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Perspectives

HR Technology Priorities for Leaders in 2024

Next gen HR tech trends to move the needle

Navigating the continuously evolving and increasingly complex next gen HR tech landscape and trends has become a challenge for technology leaders. Amid seemingly endless choices, which HR technology initiatives will deliver value and meet the growing expectations of the C-suite?

Balancing HR tech trends with HR priorities

“Move the needle.” That expression dates to the steam gauges of the Industrial Revolution, but it lives on as a way to denote constructive, measurable change. In the age of AI, steam doesn’t drive gauges anymore, but machines and algorithms are putting steady pressure on HR leaders to keep pace. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is getting closer to reality, and as it matures, it has the potential to reinvent work—and to usher in a new ecosystem of human-machine interaction.

Generative AI (GenAI) continues to make headlines for its potential to emulate human creativity and disrupt work, but it’s only one of the HR technology trends for leaders to explore. They also have many HR priorities to balance, organizational goals to achieve, stakeholder expectations to meet, and investments to allocate. The technology itself isn’t what will move the needle; it’s the outcomes technology can make possible.

Our Human Capital leaders regularly engage with CHROs, CIOs, and CTOs from top Fortune 500 companies and conduct extensive external research to track the technology vendor landscape. What we’ve learned from them, we have consolidated here, to help HR leaders as they grapple with questions of HR priorities and focus. Our findings are distilled into six focus areas that hold potential for progress—but none is without its caveats.

HR Tech Priorities for Leaders

HR tech priorities: Six areas of opportunity

The future of HR The enhanced digital workplace Frictionless employee experience Delivering on value The future workforce Employee data security
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Human-machine teaming powered by AI

How will AI affect the workforce? While the answer to that question is in its early days, there are strong signals that a subcomponent of AI, GenAI, will have a profound impact on HR technology priorities in 2024. According to the Deloitte State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report, 96% of CEOs say they’re currently implementing GenAI, or plan to do so soon. Additionally, 79% of leaders expect GenAI to transform their organizations within three years.

Deloitte State of Generative AI in the Enterprise
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Enabling a hybrid workforce

Technology can make a difference in meeting the challenges of a hybrid workplace: a world of work in which HR departments, leaders, and professionals need to manage and interact with colleagues virtually across different locations—which in turn means different time zones, cultures, and rules—while providing everyone with equal access to the organization's HR products and services.

frictionless employee experience

A more natural and contextual interaction

In response to ongoing talent shortages, HR leaders are thinking more holistically about the employee experience, from recruitment to departure. Every interaction matters in retaining top talent and driving productivity, and new technologies can play a part—permitting a shift from traditional user interfaces to a natural language-enabled interface that is more personalized, context-aware, and easy to interact with.

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Simplifying and rationalizing HR IT

According to the Q4 2023 Deloitte CFO Signals survey, cost management is a top three priority among finance leaders. The technology needs of HR leaders are, among other things, a locus of those costs. Those leaders should understand ways to deliver more value per dollar invested. While HR tech budgets are increasing, leaders are expecting much more value from the technology spend.

Q4 2023 Deloitte CFO Signals survey
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Accelerating the journey to a skills-based organization

Do you focus on job descriptions? Or skills? By prioritizing skills, organizations can expand their talent pool and be more likely to find the candidate with the most value for each need. Adopting a skills-based approach is easier said than done, but next gen HR technologies can make the process more efficient and effective.

data security

Protecting and using employee data at the same time

Data privacy laws and regulations are being enacted across the world, all focused on Keeping employee data secure and confidential. The revised US Cybersecurity Framework adds an emphasis on governance, which in turn affects an organization’s HR function. For HR technology leaders, cybersecurity should be top of mind within their larger initiatives and HR system security should be a priority investment.

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Big choices, big possibilities

One thing is for certain: the HR technology landscape will continue to evolve. That needle we referred to? It never stands still. C-suite leaders have growing expectations for GenAI to support innovation, increase efficiencies, and reduce costs. Balancing these expectations with the ability to deliver may be the most interesting tightrope tech leaders will need to walk in 2024.

How can leaders assemble the “just right” combination of technologies that will deliver value and keep the C-suite happy?

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Manoj Mishra

Chief Technology Officer

& Managing Director

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Franz Gilbert

Managing Director

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Laura Shact

Principal

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Greg Vert

Principal

Deloitte Consulting LLP

Tara Mahoutchian

Principal

Deloitte Consulting LLP

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