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Future HR Technology Purchases Will Largely Be Feature-Based
HR tech has been having a moment that isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Gartner found that 89% of HR leaders plan to increase or maintain their HR tech budgets in 2024.
That being said, recent studies also found that 39% of organizations plan to replace the bulk of their SaaS applications with platforms that have better functionality.
“We’re seeing a much savvier B2B consumer these days,” says Tevis Paxton, Director of Partner Development at HiringThing. “Today’s customers aren’t content with legacy products and do their homework. They know what they want/need and are very aware of how much their HR capabilities help them build their businesses (productivity, bottom lines, etc.) Thus, they have become very discerning shoppers. Today, it’s all about ensuring the HR product they purchase has the specific features and functionalities that align best with their business goals.”
“We’ve transitioned from being a single product platform that delivered hiring solutions to a multiproduct platform that covers the full recruiting cycle by adding our new employee onboarding solution. We’re seeing first-hand that no matter what part of the HR process your solution covers, there are some core features and functionalities today’s consumers want,” says HiringThing’s Director of Marketing, Joanna Campa. “As HR tech consumers start consolidating their tech into more all-in-one solutions, this is becoming a non-negotiable.”
According to Gartner’s 2024 HR Technology Planning Imperatives report, only 8% of HR tech CEOs have the customer’s needs as one of their top 3 priorities, which, in our estimate, is a miscalculation. Ensuring products have the features customers seek will be a game changer for customer-centric SaaS platforms.
Based on our market research, feedback from our HiringThing partners and end-users, industry thought leaders, and expertise, this article will explain exactly what features today’s HR tech users want.
The Top Features 2024 HR Tech Users Want
- Alignment With Employee Experience
- Meaningful AI
- Retention Tools
- Skills Management Tools
Alignment With Employee Experience
HR professionals and C-Suite executives are realizing the importance of the employee experience (EX) and placing a premium on HR tech that aligns with improving it.
Employee experience (EX) is the cumulative assessment of an employee’s interactions with your company as a whole. Great Place to Work® says the employee experience “starts with the hiring and onboarding process and continues till a person leaves your company.”
“A positive employee experience is crucial for boosting an organization’s engagement, productivity, retention, and innovation,” says Jess Tejani, Chief Operating Officer at HiringThing. “Selecting the right HR tech involves a nuanced approach. Firstly, it’s about choosing tools that enhance and measure the employee experience, such as onboarding systems. Secondly, it requires a strategic mindset when purchasing technology. Opt for solutions that are intuitive and user-friendly, with a clear strategic objective.”
Echoing what Tejani says, Forrester Research found that 66% of technology decision-makers said they’d increase investment in EX or human resource technologies in 2024. Many of those investments will be designed to improve efficiencies instead of EX outcomes, which is especially important since Gartner found that 60% of HR leaders feel their tech hinders, not helps, improve the employee experience.
“What this means,” explains Tejani, “is that in 2024, our focus should shift from adopting platforms aimed at specific HR outcomes to prioritizing the employee experience. We need to avoid adding yet another platform for employees to learn—app fatigue is real. Our goal is to simplify employees' lives, boost their productivity, and make their work more engaging.”
“That was the main impetus behind our new AI-Enabled Job Descriptions feature,” Tejani continues. “Writing job descriptions is notoriously challenging, and our survey revealed that 60% of our ATS customers spend an hour or more crafting quality descriptions. With AI-Enabled Job Descriptions, users can create unique job descriptions in minutes, allowing them to focus on more strategic recruiting and hiring tasks.”
At HiringThing, we white-label recruiting solutions and help other organizations grow their businesses through these solutions. A feature like AI-Enabled Job Descriptions not only helps our end-users but also gives our partners—who are largely selling our platform as their own—a feature that enhances the employee experience.
Meaningful AI
AI has entered the HR tech chat and isn’t going anywhere. 50% of American workers use AI in some capacity in the workforce, 9 out of 10 companies are investing in AI, and 88% of worldwide businesses have already been using AI in some capacity for HR purposes. A recent survey found that 3/4s of HR leaders will adopt AI in the next year to help with things like resume scanning and scoring, assessing employee satisfaction, and generative AI-powered processes that improve scalability and efficiency.
Gartner found that 70% of employees want AI to help them work smarter by reducing mistakes, discovering information, and simplifying processes.
That said, the conversations around AI are becoming more nuanced. In 2023, with the advent of new generative AI advances—like ChatGPT—both consumers and HR tech vendors were enthusiastic about trying this new technology in any capacity. While we’re still in AI’s honeymoon stage, experts predict that consumers will become more discerning about whether AI is being used for the sake of tech vendors, saying they offer AI solutions or if it’s being used in strategic, meaningful ways.
This doesn’t mean AI is going anywhere, nor should vendors eschew it. “This is much more about the positioning and messaging of AI than what AI can do,” says Campa. “Organizations adding AI capabilities need to realize that it may soon feel like an oversaturation of AI features. We’re big believers of what AI can do and have released two new AI-enabled features in the last year. We’ve also been prescriptive about ensuring those are features our customers need, not just blatant marketing grabs.”
“It all comes back to the employee experience,” says Tejani. “It’s essential to use AI in ways that are customer-friendly and to clearly explain its purpose. While there will always be new trends capturing headlines, delivering real value is what truly matters.”
Retention Tools
Overwhelmingly, a top concern for HR professionals and C-Suite executives is how to retain top talent. According to Gartner, that will continue well into 2024, as they report that the pace of employee turnover is forecast to be 50–75% higher than companies have experienced previously (compounded by it taking 18% longer to fill roles than it has in the past). Savvy organizations realize that technology specifically used to aid and abet retention efforts—primarily thought to be a “nice to have” vs. a necessity in the past—is a crucial part of organizations’ overall strategies.
From a McKinsey study titled HR rewired; Attracting Top Talent:
HR and technology leaders are beginning to recognize the degree to which digital tools can improve every aspect of the employee hiring and onboarding experience at an organization. Early on, during the recruiting stage, HR professionals can use digital tools and technologies to, for instance, write job descriptions and target optimal channels to find promising job candidates. They can use psychometrics, gamification, and other technologies to assess candidates and speed up the interview process. And once an offer is made and a candidate is hired, HR leaders can customize the new employee’s training over the first ten, 20, and 90 days based on information gathered in the interview process.
“While hiring and onboarding solutions are crucial for retention, the ultimate goal of the HR process is to keep employees engaged and satisfied,” says Tejani. “Engagement tools, learning and development solutions, and wellness initiatives are key to retaining top talent. Strategically deploying a comprehensive HR tech tool is the most effective way to achieve this.”
"We built a white label employee onboarding solution in response to the growing demand from organizations. This addition allows HR tech providers to swiftly and effectively enhance their offerings, positioning them to evolve into comprehensive all-in-one tech solutions," explains Colette Luke, Director of Product at HiringThing.
If you’re an HR Tech platform that could benefit from adding Employee Onboarding without having to build it from the ground up, set up a chat with a HiringThing Partner Development Representative today.
Skills Management Tools
A lack of professional development has been the top reason today’s employees leave their jobs, which is why, historically, adopting learning and development features has been a top priority in HR tech adoption. However, that’s shifting. While learning and development will always be important, skills management tools are rising in prominence.
Skills management is slightly different from learning and development. Learning and development are about advancing your career. Skills management is less linear. It’s about managing the skills and potential of the employees you have in order to keep your staff the most agile.
As HR thought leader Josh Bersin says in his blog post on 2024 HR Predictions, “CEOs and CFOs are operating in what we call the ‘Industrial Age’—hire to grow, then lay people off when things slow down. Well, today, as we enter 2024, all that is different. We have to ‘hoard our talent,’ invest in productivity, and redevelop and redeploy people for growth.”
Reskilling all your employees is going to be increasingly important. For example, a 2023 survey by Salesforce found that 62% of workers said they lack the skills to effectively and safely use GenAI. Another study by the Boston Consulting Group found that only 14% of front-line employees had gone through any AI-related upskilling, even though the technology promises to fundamentally reshape how they perform their jobs.
“I realized pretty early on that employees who are adept and comfortable utilizing AI will be an asset,” says HiringThing CEO and co-found Joshua Siler. “We gave all of our employees access to ChatGPT and created a Slack channel devoted to chatting about AI experimentation and upskilling. I’m confident this will keep our team agile and ready for the future.”
“Skills management is a key component of a strong employee experience,” says Tejani. “Employees are eager to refine their current skills and acquire new ones, especially in our rapidly advancing technological landscape. Integrating skills management tools into your HR tech achieves two goals: it meets employees' needs and ensures your teams remain innovative, productive, and prepared for the future.”
70% of employees believe better training would make them better at their jobs, though they’re often reluctant to request them. Studies show that companies that spend money and resources on learning, development, and skills management can earn 24% more profit annually than those that don’t.
Keeping Customer-Centric Features In Mind Keeps Your HR Tech Platform Competitive
“We can’t stress enough how important it is to consider what features and functionalities HR tech users want,” says Tevis Paxton, HiringThing's Director of Partner Development. “Today’s HR tech customers are very savvy and very discerning. They have more options than ever and have the luxury of pursuing partnerships with HR tech platforms that have what they want and listen to their concerns.”
We hope this piece has helped you understand the features that will set competitive HR tech platforms apart in 2024. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to any of our Partner Development Representatives for clarification or check out our previous article, How White Labeling HR Tech Can Make Your Company More Competitive.
About HiringThing
HiringThing is a modern recruiting and employee onboarding platform as a service that creates seamless talent experiences. Our white label solutions and open API enable technology and service providers to offer hiring and onboarding to their clients. Approachable and adaptable, the HR platform empowers anyone, anywhere, to build their dream team.
