Millennials & HR Technology: How compatible are they with each other?

Two thousand and seventeen; another major year of technological advancements. Technology evolution has been at its fastest pace and for ‘Millennials’, technology has become an important part of their daily routine. For the purpose of this blog, we specifically refer to mobile technologies and pair ‘mobile’ with ‘cloud’ as we can hardly talk about mobile unless we associate it with its equally important partner, the cloud.

Exploring the extent of this technology outside of social media, the availability of activities that anyone can do on mobile is far from indescribable. The word ‘tech-savvy’ is always associated with the younger generations, but fundamentally whether in the workplace or not, we just like doing things on the go and tick off outstanding items from our to-do list with a few touches of a button.

So, in order to cope with the needs of its Generation Y workforce, what does HR have to do to remain as compatible as possible? One way is to have the right technology to match with its evolving labour force.

Rick Norgate, Head of Solutions at SD Worx, has expressed his thoughts on a current HR topic, tackling the end-users that HR departments need to consider when it comes to their HR technologies.

One of the hot topics in the world of HR & Payroll software at the moment is something called User-centric design. What this essentially means is software that is aimed at engaging not only HR & Payroll professionals, but also the actual employees who use it too.This has included a radical overhaul of the user interface, new easy ways to produce reports and full tablet and mobile support.

One of the major improvements in HR Tech for the last 3 years has been the connectivity and availability of HR tools to mobile and cloud. Most HR software is purposely developed either for HR and Payroll managers to effectively manage their workforce, or for Finance directors to acquire up-to-date analysis of their organisation’s labour expenditure. These experienced managers are mostly members of the Generation X, and if we consider various research data that shows 50% of current organisations’ workforce are millennials. As Rick mentioned above, organisations have to quickly progress and consider more user-centric HR tools in order to be maintain compatiblility with its millennial workforce.

With advanced HR software, HR leaders will not find this millennial workforce compatibility challenge difficult to succeed. Employers who already provide modern software that are mobile-friendly, have employee self-service functionalities with fully web-based user interface, are more likely to have a first-mover advantage reaping short-term and long-term rewards not only the time and cost savings, but also the broader returns in terms of colleague engagement and empowerment, productivity and job satisfaction of millennials.

With the ever-increasing speed of technology advancements, Generation Z are sure to see a completely different workforce experience than that of their generational predecessors. No one can pinpoint exactly how the future of HR technology will take shape. Regardless, technology will always evolve dependent on generational work ethic, and different generations adapt to evolving technologies.