With an excess of available technology and its rapid rise in the last decade, it can be daunting for the HR team to determine what they actually need. What will be most effective, and what tech will work best together? There is technology available to assist you at any point in the hiring process, from platforms that assess job ad effectiveness to facial recognition software that can run while you interview prospective hires. Figuring out what tech is available, which platforms are most effective, and how much tech your team can handle are all important to building a better tech stack.

1. Personalize & Diversify

Your company goals should be the guiding principle for the technology you choose. How can technology help improve efficiency and effectiveness to help meet those strategic goals? For example, if you want to increase your quality of hire metric, the HR team might focus on better ad placement, nurturing talent pipelines, or developing robust employee engagement measures to retain quality talent. While having a single software provider that handles multiple tasks can work, it is smarter to create an integrated system of processes to tackle each of the individualized tasks.

Your job ad placement software will help you find quality candidates more quickly, while communication tools and employee satisfaction data collection can help you retain your quality hires. These are very different tasks that ultimately aim for the same goal, and it’s important to tailor your technology to your specific needs.

2. Avoid Data Silos

That being said, it’s important to have your HR technology integrated so that your go-to tools can speak to each other. When your systems are not compatible, you run the risk of creating data silos, losing information that could be valuable to another aspect of your HR team. To improve workflow and enable knowledge-sharing, it is vital that you create a system of apps and tech that works together. Ensuring that your systems work together is also vital to collecting data and keeping tabs on the process in the aggregate; technology that operates in an integrated system can help you get a better view of your overall HR landscape.

3. Value & User Capability

With the variety of technology available to HR teams, it’s important to really question how useful certain apps or software will be to your business. Some technology is absolutely critical and will keep your business competitive, while another may just be trendy or flashy.

The value of the technology you use should be obvious to its users. It should be user-friendly, so the HR team can easily understand and incorporate the tech seamlessly into whatever aspect of HR it serves. But more importantly, the tech you use should be able to collect data on the efficiency of the process and the HR team’s improvements in the hiring process over time. In essence, the technology that often uses data to make your hiring more efficient can also keep data on the improvements it enables—thus, HR leaders can stay informed about how the technology better serves the organization overall by saving time and costs.

4. Think About The Future

What will technology look like ten years from now? Does your tech have scalability (i.e. can the technology grow alongside the changing needs of your organization)? The workplace looked very different just ten years ago. Either HR management or the companies whose services you purchase should have an eye on the changing landscape of technology. While HR teams have had to adapt to rapid technological change, the opposite must also be true. Your technology should be able to adapt to changes in your workloads and needs over the long haul.