Quest for Talent Drives Investment in Experience Solutions

As the economic recovery gets underway, employers are doubling down on their investments in workforce solutions. In fact, more than two-thirds of them will invest in HCM and employee experience technology this year.

There are several reasons behind this: For one, immediate talent needs. For another, longer-term digital transformation initiatives.

Ceridian’s Future of Work survey found that over the next 24 months, 50% of executives plan to adopt on-demand or earned wage early access solutions), while 49% will adopt AI-driven skills matching, 48% career management/pathing (48%) tools and 47% candidate relationship management solutions.

Steve Knox, Ceridian’s vice president of global talent acquisition, said AI’s capabilities are particularly important today because “the need to make quick hiring decisions has never been higher.” 

The study highlights changing attitudes towards AI and analytics across the board – the focus is now EX. 85% of all executives surveyed, are adopting advanced  analytics and decision support technologies as planned or faster than planned.

HR Tech Adoption and the Execution Hurdle

Despite the encouraging statistics around technology adoption–85% of executives are adopting analytics and decision-support solutions as planned or more quickly than planned–72% of respondents haven’t successfully executed their technology implementation goals. More than half (51%) of the respondents agreed that they have yet to find a way to effectively integrate human and machine resources. 

However, the nearly half of the respondents (49%) are measuring the effectiveness of their employee experience efforts with quarterly sentiment analysis. About 17% track their results every month, while 23% do so every six months. In addition, Ceridian found that organizations have deployed a variety of metrics to measure company culture – a notoriously difficult-to-measure attribute but a core component of experience. 

Holy Grail of Employee Retention 

Meanwhile, the pandemic and its economic impact have led to a fundamental shift in employees’ view of job and career opportunities. Ceridian’s 2021 Pulse of Talent report  found that 58% of employees who planned to quit their jobs cited reasons related to lack of career development. 

That echoes sentiments uncovered in research by Gartner, which found that 58% of the workforce will need to develop new skills to do their jobs successfully in the near future. Not surprisingly, 74%  of the executives in the Ceridian survey said that “investing in future learning and workforce reskilling” was a high priority for them. 

Ceridian believes organizations will need to marry technology with a clearly defined experience strategy to deliver a better experience to all employees. While existing analytics and survey data may highlight current gaps, the report said, mapping employee journeys will be critical to gaining a better understanding of what’s being delivered vs. employee expectations. 

In terms of technology, organizations will need to design a comprehensive system that delivers a consistent experience on a day-to-day basis. For 2021, Ceridian identified communication, agility, and personalization as the three focus areas for experience investments.

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