Top Trends in HCM Technology for 2021

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that resilience is the key to success. HR departments must remain poised to support a world with remote workforces, and a range of contracts, freelancers, full and part-time workers. This new normal has made HCM technology more important than ever. Although we look towards 2021 with hopes the world will return to something a little more recognizable, HR professionals must face the reality the pandemic has changed how most organizations operate forever. Here are the HR trends for the future that will prove invaluable as the world and economy begin to recover.

Centralized Training and Development

In hand with AI for recruitment, employee development can be tracked from the moment of onboarding. This allows employees to receive proper orientation and continue to receive training and development as their careers progress. New forms of engaging training and development programs that are self-led, use the training method that most appeals to the individual. Organizations can provide personalized training content designed to meet the individual’s needs providing continuous learning and development opportunities that help reduce turnover challenges.

As the workplace technology changes, people maintain the appropriate skill set as AI in hand with centralized, cloud-based training allows the individual to adjust to technology. Team members continue to meet the demands of changing technology introduced into each job role. This proactive approach to upskilling creates transferable skills and improves competencies that help workers remain relevant in their chosen fields for ongoing success in their careers.

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Self-service Tools

With an employee self-service (ESS) system, employees no longer require endless piles of paperwork and can manage a number of HR-related issues such as:

• Online pay stub records
• W-2 forms
• Employment status
• Rate of pay
• Training programs
• Update personal information
• Benefits/health plan coverage and more

This becomes even more important with the shift to work from home models that make access to such information the best way to improve HR efficiencies.

Cloud-based HR to Support Remote Work

Demand for remote work left many organizations ill-prepared to remain productive. However, with total workforce management systems organizations can maximize productivity and profits with cloud-based tools designed to track employee performance. HR departments have control over the management and performance of their remote teams, so they can remain effective in assisting employees in meeting their career goals. This also ensures each individual has access to the tools they need to perform their day to day tasks. Remote workforce management assists with:  

• Day-to-day functions
• Time management integration with systems such as Kronos
• Employee benefits
• Paperless HR management
• Visibility to all levels of management

HR departments can have their systems up and running quickly, allowing them to easily accommodate their remote workforce. Collaborative tools, sharing of documents, training, employee development, performance tracking and more can all be managed from one centralized workforce management system. These systems are scalable allowing HR departments to adapt the systems to suit their needs. Everything is managed in real-time so the decision-making process is not disrupted and all levels of management maintain control over their department’s productivity.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

This has become a must in the new world of recruitment. From posting job openings to filtering applications and from setting up virtual job interviews to onboarding, AI-enabled programs make the entire recruitment process easier. AI will continue to provide invaluable input for recruiters including:

• Reducing the number of suitable candidate applications to review through effective application filtering
• Analysis of the labor market
• Skills matching
• Competency identification for internal opportunities
• Accurate and unbiased job posting/description creation
• Pre-interview chatbot discussions to qualify candidates
• Efficient onboarding

These are just a few examples of how AI can accelerate the employee hiring process.

Tech Supported Turnover Analysis

With the use of AI, HR professionals can become more responsive to turnover challenges by using it to analyze and spot departure trends. It can be used for competitive analysis to identify shortcomings in things such as an organization’s benefits, salary ranges, training programs and more allowing HR teams to adjust their offerings to make them more appealing to top talent.

Programs to Suit the Gig Economy

With more organizations and many industries seeing spikes in the gig economy, adaptable HCM technology provides the tools to balance a good mix of full-time remote teams, onsite full or part-time workers, contract workers such as tradespeople for construction and freelance workers in areas such as marketing. With changing roles and approaches to “hiring”, this new workforce has special needs. HCM workforce management systems provide solutions for common inefficiencies in these gig economy, complex environments.  

These HR trends for the future can easily be met using cloud-based technology and customized total workforce management systems.

About the Author

Kayla is the Marketing Manager at Paypro Corporation overseeing all inbound and outbound marketing and sales efforts. She has 7+ years of experience working within the B2B and SaaS based solutions space and thrives on creating messaging and campaigns that introduce products and services to those who need them most.