HR Technology and Trends for 2018
Here we look ahead to what’s coming up for the world of HR in the coming year…
People management never keeps still – there are always developments to keep on top of – like the changes from last month’s budget that we mentioned in our November blog. Read it here.
Artificial Intelligence
AI (or Artificial Intelligence) is making great strides at the moment – and chatbots and other automated re-creations of HR ‘people’ are starting to appear. It’s not quite as weird as you may first think, though! Don’t worry that chatbots will replace you – but what they can do is help to automate some of the time-consuming tasks that you don’t have time for, or speed up certain processes.
For instance, they allow employees to connect with the HR department via their mobile devices and they can also respond really quickly to employee questions that need instant answers. You can’t be in two places at once, so it makes sense to let them deal with these things.
Chatbots also offer a really efficient way to collect employee data – then you can do the clever stuff by analysing what that data tells you.
See! Nothing to be afraid of – it’s like having another assistant.
Job Seeking
In the old days (well, not that old really!) the newspaper was the only place to look for jobs.
Social media is where it’s all happening nowadays – LinkedIn has long been identified as one of the best job sites around – and Facebook has recently introduced its new job posting feature. You’ll know from your own experience with Facebook that it is very clever at targeting its ads to the right people – and the job postings are proving popular already with local companies. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to be picked up by the bigger corporations – one to watch.
Recruitment
Another interesting development around recruiting is collaborative hiring. One of the best ways to recruit new people is to enlist your staff – they are the best ambassadors for your company, they are in your workplace, are (hopefully) happy there, and will be keen to let people they want to work with have the opportunity to join them.
There’s a number of ways in which you can encourage them to help you recruit new staff – for instance employee referral programs are a good idea, teamed with incentives.
You can also take advantage of content such as employee testimonials, which can be shared to prospective candidates, and use communication tools for the team – you could collaborate using an online project tool such as Slack or Asana.
Finally, you could look at the Interactive rating and ranking of candidates with an ATS (applicant tracking system see www.recruitee.com).
Increased Engagement
Interestingly, the use of technology will enable HR to engage more with candidates. In the past, with so many people applying for each position, it has often been impossible to respond to each one, unless you are inviting them for interview. Using mail templates, you can now create personalised responses to candidates – adding in feedback and so on.
One of the great things about the technological advances being made is that the routine, admin-type tasks can now be handled by specific software, freeing the HR professional up to work on the more complex jobs, such as ensuring staff are happy and offering development opportunities.
HR Software
There are many HR software solutions which enable you to automate many of those admin tasks – such as employee personnel details, managing time off like holidays, sickness absence and family friendly leave among others. They enable workflows that offer best practice for jobs such as recruitment, training and induction.
If you would like to discuss this subject further and find out how we can help you embrace the latest developments in managing people, please contact Cecily Lalloo at Embrace HR Limited.
T: 07767 308717 or contact us via our website.
Based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Embrace HR Limited supports business owners who do not have their own HR department or those that do but need help from time to time. We also work across the Home Counties of Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, and also SMEs based in London.
