HR Technology Reshaping Work in Post-Covid World
This year marked the Paradigm-shift for the technology implementation in business. Revenue pegged entirely on ‘Output Delivered’. New Normal paved in with video-calls. Suddenly every home had its own designated workstations. Organizations turned boundary-less and talent non-gendered. Technology fueled this transformation at the speed of the light.
Boom-time for HR Tech products
As per Darwin Box in the ‘State of HR Tech in the post-COVID workplace’ report, 58% of companies were already on Cloud HR services. In the Pre-Pandemic era, only 18% had On-premise HR systems. The companies who already adopted Cloud systems performed 55%, better than the rest. About 84% of companies had adopted at least one form of ERP Solution during the Pandemic. Remote working pushed 59% of the companies to upgrade their contactless Attendance system. Remote Workforce Management system topped the chart. Digital hiring and Onboarding followed this with 60% and 59% respectively. New normal switched digitized work systems with Video calling infrastructure. This made a strong entry with a whopping 40% and a social messaging network with 31%.
Even though 42% of the companies had an active video calling system. 25% implemented it and 11% went ahead to upgrade it. 85% of companies actively used digital hiring. To trend, this further 43% either adopted it or upgraded it during the last six months. Remote Workforce Management System took the crown with 17% prepared and 60% joining in the tribe.
What sets the cash register ringing?
Industry Analyst reports a whopping $2 trillion enterprise spending on digital transformations. HR and legal are most likely to gain on this spend. To understand what fuels the investment, let’s look at a real-life case by HR Hovercraft. The retail and service sector has been the first to adopt this technology. The challenge here was to scale up. At the same time increase the elasticity of the HR Team. HR Hovercraft team re-engineered HR processes and applied the system to automate the onboarding process at scale with the frictionless document upload, document verification capability, which intertwines the right mix of high-performing APIs and app-less interface, makes onboarding quick and seamless. The interaction is in the local language of the candidate globally subtly creates a wow factor in the crucial employee experience. Further, the document reading capability captures the data from the candidate documents. This automatically updates the HRMS system and verifies the documents. The two-way communication is very useful to simply reach out to employees across locations, run feedback surveys. The ticketing tool enables employees to reach out to the HR team and get quick responses.
“HR Technology products that were sold during the pandemic will impact the budget in 2021. However, the shift from 100% remote to a Hybrid workforce will require upgrading those tools implemented. And that will bring in the investment in HR Technology next year,” reflects Pratik Vaidya, MD to HR Technology Company Karma Management. “In 2020, the sales reached it’s highest, with the sudden implementation of Telecommute. It was a Boom time for Tech giants.” Here’s a case study by Fulcrum, by Karma Management for HR Compliance. With imposition of Lockdown, limitations of access to the legal authorities increased. However, legal adherence was quintessential. Hence, WeChecked and WeProcess seamlessly connected saving overhead costs and defaulting.
Onsurity, launched in midst of the lockdown on-boarded over 200+ MSMEs. This self-serve technology platform offers monthly healthcare membership. Employers get access to a dashboard for complete digital onboarding and unsubscribing on resignation. “A technology first and Unit Economic approach helped our MSMEs become truly “Aatmnanirbhar". Cost optimization with highest efficiency approach is what MSMEs are looking for,” says Kulin Shah, Co-Founder Onsurity.
As major giants are declaring ‘Virtual First’ status, where they are switching to Telecommute mode for indefinite period, around 74% of the companies as per Mercer report, ‘The design of work post COVID-1” is working to return with a staggered workforce. Gartner’s report on ‘Six major Human Capital Management Trends’ highlights the Voice of Employee technology to grow highest.
Gold Rush for 2021
Kevin Dias, Founder Share Your HR, predicts, “The trend this year will focus entirely on efficiency. Hence the spending will be entirely on products that offer better productivity management. This will be both for big-ticket and marginal spending as an upgrade.”
K.Ganesh, Serial Entrepreneur, Promoter - BigBasket, Portea Medical and HomeLane reflects, “2020 saw the adoption of basic tools to facilitate remote working. But in 2021, we will see sophisticated software and tools to enable smooth working. These would involve enterprise solutions for teamwork, collaboration, multi-level review of documents & reports, asynchronous tools. Non-reporting team members must be enabled to plan. Integration with co-hort time conference tools for presentation and document sharing would be on the rise.
One of the areas that need wide attention in 2021 will be the mental and emotional health of employees. The interactions between teams, peers, and colleagues will be drastically reduced. I expect software and tools to create or at least partly create similar exchanges virtually to satisfy the inherent needs of human beings to bond and share with one another.
Market leadership for any company will remain core to the speed of acceptance of the technology. The speed of ramping up the system will create a positive impact on the revenue. As more companies waking up to this will create the growth in the economy.
