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Soon HerbertNathan & Co will release a fresh market analysis of the landscape for HR systems for the Scandinavian market. Like previous years, the number of HR systems is growing, and the concept of HR and HR systems is breaking new ground where the boundaries between social media, collaboration, communities, learning management, personnel information and assignment information merge.
HR is one of the areas that today attracts the most research and innovation. Both as a result of new market conditions and terms in trade, services and industry, and as a consequence of the ongoing change regarding perspectives on management and governance, corporate culture and forms of employment. And not least as a result of the ongoing digitalisation which questions previous norms and at the same time creates new opportunities to communicate with, and support, the employee in their career and development.
The consequence of these changes is that new and modern HR systems are required. The old personnel systems which were merely a complement to the payroll system are now a thing of the past. Instead, we see the emergence of a whole new landscape of systems starting from the employee and their coach's/mentor's needs and not from the needs that exist in the payroll department or the personnel manager.
The trends towards ongoing change could already be noted 10 years ago but the change has proceeded in jerks until Covid-19 made its entry. As a consequence of the pandemic, we have seen a faster change in the approach to HR and the role that HR actually plays in the digitalisation of the business. As the business is digitalised, changes follow in leadership, work roles and responsibilities. And existing hierarchies with management and responsibility change or are supplemented with new roles and work models. And in all this, new tools and systems are needed to plan, lead and coordinate maintenance and development of the organisation's resources.
After having talked about HR systems for some time, we now increasingly talk about “people platforms” meaning that we see the emergence of platforms and portals where all personnel information and support are gathered so that leaders, managers, mentors, consultants and employees can collaborate and develop. To some extent, this can be compared to the concept of “ERP systems” which we have used for many years to describe the economic-administrative systems that hold together the business's commercial relationships and business transactions. But now instead with the employee at the centre and all the information needed for the employee to be able to perform their work and develop in their job.
This change also goes hand in hand with the gig-economy phenomenon where we see greater mobility in the job market and where many people today work more in project and assignment forms for a limited time instead of long-term employments. And where security in life must be created within the project and assignment instead of within the traditional form of employment and leadership. And again, it is the “people platform” that holds the information together regardless of ongoing assignment and form of employment.
The transition to the “cloud” has also had a great effect on the HR area and the tools used. Many of the currently leading HR systems and HR tools have been developed as native-cloud applications and are based on a technical architecture that supports today's models for communication and exchange of information between different platforms and data sources. And where these interfaces also form the basis for being able to start exploiting the opportunities that arise within machine learning and digital assistants.
Based on the market having fully embraced cloud, HR has had the opportunity to stand on its own without being dependent on payroll and payroll-related systems. This decoupling has benefited the development of strong and modern stand-alone HR applications. And it has opened up opportunities for the HR department to be able to plan and develop their routines and best practices themselves without having to be constrained by the payroll systems and the internal IT department’s restrictions based on older and locally installed systems.
In our upcoming market analysis, we present and explain the changes that are ongoing in HR and how these changes affect the market for HR systems. And we will present all leading and active vendors and their offerings within HR.
Hold on – the report will be available for ordering shortly after the summer.
