Insights: How ‘patchwork quilt’ tech stacks are damaging the employee experience

We continue to unpack exclusive research we carried out in partnership with AppLearn on ‘The Digital Adoption Drive: Achieving HR’s New Goals in a World of Hybrid Work’. The focus is all about busting myths and looking at practical strategies for success when it comes to HR tech. Especially at a time when there are so many exciting solutions available. And there is so much demand from the business to be more digitally-led than ever before.

Ben Debnath of Syngenta sums up the challenge perfectly.

There’s been an explosion of HR technologies. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to identify the right thing to invest in that will provide the best value for the organization.

 

Many of the HR leaders who took part in this research pointed to a frustrating level of complexity around their HR tech stacks that is stalling much slicker roll-outs. These stacks ‘tremble like a Jenga tower’ as more and more new applications are bolted onto legacy systems (hence the patchwork quilt analogy) but fail to hide the chinks in HR’s armor.

Creating a frictionless employee experience

Let us be perfectly clear here. This is not an argument in favor of a single suite over a best-of-breed strategy. But it is about an approach that creates a frictionless employee experience across different solutions. API integrations offer a whole new world of possibility here!

Especially as Constellation Research predict the average number of HR systems workers are being asked to adopt has increased from eight to 11 during the pandemic.

The research shows that success is about making user-centric – rather than software-centric decisions. Amen! And connection between platforms is key.

Without fully explaining why a new software solution is being introduced and how to use it, functionality can lie dormant, wasting investment and leaving employee experience problems unfixed.

Just remember, if working across multiple solutions presents a headache for the HR and IT teams, spare a thought for the end-user scrambling to recall multiple logins, system designs and user manuals. The watchword here is for organizations to start making user-centric – rather than software-centric- decisions.

Like our personal lives, sometimes we just need a simple app that performs one task easily rather than something that does everything. We’ve introduced this approach to vendor selection

Marco Monga, Human Capital and Organization Director, Instituto Italiano di Tecnologica

Indeed, with analysts like Fosway Group separating out what it calls Suites and Specialists, there is more clarity for the buyer now when considering which platforms to invest in and how they might fit together.

Making the most of what you’ve got

Ultimately, whilst the allure of new technology can be compelling a) it is never a silver bullet (more’s the pity) and b) practically speaking most of us need to better harness the existing solutions we have at our disposal.

The challenge for the next two years is getting more value out of what’s already there, not throwing money at new technology.

Matthew Hanwell, Head of HR Technology, TietoEVRY

Our HR tech research highlighted three considerations:

• Design HR tech implementation around the employee – don’t force complex software on them and explain how they can get the best from it!
• Some advocate ‘one-stop-shop’ platforms, whilst others believe in a ‘best-of-breed’ or more agile approach. Regardless of your preference, focus on finding a vendor that can help choose the right path for your business.
• Step back from transformation to see the bigger picture and hone processes before getting tangled up in the tech.

HR departments across the globe have spent the past year transforming multiple aspects of daily working life, at pace and at scale; no mean feat. But with the ship now steadied, attention is being turned to delivering experiences that will ‘wow’ all employees, whether they are new in post, but yet to meet managers and teammates face-to-face, or established members of staff.

Download the Report

Join us for the next article in this series that will unpack more research insights from HR leaders into their changing HR tech stack and what’s working for them (and what’s not!) In the meantime, download the report to get the full story now.