74% of companies struggle with remote support

Remote and hybrid working has introduced new technological challenges for companies. These challenges are punctuated by millions leaving their jobs over the course of the pandemic.

Applaud commissioned Forrester Consulting to investigate the specific challenges companies are facing.

The consulting firm surveyed 175 decision-makers in HR and human resource information system (HRIS) roles at global enterprises to get tangible insight into issues companies are facing.

The study immediately notes that: “If organizations wish to remain competitive in attracting and retaining talent, it’s imperative for HR departments to leverage technology to improve employee experience.”

This is reflected in the responses of HR professionals, with 93% of decision-makers claiming that workplace technology is a high or critical priority.

Interestingly, the least popular priority was change management and organizational redesign with only 77% of decision-makers listing it as a high or crucial priority.

Tech investment and employee needs

With 74% of companies struggling to support their remote staff and hybrid working trends set to stay, many are re-evaluating their HR investment.

This is evidenced by 89% of organizations reporting to Forrester that there are significant inconsistencies between remote workers and in-office employees’ experiences with HR tools.

These issues have a financial impact on businesses and 90% of decision-makers believe their organizations’ employees and managers lose between two to four hours per week to HR tasks.

Of course, time is money, but overcoming these challenges can be difficult for organizations.

Despite 75% of those surveyed planning on expanding or upgrading HR technology implementation. It was also found that 90% of decision-makers are missing out on maximizing their organization’s HR technology return on investment.

Nonetheless, this study notes that HR service desks can repurpose up to 50% of their time doing more value-add activity and this is essential in reducing time lost to traditionally manual HR tasks.

How HR teams can improve

There is no question that HR teams have been faced with new and increasing challenges as wellbeing and employee experience become paramount to businesses.

Although it is clear that teams need to be trained to optimize HR systems correctly, there is also still a need for HR technology to be implemented.

The report notes that it is “imperative” that technology enables the entire employee lifecycle and “empower HR professionals and employees in a way that is frictionless, efficient, and flexible — and
supports the employee experience as a whole.”

As a result, the report concludes that investing in employee experience technology is essential. Fortunately, it appears that most companies are pursuing this investment.

This comes an important time as the survey recognizes that “manual and complex HR processes are costing the business time and money — and impacting organizational performance”

On the back of this, the report predicts that employee experience will steer investments in HR technology as flexible and hybrid working continues to be an avenue businesses explore.