Traditionally, the biggest focus of HR technology was to enable efficiencies. As a result, HR technology was geared heavily towards automating transactional processes such as Application processing, Tracking on boarding activities and Performance management etc. In the last 12 months, the focus of HR technology has shifted from efficiency to enhancing effectiveness of the HR processes to create measurable business impact. This radical shift in approach is seen both from the demand and the supply side. HR technology companies are therefore gearing up to make a user‘s experience with technology more useful, satisfying and better. Creating a better user experience is the central focus of development in most HR technology service companies. Besides that, development of HR technology is also gearing toward integration of the Talent management activities. The major focus of integration is the way in which HR systems interact with each other within the enterprise or how HR systems pull all relevant information to perform better analytics.

Bringing forth the element of science

HR technology in India will mature once organizations are able to bring forth deeper thinking about how the outcome from a solution can enable certain business-relevant outcomes. For example, while evaluating a technology to process CVs, organizations should also think about how to bring forth an element of assessing role and culture fitment much earlier in the recruitment process. Ultimately the objective of the process is to improve or aid the talent acquisition process or to achieve a business goal of finding better talent. Another example can be in the form of a succession planning platform, which is enabled to provide an integrated view of the talent pipeline in the company.

An organization has to make deeper evaluation of the service space while choosing a service provider. It is important to see the future of a service offering and tie them with the overall plans of the organization in the future. It is, thus, important to bring in the element of science in the evaluation process.

The use of analytics will rise

The benefits of analytics in human capital management are undeniable and the demand for analytics and analytics-driven platforms is likely to rise soon. One of the common examples of how analytics can prove to be hugely beneficial is in the field of employee engagement. Most traditional employee engagement measures are retrospective in nature. Analytics enables real-time measures of engagement allowing an organization to prepare better and readjust their engagement plans.

The authority and involvement of HR in business and technology decisions in most organizations have gone up significantly in the last 12 months. The HR technology decision previously was mostly made by the IT or the procurement department. This, however, has changed as an increasing number of HR professionals have a say in HR technology buying decisions. This is a sign of market maturity. The singularly biggest requirement from an HR technology platform in recent times has been of a better user-experience. The primary reason why user-experience has come to the fore is because organizations have traditionally faced the challenge of driving usage. An improved user experience contributes largely to the adoption of a technology within the enterprise. As human resource systems are largely people driven, this will be a key area where most service providers will focus their development efforts.

Buyers should seek integration and scalability

Two primary trends will be noticed among HR technology buyers in India. HR technology buyers will increasingly seek an HR solution‘s capability to integrate various HR systems for better analytics. Secondly, it is also important for an HR organization to understand the possibility of scalability of an HR technology platform. As the involvement and influence of HR in technology decisions increase, it is important that HR views technology with the future perspective in mind.