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The Role of Technology in Human Resources Management

By: Maria Bychkova

Published On: September 11, 2019

Introduction

Technology has changed the way we do almost everything, including work. Our professional life relies on the Internet and multiple applications designed to help us perform our work more efficiently. Human resources management is no exception. Individuals who have earned an HR Certification in Canada know how to use different tools and technology to effectively manage their workplaces. Here some ways technology assists HR professionals.

For more information on Human Resources trends, and professional tips, check our our HR blog catalogue.

Recruitment

Hiring talent is one of the primary roles of human resources professionals. Various tech solutions assist them in running the recruitment process smoothly. Most of the openings today are posted online and the applications are routed through a unified platform. with the requirement that job seekers also apply online through a special system. It’s easier and faster to review the unified application forms rather than resumes and cover letters formatted in many different ways. Recruiters nowadays are also using automated resume screening systems to filter out the applications that are not relevant to the position.

Background Checks

Screening job candidates is very time-consuming. Many recruiters today use social media while running background checks on candidates. They use these channels, especially LinkedIn, to find more about their work experience and skills and so on. However, this isn’t always the right approach or the only approach for filtering candidates. Individuals who have an HR Certifications in Canada know that social media background checks can’t predict on-the-job performance. Moreover, there is no standardized procedure for this kind of checks.

Employee Management

There are lots of day-to-day personnel management tasks that are performed by the HR department. Maintaining staff files, tracking their attendance and work hours, following the progress of their work tasks and evaluating performance are just a few examples. Technology has allowed HR teams to save a lot of time and effort while performing these routine duties and enabled them to focus on more complex projects instead.

A woman looks at her tablet during a meeting

Strategic Planning

Another important aspect of human resources management is conducting research, collecting and analyzing data and preparing reports on the company’s workforce, and future trends. In the digital world, data analysis is done efficiently and effortlessly. HR certifications in Canada now focus more on teaching future professionals on how to interpret the results and implement them; use these insights for strategic planning and development of an organization.

Communication

Facilitating communication between the employees and departments is the key function of HR managers. By introducing messengers, file sharing systems and project management tools, HR eases the interaction between coworkers from different departments. However, an over-reliance on technology can be detrimental. Employees may rely excessively on online communication and try to avoid in-person interactions altogether.

The way HR department communicates with the employees has also changed significantly. Most modern companies have Intranet to share internal resources, exchange news and updates, store documents and policies, plan events and activities, etc. Intranet also provides HR with an opportunity to measure employee engagement, expose communication gaps and come up with solutions.

Learning and Development

The curriculum of HR certifications in Canada also includes training future HR professionals on how to develop employee learning programs and activities. Nowadays a lot of the training is done digitally and is catered to individual needs. It allows HR teams to track progress and measure effectiveness against the set goals. Online training sessions and webinars have been widely adopted by HR departments as practical tools for employee development. They also work well for geographically-dispersed teams.

Technology is constantly developing, and the software solutions utilized by HR managers will become only smarter. There will be new tools and applications that would continue to solve major pain areas of HR, save time and effort and increase the effectiveness of HR activities. The only thing to remember is to ensure that human interaction and social support still play an important role in employee management and that people continue to be treated like people, not machines.

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