5 HR technology predictions for 2024

Major human resources agendas have been dominated by the same topics for a while now — recruiting, benefits, diversity, and health and wellness. While these focus areas are table stakes for HR professionals today, they are no longer enough to satisfy what employees seek in 2024.

We’ve seen a revolution among employees who are confidently asking for more than employers have historically offered. And there’s good reason for those employers to be listening intently. We are in an economic period where the inability to attract and retain employees impacts companies’ growth, operating profitability, and often, brand experience as well.

HR has a pivotal role in helping companies adapt to this new reality, and it requires moving beyond the status quo to embracing new priorities. As a result of the pandemic, HR gained additional influence among C-suite executives as new priorities like the future of work, retention, engagement and labor optimization came to the forefront.

So, how does HR keep its seat at the table and help become a driving force in business results moving forward in 2024/? Here are five predictions about what’s to come and how HR can play a leading role in their organization’s business success.

HR becomes a true business partner

In 2024, HR can prove itself as a partner to the business to unlock new value. By leading the organization to address highly valued employee experiences, employee retention becomes the new recruiting. Companies benefit significantly when they shift focus from enlisting new talent to keeping the employees they already have. The productivity of a tenured employee can outweigh new hires, not to mention the training costs companies incur with turnover.

HR can be an essential partner to operations to demonstrate its ability to provide solutions to meet operational challenges. This involves investing in modern technologies that leverage data to automate manager’s actions, detect and prescribe actions to improve employee engagement, safety and experience, and digitizing critical HR processes to ensure compliance with company policy and regulatory requirements rapidly and in concert with operational change.

In addition, there’s a tremendous opportunity to both boost employee engagement and reap the rewards of improvements in operational performance by gathering quality feedback from the individuals performing the work. Too often, employee feedback is restricted in frequency and scope to surveys about how happy individuals are in their roles, but the people on the front lines have the most knowledge and understanding about how the work happens and can share insights on barriers to performing their work more efficiently. They often have information about how to improve processes and how the business can optimize. Acting on those insights can bring significant value to the operational managers and help HR drive better performance.

Labor optimization draws new focus

Businesses are used to leveraging technology to improve business processes, but often operational leaders don’t think about the role HR can play in helping them drive change. By adopting a total workforce mindset, HR and operations can be partners in optimizing investments in people. Digitizing HR systems allows employers to regain control of their labor costs and increases their ability to support employee demands.

For instance, 77% of American workers believe a four-day work week would positively impact their wellbeing. It may sound impossible to managers initially, but new thinking around how work schedules are organized can be applied to even the most complex operating challenges. Think back to Amazon revolutionizing shopping with two-day delivery, thought impossible before them. Now it’s become the industry standard, with Amazon reaping the rewards of this innovation with greater than 50% of all purchases beginning there. The traditional 40-hour work week is ripe for its own upending. Employers delivering the flexibility today’s employees want will reap the benefits of more engaged, productive, and retained staff. They’ll also be able to maintain or improve the bottom line through digitized systems that provide new insights into optimizing labor costs.

Scheduling becomes easier

Many large global employers still rely on Excel and other manual processes for scheduling, with individual schedulers trying to make it all work. Without digitizing scheduling – including the regulatory, union rules, skills required, and cost implications of those decisions – organizations miss out on valuable optimization opportunities. In addition, enabling employee scheduling flexibility and control can be safely offered when scheduling is managed with technology. Enabling shift swaps without the guardrails of workforce technology can quickly increase labor costs and put organizations at risk of non-compliance.

This is especially important when it comes to deskless workers considering the majority (84%) of employees want to work for an employer that offers scheduling flexibility – and 3 in 5 staff members (60%) are willing to leave to find an employer who will. Having a better process for scheduling and allowing the employees to have flexibility with their shifts can make the difference in retaining or attracting talent.

Employee advocacy will continue

With the tight labor market in many industries, we’ll continue to see more unionization efforts and walkouts from employees dissatisfied with working conditions and who are seeking more equitable treatment. There was an exodus in the hospitality and manufacturing sectors when the pandemic hit, and the only way to get those employees back is to create a value proposition that’s meaningful to them.

The United Auto Workers deal is the new benchmark for shift-based workers, and the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes drew plenty of attention. These labor wins will set the stage for more employee advocacy in 2024.

Companies would do well to listen to employees’ needs and be proactive in offering better pay, benefits, working conditions and employee experiences rather than wait until demands are forced upon them. HR technology can help satisfy employee desires by squeezing out wasteful spending by the company, which can be purposeful with how it spends its budget.

AI will unlock new analytics

Predictive capabilities, through AI/Machine Learning, can help companies reduce turnover by identifying behaviors that precede attrition. AI can also help identify new insights like scheduling’s impact on safety or correlations between fatigue and accidents. This technology can find patterns humans can’t see and more importantly, prescribe the actions managers should take to avoid unwanted outcomes.

Related: How technology better connects employees with their benefits

Gartner has highlighted AI as a trend for HR leaders to think about in 2024, and when the technology pairs with the data from HR software and technology, it can be transformative for any business.

By embracing shifts in flexibility, optimization, and analytics, HR leaders can help their companies adapt to the new reality of employee expectations and the new demands on business for improved execution. The workforce revolution is here — HR technology allows business leaders to catch up and keep employees satisfied while enabling businesses to thrive.

Sandra Moran, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at WorkForce Software