Josh Bersin
Advisor
Deloitte Consulting LLP
What area of the HR function will be most impacted by emerging technologies, and why?
Almost every area will be impacted but the biggest will be the integrated employee experience. We are reaching a point where standalone talent and core HR systems are too complex and we need integrated experiences, based on employee journeys. That’s the biggest opportunity in the next few years.
In acquiring and implementing new technologies, what’s the one or two most common mistakes HR organizations make?
The biggest mistake companies continue to make is define “systems replacement projects” that focus on integrating the back end and buying big new platforms without a careful design of the employee experience. The days of HR technology being useful mostly to HR are over — if these systems are not useful and integrated into employee’s work experience they are poorly used and a waste of money. My research is now showing that many expensive cloud HCM replacement projects are not making employees’ lives significantly better, so a new set of experience tools are being developed.
How can HR leaders best make the business case for HR technology investment?
If the HR technology team does not have a clear productivity business case to drive the project I think just a wholesale replacement of old technology may not pay off. Many of the new systems are actually compelling to employees, but many are not.
