I had an opportunity to attend the 2 day UK HR Software Show 2013 conducted by the CIPD,  in Olympia, London.

Overall it was a very nice show with a good display of HR software companies, across the UK, under one roof. There was also some educative, knowledge sharing, trend spotting sessions happening in parallel. I noticed a few trends being discussed and iterated by many of them. I have explained below in brief about the top trends discussed in the event:

1)  Big Data:

One common thing which everyone was talking about is – you have tons of data and some processed information from your HR systems, Payroll, Sales force, time and attendance, but the next generation systems are not just going to be the kiosk to enter information and do some calculations, but all these has to be integrated and used to created dashboards and BI charts which will make the Managers and Management team to get all the information they want in the way they want in real time. Show information in the way which you have never imagined before.

Interesting thing is many companies are even pitching for using the data from the past to create “Predictive Analysis”, to make business decisions, create forecasts and plans based on those information. All this can be done by the HR Manager or the business user himself with the help of those powerful software packages.

2)  Performance and Talent Management:

Those little piece of software which comes as part of HR/Payroll suite has more value than any other system. Heard that very few companies use this to a level these tools can be effectively used for succession planning by identifying the next generation leaders inside the company and groom them or for rewarding employees according to performance or plan business operations based on talent information (like recruitment planning based on the attrition rate in one particular season or month, or within one particular manager or business unit).

Again this depends on big data and analysis, but the power of which is not companies are aware of. Thousands of pounds can be saved by simply identifying and planning and then grooming the next generation leaders within the organization.

3)  Mobile Solutions:

No one is saying no to it. Either they are mobile enabled (not many of them are optimized) or have dedicated mobile applications. Again common feedback I got is, more and more companies now understand the need of giving power to employees, so that they have access to all the ‘self- service’ modules right from the mobile device to check and apply for leaves, pay slips etc. Interestingly, some companies are adding more functionalities and features to it.

Also the other aspect of it, accessing the reports and dashboard from mobile devices, esp. tablets, are increasing and there were indication that BYOD (Bring Your Own Device market will be even more matured over the course of year or two) for which these companies are gearing up for (at least now they acknowledge the importance, they can’t just ignore any more)

Amazing to see how HR software products are gearing up to meet the future needs just to address one simple factor- Human Capital Management.

PS: Surprisingly no one was discussing about on-premise software! Boy!! Everything is in the web.

This blog is posted on behalf of Ram Kasi, Sales Professional from Aspire Systems.

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