HR in The Human Era Survey Results

At the end of the last financial year we conducted a survey to take the pulse of HR in the Human Era. As a software provider, it's important to us to understand the needs of the HR Professionals we serve, as well as knowing where the gaps are so that we can continue to innovate and tailor our solutions to fill those gaps. Given that this was the first time we conducted such a survey, the number of respondents was admittedly not as large as we would have hoped. However that doesn't mean that the insight and feedback we received wasn't interesting and valuable. Just as Navigo's research highlighted some very interesting and surprising results, so too did our HR in The Human Era Survey.

Spreadsheets Still Rule The Roost

What was most interesting to us about the results, is the persistent prevalence of spreadsheets as the most used HR enabler, despite the fact that they're generally clunky, time consuming and inefficient. A similarity between our results and the results of Navigo's research is that SaaS adoption is still relatively low, meaning that most HR Professionals haven't had the opportunity to harness the time saving, efficiency creating joy that a centralised, automated and streamlined virtual HR office has to offer. The other similarity between our results and Navigo's research, is that of the organisations that are using an HR system, they tend to be systems that use older on-premise based technology. Given the affordability of cloud based SaaS software, there really is no need in this day and age, for anyone in HR to be operating off spreadsheets or using outdated technology to try and manage the administrative burden that comes with a big data process like that which HR must manage.

Survey Result Highlights

Here is a list of the most interesting highlights from the survey results.

1. Whilst e-Recruitment, employee self-service, and reporting are the areas in which automation can offer the biggest benefits to HR Professionals, they were the least adopted technologies amongst the group surveyed.
2. HR Professionals are becoming more tech savvy, but adoption of technology like SaaS is still in its early stages.
3. Of those using an HR system, Third Party, on premise systems are the most prevalent.
4. Recruitment is evolving into a social media based activity, with LinkedIn the number one platform to source and research potential talent.
5. Talent Management and sourcing passive talent are key areas of concern.
6. Administrative burden still prevalent, despite the availability of cost and time saving technology.
7. HR Professionals are still seeking the means to enable them to spend more time being people people.
8. Cultural change needs to be high on the agenda given the shifts in technology and societal values.
9. The majority of respondents believe their organisation exhibits Human Era behaviours and values in the workplace.
10. Silos are still common roadblocks to making the transition from institutional type values and behaviours.

Current HR Challenges

It was not surprising to hear that HR Professionals still face challenges related to the amount of time and resources they have available to fulfill their role requirements. Talent management, including attraction and retention of high calibre candidates, as well as the ability to source passive candidates, also remain a significant challenge. The other most prevalent issue is access to leading-edge best practices.

The Future of HR

There was a very strong theme present in responses about the future of HR. The vision looks like this: technology savvy HR Professionals have a drastically reduced administrative burden due to adoption of technology solutions. There is a more strategic focus with closer interpersonal relationships due to the increased amount of time available. This dovetails into a more consultative business-wide approach to ensure right team, right skills at the right time. Finally, HR take the lead as strong drivers of cultural change to keep pace with technological and societal shifts.

It is a little disheartening as a software provider, to hear of so many HR Professionals still struggling with the burden of administrative overload, spreadsheets and a lack of time to be more people and strategy focused. After all, it was in response to these challenges that Subscribe-HR's Cloud based SaaS Human Resource Management Software was built. We've created a forward thinking e-Recruitment solution to enable HR Professionals to source the best passive and active talent. We've built innovative software architecture that makes centralisation of HR data easy and implementation a breeze. We've crafted sophisticated yet simple, customisable workflows which means you can automate all your HR processes and tasks to ensure you never miss a beat and your employees feel valued and know that you care. We've generated a reporting tool that gives you real-time, reliable data about all your people. And, we've done it all at a price that is really affordable and won't break the budget.

It is our hope that the needless frustration caused by managing the HR function using spreadsheets and outdated technology is something we can alleviate through providing cost-effective, innovative, forward thinking tools that make the lives of HR Professionals everywhere better, happier, more productive. After all, that's what we're here for.

If you would like to read the full results presentation, you can download it below.