Survey: 77% of US employees frustrated with legacy HR tech

The overwhelming majority (77%) of US employees are frustrated with the legacy technology systems they’re using at work.

That’s according to new research commissioned by Paycom and conducted by OnePoll, which surveyed 1,000 employees in America.

Some 79% of respondents agreed that up-to-date technology could boost their productivity.

Such is the level of frustration that 67% of those surveyed said they would be willing to take a pay cut if this meant having access to software and technology that would be twice as good as it is now.

Key lessons for HR technologists

HR is now responsible for the employee experience across the entire organization.

While technology is a great enabler, it’s important for HR leaders to bear in mind that the solution to employee frustrations isn’t more technology — it’s about deploying the right technology.

HR technology stacks will have to adapt significantly as a result of COVID-19 and with innovation happening at pace, HR leaders certainly have their work cut out for them.

The need to go digital is real. HR teams need to take a hard look at their tech stack and think about what works and what doesn’t — and in order to do that, there needs to be a two-way conversation with those who experience the technology on a daily basis: employees.

If the technology currently in use isn’t up to date, employees will stop using it. This is an expensive lesson for an organization to learn.

What HR teams should avoid

According to the findings, the number one reason for employees to stop using their employers’ software was the abundance of logins. This is key, the user (aka employee) experience needs to be frictionless.

With data being so disjointed, there’s a growing need for organizations to have a centralized system that meets all HR requirements.

The survey found that employees want a software system that enables them to:

• Access PTO accruals and requests
• Manage approvals for the workers they supervise
• See details of their paycheck

It needs to be secure

With businesses currently operating in a remote environment, cybersecurity is definitely front of mind.

The survey found that approximately 50% of employees enrolled in benefits via digital forms — just 18% used HR software.

In other words, 82% of workers had to use paper forms, email, or another outdated, manual method.

As a result, HR teams had to transpose that sensitive information from page to system. This duplicates work and heightens the data security risk.