent lifecycle.
In This Article
What is HR Technology?
HR technology is the system of tools necessary to streamline and enhance various HR functions, from raising requisitions to scheduling interviews and extending offers. These technologies, range from applicant tracking systems (ATS) to Talent CRMs and are designed to provide seamless experiences as job seekers transition from candidates to employees.
The overarching purpose of HR technology is to simplify administrative tasks, enhance talent management, and facilitate strategic decision-making that promotes more human-to-human interaction.
By choosing the right HR technologies and viewing them as a holistic ecosystem that works together to drive results, organizations can successfully manage the entire lifecycle with fewer point solutions. This is achieved through automation, AI, and analytical insights aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of recruiters, interviewers, hiring managers, and beyond.
Why is HR Technology Important?
HR technology is crucial for organizations of all sizes because it provides the scalability and efficiency needed to manage complex workforces effectively. AI and automation are critical components of any piece of HR technology. These intelligent systems serve as the backbone to ensure seamless processes, including streamlining repetitive tasks and enabling HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives that drive business growth.
For instance, if a 20,000-person organization were to take on the challenge of establishing a career architecture for all the roles in their organization and the skills necessary to perform those roles, it would take that team upwards of two years to complete. That doesn’t include the support needed to maintain and update that architecture.
This is where AI and automation come in to make an immediate and profound impact. The right technology empowers teams to make data-driven decisions, enhancing processes, conversations, and initiatives across the entire talent lifecycle.
By leveraging a holistic and comprehensive platform, organizations can align their workforce strategies with broader business objectives, ultimately improving productivity, candidate engagement, and employee satisfaction. Moreover, having HR technology that can integrate with existing tools is a cornerstone capability that, facilitates efficient and effective HR operations across both talent acquisition and talent management functions.
Now that we’ve discussed the positive impact HR technology can have on your HR processes, let’s look at the current technology landscape.
The Current HR Technology Landscape
The HR technology landscape is rapidly evolving with new trends and innovations shaping how organizations attract, retain, and develop their workforce. These technologies are designed to meet the changing demands of the modern workplace where digital transformation is crucial for success.
Talent acquisition teams face a persistent challenge to engage top talent quicker than the competition. With top talent on the market for days not weeks, having a robust HR tech stack is not just an advantage but a necessity for enterprises aiming to maintain a competitive edge.
Beyond identifying and engaging best-fit talent, TA teams are looking for innovative and streamlined ways to improve the overall candidate experience, hire faster and more effectively, and create scalable solutions that evolve alongside their business needs.
On the talent management side of the house, teams are searching for better ways to improve employee retention through development initiatives, improved benefits, and personalized experiences. When data is living in silos, creating a holistic solution that offers real-time insights and analytics becomes a pipedream.
The conversation around current HR Technology is moving away from point solutions and short-term problem solving toward comprehensive discussions to answer the crucial question of ‘What is the most effective tool that I can use to support the entire talent lifecycle?’
4 Common Issues With Point Solutions
Modern HR departments are utilizing an array of technologies tailored to various HR functions — from recruitment and retention to performance management and employee engagement. While these point solutions offer specialized focuses for key problem areas within a company, their integration presents numerous challenges including:
Data Fragmentation: The use of multiple systems results in scattered, isolated data pools, making it difficult to achieve a unified view of employee metrics and information. For example, a healthcare organization may find it challenging to integrate data from clinical staff with administrative records, affecting overall workforce management and strategic planning.
Increased Costs: Operating several systems leads to cumulative costs related to subscriptions, integrations, and maintenance, which significantly inflate the total cost of ownership. Retail companies, for example, often face the financial burden of managing separate systems for in-store employees and headquarters staff, each with different functional requirements.
Complex Training Requirements: Diverse systems each require specific training, which can be time-consuming and may hinder user adoption. This issue is particularly acute in industries like manufacturing, where the workforce may possess varying levels of technical proficiency.
Workflow Inefficiencies: Managing multiple systems can lead to considerable time wastage, reduced productivity, and potential errors, which detract from core HR functions. Hospitality businesses, known for their fast-paced environments, experience acute challenges in this area.
Although the challenges are widespread regardless of the industry you work in, there are emerging HR technology trends to keep in mind as your teams search for streamlined solutions that will set you up for success now and in the future.
Emerging HR Technology Trends to Consider
HR technology is a massive industry, making it difficult to stay focused on which tools are best for your business. When evaluating emerging technology trends, it’s important to consider features that will help you increase workflow efficiencies, provide a return on investment, and most importantly make your data function for you by providing insights and recommendations for optimizations across the enterprise.
The organizations successfully removing point solutions are creating frictionless and memorable experiences for their candidates and employees. But how do they do it? By leveraging innovative and holistic solutions. The following five trends are providing talent acquisition and talent management teams with the functionality needed to trigger transformative improvements:
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI): GenAI is a technology that is steadily advancing, providing new opportunities for talent acquisition and management teams to leverage AI in a way that offloads tasks, generating efficiencies for every individual. AI is at a place where multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) can run at once to become an always-on AI assistant, helping your teams unlock insights, identify potential candidates, and engage employees with ease. With AI advancements, it’s critical to seek out HR technology partners that have a robust strategy for developing and implementing intelligence into the heart of the solution, ensuring that you receive scalable solutions as time progresses.
Related: Why ChatGPT Is NOT The Best GenAI Tool for HR (And What Is)
Self-Service Technology: When adopting HR technology, HRIS/HRIT teams evaluate systems and technology to ensure that all tools integrate and run effectively with the larger business function. For these partners to be enabled, it’s imperative that they have a central place to monitor the health of the technology, quickly add and remove users, and make changes without needing to raise support tickets. Tools like HRIT dashboards and integrations are necessary functions to look for.
End-to-End Hiring Solutions: The technology is here for end-to-end hiring, onboarding, and employee lifecycle management, however, HR teams are still looking to solve hiring process issues with vendors that could only solve a piece of the puzzle. This leads to higher costs, and difficulty integrating. Look to vendors that can grow with you and provide a seamless infrastructure for your teams to work from. This helps with creating strong candidate and employee experiences, reduces the difficulty of change management as you are all working from the same source, and provides the infrastructure for future growth and change.
Upskilling and Reskilling: The employee lifecycle moves beyond hire and onboarding. Having an Employee Relationship Management (ERM) system provides strategic visibility into the abilities of your workforce. This empowers hiring managers to develop their internal teams through upskilling and reskilling, which ensures your team has the ability to fulfill the necessary job functions. The ability to gain insights and visibility into the skills of your organization gives you a clear window into the health and abilities of your workforce.
People Analytics: one of the key benefits of HR technology is being able to gain actionable insights from your data. Intelligent tools that have robust analytics are essential for teams that are looking to gain actionable insights and are strategically invested in the health of their human capital.
Examples of How HR Technology Is Used
It’s clear that HR technology is transforming the workflows and daily lives of talent acquisition and talent management professionals. These tools are helping HR teams attract and engage candidates with hyper-personalized content, at scale, to secure the best-in-class talent.
Simultaneously, the right tool enables talent managers with the insights to be dynasty-caliber leaders and coaches who can see their teams' strengths and weaknesses to manage teams for long-term success.
Let’s dive into the best HR technology tools for both talent acquisition and talent management teams to learn exactly how these solutions are changing the game.
Talent Acquisition
For talent acquisition teams attracting job seekers and managing employer brand is at the heart of their day-to-day. The task of sourcing, screening, scheduling, and interviewing candidates for multiple roles is a heavy burden. The key is to find a holistic platform that allows TA teams to remain agile while successfully communicating a compelling employer brand that resonates with top talent.
Effective technological tools in this arena include:
SEO-optimized Career Websites: These ensure high visibility of a company’s job postings in search engine results, crucial for attracting skilled professionals. For instance, healthcare facilities can highlight unique career growth opportunities and advanced patient care technologies to attract qualified practitioners.
Social Media Management Tools: Vital for maintaining a strong online presence, these tools enable HR teams to engage with potential employees and effectively promote the company culture. Retail brands often use these platforms to highlight employee benefits and vibrant work culture.
Video Content Management Systems: Facilitate the creation and management of video content that offers an authentic view of the company’s culture through workplace tours and employee testimonials. This approach is highly effective in the IT sector, where showcasing innovative work environments can attract top tech talent.
Streamlining Candidate Management and Communication
Efficient recruitment processes are significantly improved by integrating and automating candidate management. Key technologies include:
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Automate the management and posting of job openings across platforms, streamlining the recruitment process, especially beneficial for large IT companies dealing with high volumes of applications.
Candidate Relationship Management (CRM): Maintain consistent communication with candidates throughout the hiring process, enhancing the candidate experience—a critical component in sectors like healthcare, where the competition for skilled professionals is intense.
Scheduling Software: AI-powered tools that automate interview scheduling, reducing administrative burdens and enhancing efficiency, particularly valuable during peak hiring times in the retail industry.
Related: What is Candidate Relationship Management and Why is It Important?
Enhancing the Interview and Hiring Process
The adoption of advanced technologies has transformed the interview and hiring process:
Digital Interview Platforms: These platforms support remote interviewing capabilities, which are essential in today’s increasingly remote work environment, allowing for real-time interactions and the ability to record interviews for later review. This technology is particularly relevant in the IT sector, where remote roles are common.
AI Assessment Tools: Analyze candidates' responses and non-verbal cues during interviews to provide deeper insights into candidate suitability. These tools are invaluable in industries like manufacturing, where precision and reliability are crucial.
Talent Management
For talent management leaders managing employee experiences from post-hire while ensuring a positive employee experience is vital for retention and overall job satisfaction. When evaluating HR technology that fits the needs of managing partners, selecting technology that can address the needs of HRIS/HRIT teams and employees needs to be at the heart of the solutions.
Technologies that support these efforts include:
HR Information Systems (HRIS): These comprehensive systems manage all employee data from onboarding through to retirement, supporting functions such as payroll, benefits administration, and compliance—essential in regulated environments like healthcare.
Employee Engagement Platforms: These platforms facilitate ongoing communication with employees through surveys, performance tracking, and feedback mechanisms, enabling HR teams to measure and enhance employee satisfaction. Such approaches are increasingly adopted by hospitality businesses to improve staff retention and satisfaction.
Employee Relationship Management (ERM) Platforms: ERM platforms focus on fostering a positive workplace culture. They facilitate regular feedback with managers, recognize employee achievements through skills, and provide tools for continuous learning and development, contributing to higher job satisfaction and retention.
Fostering Skills and Career Growth
Supporting continuous employee development and career growth is essential for maintaining a motivated workforce. Technologies that facilitate these processes include:
Learning Management Systems (LMS): Provide personalized learning experiences and professional development opportunities, helping employees advance their skills in alignment with both their personal career goals and organizational needs. This is especially important in sectors like IT, where technology evolves rapidly.
Skills Management Systems: Deliver real-time insights for proactive workforce planning through identifying, assessing, and developing skills to align employee capabilities with business needs better. With a need for more connection between talent management data, people managers, and employees, talent managers can leverage skills-based tools to personalize career paths while objectively planning for emerging skills to keep their teams agile and effective. These systems are designed to improve workforce planning, enhance employee engagement, and increase organizational agility.
Career Pathing Tools: Help employees and managers develop a clear and structured career progression plan, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and personal aspirations. Such tools are seen as vital in manufacturing firms aiming to upskill their workforce to meet advanced technological needs.
Employee Referral Programs: Provide the ability to tap into your employee’s networks to find and fill roles with top talent. These programs provide higher quality candidates as employees are connecting hiring teams to vetted talent, this ultimately cuts back on hiring costs, and boosts employee engagement. It’s not just important to roll out an Employee Referral Program, but to effectively, manage, track, and receive analytical insights into the performance of the program are necessary requirements to expect from an HR technology tool that could support this business function,
Succession Planning: When leveraging skills data to support the vitality of your workforce, you can identify critical skills gaps in your teams and start strategizing to better prepare for the future — all while setting your teams up for a strong handoff in personnel when the time comes. With data-driven insights, the ability to identify succession plans, maximize potential, and develop talent at scale is possible.
Performance Management: Leveraging a people manager solution gives managers the necessary tools to centralize the data they need to build high-performing teams. With HR technology that supports performance management capabilities managers can see their team’s career goals in detail, allowing managers to personalize career paths and can develop next-generation leadership by easily identifying success based on ability and skills.
3 Benefits of HR Technology
With HR technology talent acquisition professionals can scale responses and interactions with talent in a timely, and personal manner. When organizations embrace automation and intelligence this removes the pain point of recruiters who need help keeping up with demand while remaining personal, and candidates are not left wondering if their application was received, or if they even were a good fit for the role.
HR technology provides the framework to improve the day-to-day lives of HR professionals through enhanced efficiency, better hires, and more strategic decision-making.
Enhancing Efficiency
HR technology automates repetitive tasks, such as building talent pools, resume screening, interview scheduling, and extending offers freeing up HR professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives. This efficiency boosts overall productivity and enables HR teams to handle complex issues more effectively.
Improving Hiring Accuracy
Finding the right fit candidate is challenging, and prone to errors, leading to costly mistakes of either not hiring talent in time to support business goals or hiring the wrong person who doesn't fit with company culture. HR technology minimizes these errors by automating data entry and calculations, ensuring consistency and accuracy in HR functions. This sets up the foundation for your data to provide insights using Fit Score to create strong talent pools.
Facilitating Strategic Decision-Making
HR technology provides valuable insights and analytics, enabling organizations to make informed hiring decisions with speed and velocity. From identifying hiring trends to monitoring employee satisfaction, data-driven insights are crucial for strategic workforce planning and aligning HR strategies with business objectives.
How to Choose the Right HR Technology
Choosing the right HR technology involves considering several key factors and features that align with your organization's needs:
1. Identify Your Needs
Start by identifying the specific challenges you want to address. Whether it's improving recruitment, enhancing employee engagement, or streamlining performance management, understanding your needs will guide you toward the right solution.
2. Look for User-Friendly Interfaces
Keep your team in mind. HR technology should be easy to use for both HR professionals and employees. A user-friendly interface enhances adoption and reduces the learning curve, ensuring the technology is used effectively.
3. Evaluate Scalability
Your HR technology should be scalable to grow with your organization. Look for solutions that not only adapt to changing needs but also accommodate an expanding workforce without compromising performance. They also need to be able to support enterprise-size hiring goals with solutions that support high-volume hiring needs.
4. Consider Integration Capabilities
HRIS/HRIT teams should ensure that the technology in place functions well. HRIT needs to be supported with self-service tools that enable strong performance and positive user habits. The right solution should seamlessly integrate with your existing systems and software, ensuring consistency, reducing manual data entry, and enhancing overall efficiency.
5. Focus on Analytics and Reporting
Data-driven decision-making is crucial for success. Choose HR technology that offers robust analytics and reporting features, providing practical insights into key metrics and helping you make informed decisions. With the advent of hiring intelligence hiring managers, interviews, and recruiters cohesively plan, prepare, and hold structured interviews that capture transcripts and even summarize interviews. These insights are shared automatically with key stakeholders which greatly reduces your time to hiring decisions.
6. Prioritize Security and Compliance
As AI and technology continually change, having a partner who understands the current legislative terrain and has a plan to integrate it with their existing tech is vital. Since HR technology deals with sensitive employee information, security, and compliance, you need a vendor that prioritizes the security and protection of that data. We recommend businesses look for solutions that offer strong data protection and comply with relevant regulations.
Why Phenom Stands Out in the HR Technology Landscape
Holistic HR technology supports the entire talent lifecycle from attracting, engaging and hiring candidates to growing and developing employees. Phenom is leading the way with solutions that are not only user-friendly but also seamlessly integrated and powered by advanced AI throughout the platform. By eliminating costly point solutions and creating a fast and frictionless experience, Phenom is setting a new standard in the HR technology landscape.
Here are five reasons why Phenom stands out among the competition for holistic HR solutions:
Comprehensive AI-Powered Platform
Phenom offers a holistic approach to AI that cuts across all talent experiences, from talent acquisition to talent management. Our end-to-end solution enhances every stage of the candidate and employee lifecycle, from attracting candidates to developing, growing, and retaining top talent. This comprehensive approach ensures that organizations can address all their HR needs within a unified system.
User-Friendly Design
By providing a user-friendly design Phenom ensures that HR professionals and employees can easily navigate the platform. The intuitive interface enhances adoption and maximizes engagement, making it easy for organizations to leverage the full potential of our technology.
Scalability and Flexibility
Phenom's solutions are highly scalable and flexible, accommodating organizations of all sizes across a wide variety of industries – adapting to an organization’s needs as they evolve due to market shifts and the competitive landscape. This scalability ensures that our technology grows with your business, providing long-term value and adaptability in a dynamic business environment.
Integration and Data-Driven Insights
The Intelligent Talent Experience platform seamlessly integrates with existing systems and software, enhancing overall efficiency and consistency. Additionally, the platform provides robust analytics and reporting features, offering valuable insights into key HR metrics. These data-driven insights empower organizations to make informed decisions and align HR strategies with business objectives.
Strong Security and Compliance
With the changing advancements in technology, there is a growing need for organizations to protect their data while remaining compliant. Phenom prioritizes both, ensuring that sensitive employee information is protected and that the platform meets relevant regulatory requirements. This focus on security gives organizations peace of mind when using our technology, safeguarding critical data and maintaining compliance with industry standards
Conclusion
It’s clear that HR technology is rapidly advancing and providing opportunities to transition from isolated point solutions to a holistic HR technology system. HR technology that serves as an end-to-end hiring solution is essential for maximizing the technology's operational efficiency to support the entire employee lifecycle—from recruitment to retirement.
This strategic shift not only streamlines HR functions but also empowers talent acquisition and management teams to focus on strategic planning and employee engagement, significantly enhancing productivity and satisfaction. These platforms provide powerful analytics to enable informed decision-making, promoting a proactive approach to talent management.
As HR technology is continuously evolving, organizations that leverage a holistic HR solution are poised to align their workforce strategies with broader business objectives effectively, ensuring sustained competitive advantage and enhanced employee satisfaction — ultimately making the most out of the potential of HR technology.
Ready to transform how you manage your workforce and retain top talent? Explore the world of holistic hiring solutions at Phenom.
Get the latest talent experience insights delivered to your inbox.
Sign up to the Phenom email list for weekly updates!
