HR Technology

Trends to Watch in 2016

Steve Goldberg and Sandeep Ray, Ramco Systems

Copyright 2016, Ramco Systems Limited. All rights acknowledged.

RAMCO SYSTEMS | HR Technology Trends to watch for in 2016 | 01

HR Technology Trends
to Watch in 2016

Steve Goldberg and Sandeep Ray, Ramco Systems

Notwithstanding all the attention heaped on the group of HR
Technology industry trends known as SMAC (Social, Mobile,
Analytics, Cloud), certain other advances occurring in the industry
around the globe are perhaps poised to become the next wave of
hot trends in this domain.

Introduction
The set of emerging trends explored here are all rooted in technology-related ideas designed to materially improve the way organizations leverage people assets, in other words, HCM (Human Capital
Management) innovation through HR Technology innovation. Our
view is also that emerging HR Technology trends that are most
worthy of a bright light are those that truly make a difference to a
business entity and its internal and external stakeholders. Therefore, creative ways of achieving only marginally better business
outcomes, perhaps via improved product aesthetics or a more
enjoyable user experience, fall outside this particular discussion.
Another point to note up-front relates to the HR profession. There
are a number of ways that corporate HR functions can promote
innovative ideas and initiatives leveraging interesting technologies,
obviously only a small fraction of which are highlighted here. However, based on a 2014 industry study, only 20% of HR professionals
claim to be very involved in innovation within their organization.
This regional study was entitled The HR InnovAsian Report 2014,
but its safe to assume other regional findings would not be significantly different. It is the authors hope that some of the impending
trends covered, and the suggestions offered in a later section,
might serve to get this type of finding on a different trajectory.
The Trends to Watch

Recognition trumps Reviews

A Corporate Executive Board (CEB) survey of Fortune 1,000 companies, published in SHRMs on-line magazine in April 2015, found that
the number of employers that are either ditching the numerical
ranking of employees or tossing out the entire performance review
process grew from 4 percent in 2012 to 12 percent in 2014. Furthermore, about 66 percent of employees say the performance review
process interferes with their productivity, and 65 percent say it isnt
even relevant to their jobs. Finally, about 95 percent of managers
say they arent satisfied with their organizations performance
management processes, and 90 percent of HR professionals dont
believe their performance reviews provide accurate information.
This dissatisfaction trend is not that new. In Bersin & Associates
Essentials of Performance Management research bulletin (2010),
the firm found that almost 30% of line managers viewed time spent
on performance management practices as being of little value
and a different CEB survey, one polling 120 CFOs (2011), concluded
that companies lose 20-35% of potential revenue growth, profit
growth, and shareholder value from poor performance
management systems.

Employee performance is the first destination with

co-workers likes serving as a form of social recognition
of quality work, important contributions, teamwork, etc.
Evidently 5 years of the same findings are having a catalytic effect,
as organizations such as Accenture and Adobe Systems have gone
public with the fact that they are totally eliminating their existing
performance management processes. So what is taking the place
of these unpopular approaches?
Perhaps Facebooks like button brought the need for social recognition to the forefront, but this trend has started to invade the
workplace in arguably a bigger and more impactful way, thanks in
large part to millennials at work. Employee performance is the first
destination with co-workerslikes serving as a form of social recognition of quality work, important contributions, teamwork, etc.
Innovative adaption of this peer group feedback model is likely to
show up for specific businesses and not in the form of one size fits
all. Dominos Pizza delivery started one of the early programs of
endorsements by co-workers. After pizzas are delivered, the
delivery person shares the time to deliver aloud, with co-workers
confirming back. Best time clocked each day gets some form of
recognition. Its transparent, therefore easily accepted, and feels
good. With mobile and always on computing, transparent
co-worker feedback will logically become a more accepted and
effective way of influencing and guiding -- vs. reviewing performance.
Finally, as revealed in the SierraCedar 20152016 HR Systems
Survey, 18th Annual Edition, mobile-enabled HR process adoption
increased 10% since last year (from 13 to 23%) and is expected to
increase by another 15% within the next year (23 to 38%), so one
trend is clearly enabling the other.

Science of Talent Management

The same Sierra Cedar Survey found that 39% of organizations
were involved in some form of HR/HCM analytics or BI capabilities
related to talent management. This figure, coming up substantially
from 5-7% only a couple of years ago, is great news but not a panacea, as the lack of analytics-related competencies (e.g.,. to define
the frameworks, interpret data, identify predictive relationships,
etc.) persists in most HR departments. Perhaps that is ready to
change. An innovation-sparked trend that will likely gain more
traction in 2016 relates to HCM systems themselves guiding users in
where to look to find relationships across their data (or big data)
ecosystem.
Case in point: An increase in employee turnover might have the
system alerting the user to factors that have contributed to higher
turnover in the past; e.g., a change in compensation or benefits,
cutting back on management training, more retirement or even
restructuring activity which should perhaps not be counted as
regular turnover, using less effective candidate sourcing channels, a
more aggressive time-to-fill target metric which results in diminishing
returns, etc.

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HR business processes elevated by digitizing and

automating them toward a goal of being almost 100%
automated wherever possible in other words, no UI!

Less is More UI
This 19th century proverbial phrase first found in print in a poem by
Robert Browning is becoming the trend for good design. A minimal
User Interface (UI) leads to maximum system engagement has
been the mantra for a couple of years now. What is beginning to
change is the notion of context sensitive UI. Minimal is no longer
static but dynamic based on context. For example, with Employee
Self Service on pay day, pay details could show just like an unread
email, and appear until read or another event or activity happens.
Borne out of the notion that UI / UX improvements must be more
than cosmetic, another trend gaining traction is the expectation
that systems will keep getting smarter, thereby allowing users to
spend more time on tasks requiring human judgment, business
acumen, people collaboration and management, etc. We can
expect to see less focus on marginal or modest improvements to
UIs that are based on the same HR process design, and more HR
business processes elevated by digitizing and automating them
toward a goal of being almost 100% automated wherever possible
in other words, no UI! At the heart of this looming sea change
is a systems ability to analyze data whether logical or counter-intuitive data relationships, understand the broader business context,
identify patterns, predict behavior and identify exceptions.
Where do we expect to see cognitive computing applied to HR
systems? Unstructured data is a likely candidate. An example
could be an HR support desk using a smart response system
capability that understands the context and responds with a high
degree of personalization rather than an impersonal and generic
support ticket. Impact will not just be related to efficiency but also
employee engagement, as queries will get addressed in seconds
and minutes rather than waiting for days. The shift therefore is from
User Interfaces to Conversations.
Planning and deployment activities around Temp staff
will start to become as valued a corporate activity as
managing full-time professional resources.
The shift in user experience probably started with messaging apps
like Whatsapp and WeChat, Whatsapp for example recorded close
to 64 billion message exchanges in a single day a year back. While
adoption is perceived to be mostly among millennials, it has clearly
found favor beyond that demographic to be able to clock such
high numbers. The simplicity of the interface is shaping peoples
expectations. Messaging Text or Email are becoming an increasingly
accepted way to communicate, not just with people, but with
systems as well.

Real-time Data over Big Data

The obsession with big data, analytics and intense dashboards is
likely to trend more toward real time data that is actionable. Industry

research has long established the linkage between employee

engagement and customer satisfaction, therefore revenue and
profits. In 2016 however, we will see the game played in real time
such that line managers can take corrective action quickly and not
leave it to lagging indicators and protracted analyses. Actionable
data will rule over big data. Analytics and insights have established
their value. Success requires action at the right time as well.

Temp Might Become the new Regular

Romance with real-time information and data-driven
decision-making will likely soon extend to temporary and
part-time recruiting. Qualified candidates for temporary job
opportunities could be participating more in an Uber style cab
pick-up service. Companies would list just-in-time opportunities
which can be picked up by pre-qualified candidates, real time.
Early implementations are already changing the workplace in
healthcare where qualified nurses with adequate immunization are
in a pre-approved pool, and hospitals / clinics can run an
end-to-end automated hiring process for hourly jobs with both
candidate acceptance and scheduling. Performance and ratings
from every such completed assignment influences future
engagement. This trend would also unlock additional utilization of
part time workers in the market since the cost-to-hire would drop
dramatically.
PWC estimated the size of the shared economy to grow to an
astonishing $300 billion by 2025. What has so far been a story
dominated by Uber, Airbnb and a couple of others should begin to
get wider. By very definition, shared economy implies a workforce
outside of the organization and yet part of everyday business
delivery. Planning and deployment activities around Temp staff
will start to become as valued a corporate activity as managing
full-time professional resources over the next few years, with signs
of this trend starting to show up in various organizations over the
next year.

What drives People?

A concept that is long overdue in reaching trend status is the
notion of having a broader view of each employees personal
drivers. With three generations working side-by-side for the first
time, it is more critical than ever to personalize how employees are
managed and with what rewards and recognition levers, basically
to the extent of having personalized engagement and retention
plans for all key employees. With employee engagement now
taking its place as probably the hottest topic in HR circles, no doubt
influenced by recent Gallup findings that over 60% of employees
are either disengaged or actively disengaged, theres clear reason
to offer the following prediction: What each employee values in
their work experience and career journey, in addition to personality
test scores and team culture or compatibility indicators, will all soon
become staples within enterprise HCM solutions going forward.
Letting a high-potential employee be exposed to different parts of
the business might cost almost zero, but will be a more effective
engagement driver and retention hook than a larger bonus for
many.

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Letting a high-potential employee be exposed to dierent parts of the business might cost almost zero, but
will be a more eective engagement driver

People-driven Innovation
The EveryDay Innovation Report published by idea management
software company Wazoku recently reported that more than half
(52%) of employees claimed that although their organization is full
of people with great ideas, there is no established process for those
ideas to be shared and filtered. More than a third (37%) of respondents said that shared ideas are lost or unacknowledged in their
organization; 27% said there is a lack of interest in employee ideas;
and 27% said there is a lack of incentives to share ideas in the first
place.
This is obviously an opportunity screaming for professional and
focused attention from HR Departments, not just innovation executives. Among the many ways highlighted in the Report that HR can
help boost innovation, some of which can only be executed well by
leveraging HR Technology, include incorporating innovation into
competency and performance management frameworks; facilitating allocation of employees to innovation project opportunities
that can inspire them; helping to break down the hogging of
talent by departments; and delivering a mechanism for ideas to
spring forth from all levels of employees.
There are compelling examples to showcase. Cisco reported a few
years ago that their idea-sharing platform called Idea Zone resulted
in $3 billion in new market opportunities; and Caterpillars Knowledge Network has over 3,000 active communities of practice,
boasting among other things, a hard dollar savings to the company
of $75 million.

Down with HR process flaws

While credible studies focusing on the degree of flawed HR
processes in major organizations (let alone smaller entities) are
hard to come by, there are plenty of proxies for determining this.
One is Deloittes record revenue reported in 2014 of $34 Billion and
the fact that consulting, specifically HR Transformation Consulting,
was cited as a critical growth driver for the firm. Deloittes competitors are also clearly benefiting from the precipitous rise in Six Sigma
and other initiatives aimed at strengthening or fixing sub-optimal
HR processes.
Below is a sampling of HR process flaws either being addressed by
or still essentially hidden within many organizations, and how HR
technology can potentially help highlight what needs attention:
Workforce Planning: Internal mobility scenarios that would create
other or even cascading staffing gaps needing to be addressed.
Talent Acquisition: Candidate source effectiveness should be
linked to eventual performance and retention, not just measured
by numbers hired.
On-Boarding: Designed to not just facilitate administrative coordination upon hire, but to compress time-to-productivity through

linking employee with resources, including mentors, those with

similar roles, informal and formal training etc.
Performance Management: Should be focused on coaching
progress rather than evaluating progress. Gaps are not just identified and discussed during review cycles, but mitigated through
real-time coaching.
Training & Development: Should ideally be personalized to accommodate individual differences in how people learn, so pace and
mediums should be aligned with learners.
Succession Planning: Avoid a distorted view of bench strength;
e.g., having the same hi-potentials mapped to multiple roles; and
only having ready now candidates will result in successor candidates leaving when not promoted.
HR Technology is probably not automatically going to change or
re-engineer flawed HR process design anytime soon, but with
elements of cognitive and conversational computing increasingly
being tapped into, HCM systems should have the ability to ask the
question are you sure you want to define candidate source
effectiveness that way?

About the Authors

Steve Goldberg | steve@ramco.com
A principal within Ramco's HCM Practice,
served as global head, HR systems at investment banks before becoming PeopleSofts
global head, HCM Product Strategy and key
spokesperson. He also co-founded a Recruiting Solutions company and a boutique
Change Management consultancy. In recent
years, Steve has advised end-customers and
HCM vendors on HR Technology initiatives.
He has been invited to the Human Capital
Institutes Executive Roundtables of Respected HR Thought Leaders, is frequently
published and holds an MBA in HR.

Sandeep Ray | Sandeep.Ray@ramco.com

Drives product strategy and innovation at
Ramco and is the companys Global Technology Evangelist. With over 2 decades in the
Technology space, Sandeep has been part of
several cutting edge products across multiple
geographies that have delivered measurable
business value for customers and received
considerable industry recognition.

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