Tech vendors must support HR in becoming a strategic partner for the business, says MHR’s CEO
As HR tech company MHR reaches its 40th anniversary, its CEO shares his tips for how HR leaders can make the most of their HR tech investments.
Expert Insight
HR leaders spend a lot of money on HR technology, but how do they make the most out of their investments?
Anton Roe, CTO turned CEO of MHR, sat down with UNLEASH to find out his advice for HR leaders.
Hint, don't just invest in tech and AI for the sake of it, actually think about the value you want from the tools.
“The HR platform should be the first platform you log into at the beginning of the day, and the last platform you log out off,” states MHR CEO Anton Roe.
The issue is that currently many employers are using systems that are clunky and difficult to use, and “you’re not going to get people to engage” with that type of system.
That’s particularly the case for younger generations “who have been brought up with the internet” meaning “their demands on workplace technology need to be aligned to what they use in their everyday life”, Roe tells UNLEASH.
The question that remains is how do HR leaders meet those expectations?
UNLEASH digs in with Roe, who is a seasoned CTO turned CEO in the HR technology space.
HR tech needs to provide a consumer grade experience
100% of employees and 99% of leaders recently surveyed by MHR agree that technology tools are crucial to the performance of the organization.
To get to a place where HR tech is really enabling people to perform at their best, the platforms must conform to “the standards of software they use in everyday life”, notes Roe.
This is not just the look of the technology, but also the feel. It is about creating an experience where people can interact with HR technology through the communications tools they already use, like Teams or Slack.
If I run my entire day through Teams, I want to be able to interact with HR technology through Teams” – that means the experience is consistent, and people don’t have to disrupt their flow of work.
Frankly, HR teams have to make it as easy as possible for workers to use technology in the flow of work, or people may not just not use the HR tools you’ve invested in; “you’ve got to give people a reason to go there”.
Anton Roe, CEO, MHR.
The other beauty of high quality HR tech tools is that they can help organizations maintain company culture even when employees are remote and hybrid – a big topic in 2025.
“HR technology platforms can be used as a way of connecting workers – remote, hybrid and in office” to each other.
For Roe, technology can also help keeping employees connected to wider company goals and purpose, something more and more employees prioritize in their jobs as they want companies to align with their personal values.
How to ensure AI delivers real HR value
AI is the HR topic of moment.
Organizations are enthusiastic about its potential to transform the world of work – in fact, MHR’s data found that 55% of employees think AI will totally change how organizations operate over next five years.
There’s a lot of use cases for AI in HR – whether that’s anomaly detection in payroll, CV shifting in recruitment and predicting attrition risk – so it can be hard for HR leaders to figure out how best to use AI to deliver value.
A major issue is that “HR leaders don’t really understand the data they have”.
For Roe, it is on technology vendors “to do more to help HR leaders understand their data”, and what they actually need from HR technology, and ultimately AI.
They need to know not just how to get from position A to position B, with the help of tech, but also “the outcome that position B is going to get you”.
There needs to be a better discussion about how technology “is going to deliver you this value, and it’s actually going to get you on this journey to be able consume not just AI, but actually make HR a more strategic partnership in the business”.
The future of HR tech and MHR
MHR has been around as a HR technology vendor for 40 years, and its mission is to “connect HR to the whole business”.
It is not about having AI’s for AI’s sake, but ensuring that technology does what people need it to do, whether that’s HR leaders or ordinary employees.
While MHR has been around for four decades, it hasn’t kept the same legacy systems – Roe has been at the company since 1989, and has worked on four brand new products in those 35 years.
“That’s why we’ve been able to maintain relevancy, keep growing”, and “that’s how we will continue to operate,” Roe tells UNLEASH.
MHR’s plans to continue to support HR leaders in the future is to “remove complexity” when introducing HR systems.
As the market shifts, as technology moves, the adoption of technology needs to become quicker…We need to be able deploy systems in days and weeks, not months and years.”
That’s the secret to ensuring that the HR technology is “not just to be used by HR and payroll people, but [by] every single worker”, concludes Roe.
