How HR departments can embrace technology

HR departments are the centre of all successful businesses because HR is responsible for the life-blood of a company – it’s people.  And people are changing, along with society.

The way employees interact with a company is always evolving, from talent attraction at the start of a relationship all the way through to on-going employee engagement.  Technology is continually progressing and this has a huge impact on every step of the employee / employer relationship and the way HR operates within a company.

The HR function can’t afford to stand still and hang on to out of date techniques and strategies.  HR must grasp technology, embrace how things are now and ride with future changes.  It’s essential to keep up with how employees and potential employees have adopted technology within their daily life if a company is to stay relevant and be successful.

Technology impacts HR in a number of key ways:

Talent attraction:

A company website is universally accepted as a hugely beneficial marketing tool for potential clients.  But the value as a talent attraction tool can’t be underestimated.  A company website is the external face of an employer’s brand and how the company is represented online will have a big impact on attracting top talent.

HR should be involved in a company’s career page, working with Marketing & Business Development where possible to ensure HR talent attraction strategies are aligned with marketing objectives.  Researching a potential employer via the company’s website is a key step for future employees so it’s important to get this right.

The power of social media is huge when looking at talent attraction.  LinkedIn, facebook, twitter – all of these social media channels will contribute to how future talent views your company and the opportunities it offers, so it’s important to proactively build social media into your talent attraction strategy.

Recruitment:

Online recruitment tools are fundamental to how a company recruits new employees, so it’s crucial to stay up to date with the relevant digital landscape of jobsites and job aggregators.

New online opportunities are developing all of the time, so it makes sense for HR to be aware of developments and seek out the best digital advertising opportunities.  This could be new jobsites in a particular industry, or online channels that target a certain type of candidate (part time, working mums for example) or innovative jobsites that use peer-to-peer recommendation.

These kinds of recruitment tools are quicker, more wide reaching and of course much more cost-effective as they allow for easier targeting of candidates.

Employee Engagement:

There are many opportunities to utilise technology to communicate internally with employees and increase employee engagement.  Technology should be incorporated into HR’s employee engagement strategy at every stage to strengthen employee/employer relationships and build loyalty.

Simple yet effective tools can include maintaining an engaging and informative intranet site, where employees have access not only to company information, but various forms and documents, making life easier for the HR team when it comes to disseminating information and encouraging staff to access the documents they need.

Internal communications can leave behind standard email communication and towards more engaging digital channels such as creatively designed html email newsletters to engage staff.

Streamlining the department:

Digital developments are continuing to improve HR’s ability to deliver its services in a more streamlined way, removing out-dated ways of working and making the day-to-day HR function smoother.

Technology, such as cloud storage, has decreased the need for vast physical paper storage for HR records, making the whole process of employee management simpler.

Online survey tools, for example, are improving HR’s ability to gather insightful employee data, offering an opportunity for results to be interpreted that then shape HR’s employee relations strategies.

Technology continues to make a big impact on key HR responsibilities such as Performance Management.  There are software programmes that are designed to help evaluate employee performance and using tools such as these help HR leaders to understand areas which are doing well and areas which need support, which can influence future training and L&D activities.

As the remit of HR continues to grow, keeping up with digital developments and new technologies will help the HR department stay ahead of the game.

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