With such a vast ecosystem of HR software available today, it can feel overwhelming for HR professionals to know where to start, and what to look for, when researching an innovative HR technology stack for your organization.
Our stance? It doesn’t have to be. We’ve identified the four essential HR technology functions that you should consider as you strategize and build out your digital workforce, HR analytics, and optimize your employee apps.
1. Digital Talent Pipeline and Workforce Management
All thriving organizations have at least one thing in common: they’re never done recruiting. Building a strong team requires setting up the infrastructure to attract the most competitive candidates in your industry. Because of this, an easily-accessible and manageable, dynamic talent pipeline management system should be the backbone of your HR technology stack.
You’ll want to adopt software that can help your HR team manage advanced talent searches and outreach tools so that you can actively seek out sought-after candidates when opportunities arise at your organization. In addition, this software should be equipped with advanced application tracking and management.
This includes the ability to digitally process resumes, send automated application status notifications, and make candidate communication history visible to all applicable members of your HR team.
The tool should also help your team seamlessly schedule phone screenings, video, and on-site interviews. If applicable, the tool should also be able to administer pre-employment testing to qualify candidates in technical or highly specialized roles.
2. Automated Employee App Administration
The second layer of your HR technology stack should be an employee administration tool: a tool that turns your HR analytics into actionable data. Think of this as the “brass tacks” layer of your digital workforce.
This digital workforce tool should take care of all the rudimentary aspects of workforce management that both managers and employees shouldn’t have to distract themselves with, including:
- Employee onboarding and offboarding
- Workforce payroll administration
- An online employee benefits portal with document storage to convey clear instructions for enrollment via video or uploaded documents
- Integration capabilities for managing PTO and other schedule-based tracking
It is essential that this employee administration tool allows workers to request and log paid time off, sick, and family leave. UKG Pro, available as an app integration in the Beekeeper Marketplace, is a great choice for this layer of workforce management.
3. Online Continued Education for Employee Engagement
A central tenet of HR administration is that your organization is only as strong as the talent you retain. In order to keep your employees motivated and help them feel valued, it is essential to build an employee engagement tool into your digital workforce management toolkit.
Tracking employee progress with a detailed analytics dashboard throughout their experience at your organization is not only extremely validating for the employees themselves, but also is a core component of HR analytics that can help you with future workforce planning.
It also demonstrates a commitment to being an active part of your employees’ professional development, which in turn fosters trust and loyalty, no small task when up against today’s low unemployment rates that have companies working extra hard to retain staff.
The employee development layer of your digital workforce management system or employee app should accommodate for continued education, succession planning, compliance training, and performance appraisal. In addition, should your organization choose to offer this as a benefit, this would be the layer where you digitally manage any company wellness programs such as meditation, or mental health resources.
4. Real-time Operational Communication
The final core layer of your HR technology stack, and our personal favorite, is of course: employee communication. An operational communication platform can act as the ribbon at the top of your HR toolkit that ties everything together in a neat little package for your employees.
One of the best things about adopting an employee app is that you can integrate many of the operations and team communication tools listed above right into one digital workforce experience.
Adopting a centralized app that lets your employees communicate in real-time from their mobile device on-the-go helps workers stay connected to upper management, and just as crucially, to each other.
This top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer access allows you to give personalized feedback as well as dispatch quick company-wide employee recognition for a job well done. Think of this layer as an organic extension of employee engagement, giving your workforce the gift of open communication and transparency that can lead to long-term retention.
