Australian HR Tech Report 2010

Recently I came across the HR Tech Report (you can download for free) which was collected, analysed and compiled by Navigo (who is an Australian HR IT company). The research was conducted by phone and email in 164 Australian organisations with over 500 employees, representing over 730,000 employees and the respondents were HR Managers (26%) or HR Technologists.

Here are a few of my key take-outs from the report:

Over 70% of enterprise-level (over 500 employees) in Australia use a Human Resources Information System (HRIS)

Wow. So there are 30% of Australian companies out there with more than 500 employees who don’t have a HRIS to easily measure how HR metrics are impacting the business, to assist with workforce planning or talent management?

HRIS adoption is diverse with 23 different HRIS cited. SAP HR and Chris21 are the most popular

HR Executives believe that strategic initiatives suffer through the time-intensive demands of transactional HR- the drive for efficiency is really a drive to free time and resources for strategy

This is a big one. HR professionals are constantly trying to get out of the transactional, everyday stuff and work on the more strategic, bigger picture stuff.  CLC research argues that this ‘inherent tension’ is why the HR Business Partner role is so difficult.  The strategic partner role requires HRBPs to focus on chronic challenges, while the emergency responder role requires the exact opposite—immediate responses to acute challenges. Similarly, the strategic partner role also requires organization-wide solutions, while the employee mediator role is focused on small groups or individuals.

Despite the efficiency-led cost saving potential of HR systems, the ROI is often quantifiable. Business cases for systems should strive to put a dollar figure on ROI, plus identify the opportunity-cost of pursuing more strategic actions

This is a tough one. Yes these systems will make things easier for you, you’ll be able to do more, and get into that strategic space, but I think this is a case of how much the business wants that too. It’s your job to sell the benefits in terms of impact on the bottom line i.e. if given the opportunity to be more strategic- how does that help your organisation achieve its goals?

Performance management, cited by other sources as a key differentiator, is very poorly represented in Australia with 52% of organisations employing manual systems or no systems for the task. Only 30% of Australian enterprises employ any succession planning technology

Again this one makes me cringe. Performance Management on paper is just terrible given all the online collaboration and sharing tools we have now. If you don’t have the technology at least put it online somehow- avoid the paper shuffle at all costs.

Obviously I’m a fan of technology because to me it makes me more efficient. I know I can do more in a shorter amount of time. I think the hard part is convincing the business that this is a priority and they should invest in it.