Imagine that you hire a new candidate, verify their education and experience with the click of a button, and start their onboarding. The candidate attends the orientation and then is trained and inducted into the role through Virtual Reality. 

They have questions about policies, timesheets, and the usual ‘settling in’ aspects, which are answered within seconds by a robot. Meanwhile, an AI-enabled platform helps you track their wellbeing and intervene as needed to support them.

All this might have sounded like something out of a science fiction movie a few years ago but is the reality for many companies as we enter 2024. Technological advancements and societal shifts have both contributed to the idea of how HR should stay ahead of the curve in 2024.

We stand on the brink of significant technological advancements and societal shifts, it is essential to understand how these changes are shaping the HR landscape as we prepare to enter 2024:

Blockchain in HR: Not just something that is used to make shady transactions on the dark web, blockchain is a very practical technology with multiple use cases. One of the easiest ways is for credential verification. Much like digital verification of your driving licence through an app, blockchain can be used to validate education, identity, and past experience. 

This improves the accuracy and speed of the process, allowing HR teams to save costs and have a more reliable process. In addition, blockchain can also help with secure payroll processing across borders and safe record keeping.

As data privacy laws grow stronger and cyber frauds increase, the future of HR lies in adopting blockchain to safeguard the interests of all its stakeholders. Look forward to more tech and less paper or Excel-based systems to track employee data in 2024.

Chatbots and AI assistants: While some companies such as Accenture have already integrated chatbots into daily work, a lot more remains to be done by the rest of the industry. By using machine learning and natural language processing, chatbots can be equipped to answer policy queries, guide people on reimbursements and entitlements, and even generate required documents.

In 2024, as cost and efficiency pressures continue, significant savings can be obtained by deploying chatbots or AI assistants like custom versions of ChatGPT. 

Chatbots can give people instant answers to queries 24x7 and reduce the load on Human Resources Business Partners (HRBPs), allowing them to do more strategic work.

Employee wellbeing platforms: Post-Covid, employee wellbeing has taken centre stage. But, different companies define it differently – does wellbeing mean financial health or physical health? Is it mental wellness or a sense of purpose? Or is it all of these?

To drive a more consistent wellbeing experience and to address the diverse needs of the workforce, companies are relying on wellbeing platforms. Beyond fitness trackers and meditation apps, 2024 is likely to bring more integrated, multi-functional wellness and wellbeing platforms to serve employee needs. Factoring in what each employee wants to focus on will drive platform growth in 2024 and beyond.

The rise of gig: Gig workers are reshaping the workforce landscape. With a 13-fold increase in ‘gigification’ already from pre-pandemic levels, HR functions are set to embrace a further increase in the gig workforce.

This has implications for culture, HR policies and processes, and changes to total rewards. All HR systems and processes need to adapt towards being more fluid and agile. In addition, integrating gig workers with on-roll employees and keeping both sets of people engaged and motivated should be the focus for 2024. 

Work, workplaces, and workers are all evolving at a fast pace, leading to higher demands on HR to change as well. But one thing that will stay constant in 2024 is the need for people-centricity. The key ingredient of success in HR will be the ability to understand the people's impact of business goals and challenges and create systems that address them.

Irrespective of the technology platform you use, 2024 will still demand that you put on your HR hat first and focus on the human-centric aspects of your role. 

Remember, the objective is to use technology and robots to help, and not to turn into a robot yourself.