Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and their teams find themselves in a difficult spot these days. The role of HR has become more strategic over time, but they have been challenged by economic and societal developments. As the report ‛2022 HR Tech Market Outlook – Impact of technology on HR in 2022 & beyond’ states, HR Tech can help HR cope with these challenges. Identity and Access Management (IAM) plays a key role in making this happen.
The report is based on research by the specialists of HRtech.sg and HRtech.in, but takes a global approach on the issues that HR faces. According to the study, the HR function needs to step up as organizations are digitally transforming. The complexities of that transformation, coupled with decline in HR budgets, are forcing the CHRO to implement HR technology solutions. As drivers for the digital HR transformation, the report mentions the hybrid workplace and hybrid workforce, the need for higher productivity and increased focus on the employee experience. The hybrid workplace and employee experience are more closely related than we might imagine. When employees work from home, they switch more easily from work applications to personal tools than they would in the office. If their company tools are less user-centric and user-friendly than their personal tools, their employee experience will suffer.
Why HR shares a responsibility for data privacy and cybersecurity
Data privacy and cybersecurity are other factors that drive the adoption of HRTech: “Not only does HR need to uphold new rights for employees, but they must also formalize and clearly spell out these rights for employees under the data privacy acts (such as GDPR, PDPA, etc.) that strengthens transparency and accountability requirements.” After all, employees too have a right to object to the processing of their data, the right to rectify data and the right to data portability. And while cybersecurity is not generally something you would expect as a responsibility of the HR department, both are closely related. Employees access corporate data with non-protected devices and HR plays a critical role in protecting employee data and meeting relevant regulations. This also links to employee experience.
Yet, if employee experience is so important, is HR Tech a good option, questions the report, referring to Gartner’s 2021 HR Leaders Agenda Poll in which almost half of CHROs felt their current HR Tech solutions hinder rather than improve employee experience. To be suited for the requirements of modern knowledge workers, it is important that the HR Tech roadmap firmly and clearly integrates with an organization’s strategy. “The first step to achieve this is by ensuring that the HR Tech tools are integrated and interconnected to help achieve the overall objective,” write the authors of the report. “Integrated HR systems can help unlock the real benefits of all tools so that they complement one another and not just act supplementarily.”
Digital ecosystems in HR
As we have set out in our white paper ‛Accelerating digital innovation in HR services’, HR services companies are building digital ecosystems that bring together applications built by different vendors. By closely fitting these applications together, they answer to the need for a seamless use of different HR-related functions such as timesheets, expense approval, travel and holiday requests… What’s more, they can also offer embedded mobility or embedded finance to have employees come back regularly to the HR tools. This is where Identity and Access Management (IAM) comes in. IAM will ensure that the right policies are applied, catering to the requirement of compliance and data privacy. Only people who are qualified will be able to access applications or data and IAM will apply adaptive authentication only when needed, allowing for increased customer experience. And by using Single Sign-on and passwordless and deviceless authentication, all barriers to frequent use of the HR apps are removed.
In using the end-to-end capabilities of an IAM solution like TrustBuilder’s, companies can take away the roadblocks to secure digital innovation and empower HR to support the mission of their enterprise.
Check out the customer success story about how TrustBuilder is driving the digital transformation at European HR services leader SD Worx.
