HR Technology Trends 2022 You Can’t Afford to Miss Out on

HR technology has taken the center stage in improving multiple HR functions and solving major workplace challenges through advanced digital solutions. HR teams have specific pandemic-driven needs like supporting hybrid and remote work as well as regular problems like poor employee retention to deal with.

Whichever the case, companies are heavily investing in HRTech to build a robust HR department and achieve better HR performance and results.

It is important for anyone in the HR industry to understand how technology will create an impact in the future. In 2022, making wise HRTech investments will be crucial to the success of HR teams.

Let’s go through some key insights on the 2022 emerging trends in HR technology shared by an industry expert.

Introducing an expert foreseeing the future of HR technology

Ward Christman is the Founder, Chief Advisor, and Publisher for HR Tech Advisor and the Co-Founder of HRTechAlliances.com. He has over 20 years of experience creating and selling e-recruiting technology and services. He possesses special expertise in applicant tracking systems, employee referral, and job marketing (via job boards and social media).

Ward has helped create dozens of successful partnerships between HRTech companies. He is passionate about advising HRTech vendors how to grow sales via partnerships and alliances with other vendors in the human capital management and HR software industries.

HR technology trends to keep a close eye on in 2022

We got an opportunity to peek into Ward’s vast HRTech knowledge and valuable foresight to unveil the top trends of the industry. Here’s what he shared with us:

Right off the bat, which is one of the most significant HR technology trends for 2022?

Ward: I see large companies demanding an acceleration by the HRTech vendors to better support internal talent mobility. With additional pressures from “the great resignation,” retaining talent is going to become more important than recruiting new talent to replace those that leave.

I believe talent pools will come back into fashion, and I will be looking for vendors to find innovative ways to share the talent pools between large corporate divisions, and ideally, between unaffiliated employers.

You mentioned talent pools, how do you look at innovation in this area come 2022?

Ward: Job boards have done this “shared talent pool” for 30 years, but there has yet to be any real collaboration of the employers to support a model that goes beyond paying for a subscription to the pool.

Sadly, I don’t see innovation occurring in the job board industry, but some point solutions will do very well white labeling their tech in this market, assuming that job board operators are at least looking into their options.

Recruitment process outsourcing, and indirectly, staffing, and search firms, have also been moving talent around in “virtual” talent pools, albeit at a premium rate, and with limited or dated technology. Like job boards, innovation in this category will likely not happen internally, but via acquisitions, white labeling, and hopefully, alliances, and partnerships.

What types of HR technology will come to the fore in 2022?

Ward: Technology can certainly enable sharing of talent pools, perhaps similar to how employers used to chip in to attract candidates to a job fair, then share that talent pool in a somewhat visible way.

I see 2022 showcasing a variety of innovation that has already been occurring in the HRTech industry. For example, tools which help both attract external talent and provide career paths that are external to the company.

The biggest changes will be in the tech solutions that can make it easy to offer “rotation assignments” as a way to share talent, event with competitors. Sounds a bit like Upwork and the gig economy?

Talent marketplaces could accomplish this in a way that is better for the worker, thanks to blockchain and other new technologies, all of which will now have their chance to rise to the challenge.

These new technologies will shine because they support data integrity, while empowering applicants and candidates to better control the visibility of their data in these different types of marketplaces.

What are your final thoughts on the future of HR technology in 2022?

Ward: In 2022, investors will place their bets, and tools will be enhanced or created from scratch. But adoption by both employers and workers will define which new innovative technologies get to blossom this year, and which ones wither and die.

I am certain that the vendors most likely to blossom will be those who invest in creating strategic product roadmaps that include a go-to-market strategy for embracing the HRTech ecosystem, through vendor collaboration, alliances, and partnerships.

2022 is going to be quite a year. So, be sure to take an ecosystem navigator with you to help you reroute along the way. Afterall, who wants to be late to the party?

Automation to drive HR digital transformation

Automation is here to stay. In 2022, it could be one of the most transformational HR technologies. As HR teams look to streamline onboarding, people operations, and talent acquisition, the HR industry is expected to witness further automation.

As per Workato’s W*rk Automation Index 2021 report, the volume of HR automations more than doubled from before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The employee onboarding, offboarding, and hiring processes moved almost entirely online during the pandemic, with much of the world in lockdown. As per the W*rk Automation Index 2021 report, ‘employee onboarding and offboarding’ accounted for 34.5% of all HR-related automations. The report also revealed that this process is the single most commonly automated one for HR teams.

As part of their wider effort to improve compliance and security, companies often automate the employee onboarding and offboarding process. This effort helps reduce compliance and security risks. For example, automation can accelerate and streamline the procedure of revoking app and data access of employees who leave the company.

Automation also helps improve cybersecurity in the workplace. It plays an even more important role in the current remote working scenario.

The Harbinger + Workato partnership is a great example of innovative HRTech automation and integration efforts. It enables enterprise automation at scale, rapid connect with 60+ human capital management platforms, the low-code/no-code approach, and so on.