Write about new technologies in HR (or any other business function), and people will either think you are an overzealous tech-freak who would gladly replace every person with a can of wires, or they will think you are a half-troglodyte savage who still does their paperwork with a hammer and chisel. What can you say about a guy who tries, though? These days, new HR tools are being used more and more in small and medium-sized businesses as well as big ones.
But how far can it really go, and when should we start to think about slowing things down?
Why we need tech
Who you talk to will give you a different reason for the rise in HR technology.
For example, you could say it has to do with the fact that technology has finally hit a point where its benefits are greater than the problems that many business software solutions cause. People who are “older” remember when it took too long to learn how to use software that was just MS Excel with some frills added on top of it. That crashed all the time too.
Some people also believe that the Mythical Millennials are to blame for everything that happens in business. In this line of thinking, millennials are also to blame for the rise of HR tech. People generally believe that millennials don’t want to deal with other people, so companies need to start using different types of software that automates most HR jobs if they want to keep their younger workers.
Finally, there are people who aren’t afraid to be completely honest and list some more reasons why so many people want HR to use technology more and more, like Laurie Ruettimann in her great piece.
How things stand right now
The 2015 Human Resources Software Buyer Report from Software Advice says that almost half of companies still do their HR with spreadsheets and pen and paper. 44% of people who are going to buy and use HR software do so to improve their business, and 22% do so to automate tasks. This same study says that two of the features that people want from their HR software are the ability to track employees and hire new ones.
One thing is for sure: there is a lot of HR software out there. Many companies are competing for HR offices all over the world. It can do everything from making schedules for teams to processing paychecks and keeping track of applicants and expenses.
Modern HR tech, on the other hand, is much more than just a lot of different HR tools. In this case, there is the big data trend that seems set to last. There is no going back from it, even though most people still don’t know what to do with it when it comes to HR.
In addition, we can’t forget to say that social media has become a normal part of workers’ lives and needs to be taken into account when we talk about HR.
How to Get There and Going Too Far
For many people, this is where things really get scary and interesting. In other news, this is where most of us find Luddites who can’t stand what the future holds.
Here we are in the future, where HR departments and hiring managers know so much about their employees and possible employees that it makes you feel like you’re coming to work naked.
In the future, employees will be nothing more than a string of data about their success from second to second, how engaged they are thought to be, and a list of their good and bad traits. In this future, HR loses a lot of its human side. I don’t want to sound too much like a high school student who read a few books on how alienated people feel in the modern world.
Finally, this is the future where HR professionals are no longer needed because they are replaced by a cloud-based, fully integrated system that is smart enough to do the job.
We only have one chance: this kind of AI turns out to be impossible for a number of logical, psychological, and metaphysical reasons. This is not likely to happen, though.
Not surprisingly.
Instead of ending with a word
Once more, I’m sure some of the last few lines sound like I’m trying to scare you, but take a moment to think about this: if business owners could have most of their HR work done automatically by a system that doesn’t pay or give benefits, wouldn’t they?
They would do it right away.
This is also scary.
Most likely, HR workers won’t be able to do much about this, but knowing about it is a good start.
