Multiple market forces are making HR more challenging. Employers must contend with increasingly complex regulations, evolving workforce demographics and hybrid and remote workers. At the same time, their employees may expect anytime, anywhere access to their pay stubs, time off, timecard information, benefits and more. HR technology is an essential and convenient way to meet these needs.

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What is HR technology?

HR technology is software designed to help employers hire, engage and retain employees while simplifying workforce management and payroll processes. It also assists in unifying core HR functions, eliminating costly redundancies, and synchronizing data to inform decision-making. Some of the latest software solutions may be intelligent and automated.

How do employers use technology in HR?

The following are some of the most common business goals and the HR technology features employers use to achieve them:

Increased productivity

  • Automation of manual processes, such as payroll and benefits administration
  • Administrative efficiencies that help control costs
  • Streamlined workflows that help support growth

Support for talent strategy

Actionable insights

  • Dashboards that leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Configurable analytics for custom insights
  • Industry-wide data for benchmarking
  • Predictive analytics that enable modeling and forecasting

Ecosystem connectivity

  • Seamless integrations between different platforms
  • Integrations with other enterprise systems
  • APIs to develop custom integrations
  • Centralized employee records management

Compliance support

Data security and privacy

  • Proactive security alerts
  • Critical incident response
  • Push technology for security updates
  • Fraud management

Why should employers care about HR tech software?

Every functional area of a business and all its employees interact with HR. For this reason, it’s important to have HR technology that can connect people and workflows in meaningful ways. The right solution may support daily operations, enable strategic growth, help reduce compliance risk and improve employee engagement.

How can employers improve their HR technology strategy?

Employers can use HR tech to overcome organizational challenges and achieve growth goals by performing the following:

Identify future HR requirements

Employers must define what they want to accomplish, change and improve. It may help to consider the opportunities senior leaders want to pursue and how HR technology may play a role in achieving their goals.

Ensure HR compliance

The ideal HR technology must keep pace with the rapidly changing regulatory and statutory requirements at the global, national, state and local levels. It should also be fully capable of serving a diverse workforce with different pay preferences and HR needs.

Prioritize security and privacy

Employers must know precisely how their organization’s data will be stored, transferred and backed up. HR technology should also have advanced privacy, fraud and crisis management capabilities.

Transform data into a competitive advantage

Empowering all levels of an organization with real-time insights embedded in the flow of work
promotes better decision making. HR technology can make it possible to share data widely without compromising its integrity.

Drive widespread adoption

Successful adoption of HR technology requires adequate preparation of people, processes and data. Preparing end-users with change management, communications and training may help ease implementation.

Find the right service model

HR technology solutions are only as good as the support model behind them. Quality service plans anticipate growth and can adapt to transformations in the workforce, regulatory and compliance requirements, and emerging business trends.

Advance people strategies

The right HR technology can help employers foster employee engagement and maximize recruitment, performance and development. It can also align talent strategy with business goals, thereby balancing the needs of the organization and the employees.

What are HR tech trends employers should know about?

Significant trends are impacting HR and technology and will continue to drive change in the years ahead. Some of these include:

HR technology is receiving an intelligent upgrade

Generative AI tools are optimizing time-consuming, everyday tasks while proactively revealing HR and workforce insights. Thanks to these HR tech benefits, leaders are able to prioritize their people and other meaningful work.

HR vendors are expanding into new territories, countries and regions

Organizations continue to flourish thanks to remote work and the resulting availability of international talent. To meet demand, HR technology providers are widening their global footprint and using a vast partner ecosystem of application programming interfaces (APIs) and robotic process automation (RPA).

HR technology innovation is contributing to pay transparency

Pay transparency tools are helping HR and business leaders respond to pay transparency laws and expectations. They use the technology to proactively close unexplained pay gaps, create and refine pay ranges, and determine what similar companies pay.

Wellness, rewards and recognition are receiving attention in employee experience technology

The demand for rewards and recognition tools is increasing as organizations prioritize engaging and rewarding their workers. In addition, there are more categories of wellness technology than talent acquisition, signaling a complex market encompassing physical, mental and financial wellness.

Frequently asked questions about HR technology

How can HR tech improve company culture?

By providing intuitive technology to their entire workforce, employers can help improve the employee experience. Hallmarks of HR technology with positive user experiences include:

  • Simple job application process
  • Streamlined, modern interfaces for HR tasks
  • Easy open enrollment
  • A clear and helpful employee portal
  • Single-sign-on for all HR applications

Why should HR tech be part of modern HR strategy?

The benefits of HR technology extend beyond administrative support. Providers who use the latest software and analytics practices can help take organizations to the next level. They’ll be better positioned for strategic growth and able to meet workforce, technology and data analysis trends proactively.

What is the leading HR technology?

Verified product users have repeatedly named ADP Workforce Now® a leader in payroll and other HR software categories, including core HR, benefits administration, HR analytics and HR management systems. The solution received high marks for quality of support, meeting requirements, ease of use, ease of administration, ease of doing business with and ease of setup.

This guide is intended to be used as a starting point in analyzing HR technology and is not a comprehensive resource of requirements. It offers practical information concerning the subject matter and is provided with the understanding that ADP is not rendering legal or tax guidance or other professional services. Please consult with your legal counsel.

ADP Editorial Team

ADP Editorial Team The ADP editorial team is comprised of human resource professionals with extensive experience solving complex HR challenges for businesses of all sizes.