In today’s turbulent world, all of us have experienced one constant: change. Overnight, COVID-19 forced organisations to either ‘down tools’ or get set for full-time remote working, putting HR services, processes and technology to the ultimate test. With employees now spread across different locations, less connected to their companies and less embedded in the culture, there has never been a bigger need for an employee-focused HR platform. 

We know that for many employees, especially those keen to continue working remotely, the digital experience is the only connection they have to their colleagues and wider organisation. It’s therefore crucial that businesses have an agile, engaging and simple to use HR platform in place that supports employees in their roles whilst keeping them motivated.

During the pandemic, a small handful of organisations found it easy to adapt or upgrade their existing HR tech stack – successfully building on a foundation of a strong, digital employee experience strategy. However, the majority of businesses were faced with a complete overhaul of the way they had ‘always worked’ – they focused on surviving rather than thriving with a goal of ‘making it through’ until they could go back to life pre-pandemic. Now, it is apparent the way we work has changed permanently and irreversibly. It is the perfect opportunity to move forwards and transition to an employee-focused, cloud-based HR environment.

Benefits of the cloud: Engagement & Accessibility
Despite the new focus on improving employee experiences, research has shown that disengaged employees are still costing the UK economy £70 billion every year. Our own findings have revealed that only 27% of organisations offer consumer-grade HR services, contributing to this issue. 

One thing consumers take for granted when it comes to using their favourite apps (Spotify, Amazon, Facebook, etc) is accessibility. As long as there is an internet connection, you can use any device, anytime, anywhere. There are no barriers to entry. Compared with workplace technology, and on-premise software which is notoriously difficult for employees to access outside of the office – requiring VPNs or access to specific servers in order to log on and often with quick timeouts. This doesn’t lend itself to a smooth engaging remote working experience. Many businesses chose to switch to cloud-based HR software in order to achieve the coveted consumer-style seamless experience, enabling employees quick access to the HR services they need.

At various stages of the pandemic, employers were faced with the challenge of disseminating information to the entire workforce, fast. Often needing to dissect and divert different messages to different segments of employees depending on their department or geographical location. For example, England-based employees can return to the workplace from tomorrow, Scotland-based employees can return next week. Or employees working in stores are required to have lateral flow tests every morning before coming into work, office-based employees should continue to work from home. 

Businesses that had already made the switch to cloud-based technology found that they were in a better position to make fast amends and configurations compared with on-premise users that were faced with longer roll-out times, and more hurdles to implement changes.

Going no-code
The challenge around ‘fast information dissemination’ isn’t confined to the pandemic. For years, strategic HR leaders have been strapped when it comes to innovation, and have been at the mercy of IT departments or external developers when they’ve wanted to implement changes to their HR platforms. 

Thankfully the trend towards low and no-code applications is breaking down technology barriers for non-technical people, enabling organisations to set up and use technology faster. Gartner has reported that by 2024, low-code and no-code applications will be responsible for more than 65% of app development activity.

These increasingly visual and what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) platforms remove many IT barriers from enterprise technology. For example, users can build powerful regulatory compliant applications using visual drag and drop builders, form templates, custom workflows, and connectors to existing systems and data processes all without input from a technical expert.

The Applaud Cloud workforce experience layer, created to deliver consumer-grade experiences to workforces is entirely no-code. Giving control back to the departments and users that should control the platform (not costly developers or IT teams) enabling HR to build personalised experiences for their workforces at speed.

Remote working made safe and simple
A key concern when it comes to switching from on-premise to cloud-based HR software is protecting the business against risks to data security. As a result, you will find that the best cloud-based software systems use a wide range of security measures to protect your data. This includes data sanitisation, SSL encryption, session hijack protection, firewall protection and an intrusion detection and prevention system.

A good SaaS provider should place security and simplicity at the core of its business model. That way you can be sure that your great HR software comes with great internet security too.

The personalisation imperative
With the IT barriers to personalisation decreasing through cloud platforms, HR leaders are able to rapidly invent new ways to better engage their increasingly hybrid workforces. As such, many organisations integrate personalisation at the core of their HR software –  the first touchpoint with their employees, whilst continuing to offer access to all HR services and content on one platform, customised depending on employee, role, location and other demographics.

Overall, portals mirror the trend towards seamless and smooth experiences in consumer technology, making digital HR simple and providing one-stop-shop access to all HR services and tasks, no matter where employees are. 

Having a personalised, cloud-based digital workforce experience platform is one of the big levers HR have to support their organisations and employees to master the future working environment.  The aim is to truly focus on the employee experience by having one place for all things HR-related. This, in turn, improves navigation, allows faster access to information and lets employees complete work faster by uniting knowledge, collaboration and tasks in a single platform.