HR Tech Trends for 2021

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Here at dcHR.tech, we believe that technology should be accessible by all – regardless of size. Hence we constantly seek out the latest trends and insights in HR Tech, and we share them with you here.

The following word cloud is created with data from hundreds of recent articles on HR technology.

Larger sized words highlight the focus in the latest news articles. The larger the word, the more times it appears in content pieces on HR Tech.

Words that stand out the most are: technology, employee, business, work, company. These are the ones that appear the most often in articles on HR Tech.

Next in line, we see: pandemic, people, organization, leader, experience, solution, HR.

It has indeed been the “year” of the “pandemic” – not an easy time for the company, HR or employee at work. Technology is a big enabler for organisations to thrive in these times, and leaders need to drive digitalisation solutions across the company. The adoption of HR Technologies has been accelerated now more than before to engage today’s virtual workforce, and to transform the employee experience. Darwinbox‘s ‘State of HR Tech in the post-COVID workplace’ reports that 84% of organizations reporting to have either adopted at least one HR tech solution during the pandemic or planning to in the next 12 months.

We start off the first in this series on dcHR.tech’s Top 3 Insights with a focus on the biggest trends in HR technology. What are key HR Tech trends in 2021? What are people talking about for HR Tech?

Cloud-based technology for a Hybrid Workforce

HR teams must leverage technology to adjust to a Hybrid Workforce. 82% of employees have responded positively to working from home, and over 83% of companies intend to continue offering some remote work options after the pandemic is over. Cloud-based tools for remote work, collaboration, and office workflow are a must.

There is a growing importance of self-help for employees to access and control their own HR data, including payroll, leave, claims and talent management systems, such as performance management and competency assessments.

Accelerated Employee Experience, Training & Development

The challenge is to take care of employees’ mental health and well-being, while having good engagement and productivity of the virtual workforce. HR needs to play a key role to integrate platforms and technologies for employee engagement, learning and development (L&D), and even team building.

Onboarding and L&D have been hastened to move online. Bite-sized learning can take place at the employee’s own pace and location. Remote working post-pandemic pushed 59% of companies to implement or upgrade their Digital Hiring and Onboarding, while 40% went for Learning & Assessments.

Corporate learning is being transformed with innovative ways of delivering learning in these remote working times! Today the technology is ready for AR/VR simulations that immerse employees in real life scenarios whether for customer service, sales, industrial, medical, and more. Likewise, AI technologies are growing to boost personalised employee experience.

Data-driven People & Business Decisions

Google started using Big Data to predict employee turnover over eight years ago.

There is a demand for more sophisticated and advanced HR analytics. Would you like to improve hiring decisions and cut attrition rates now and post-pandemic? Patterns can be identified in data to provide insights on employees. People analytics is a scientific data-driven approach to making the right people decisions based on metrics such as engagement rating and time to hire.

Wrapping up, these are exciting times for the adoption of HR Tech in companies. HR tech will drive the successful new workplace - that engages and supports the employee - in 2021 and beyond.