Mobile HR is imperative for organizations looking to remain relevant in 2019. We explore key drivers and discuss five use-cases of mobile HR.
Digital disruption is creating new business models, eliminating the older ones. As social media, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to transform how people connect, collaborate, and work, organizations are rethinking their approach to employee experience, productivity, and retention. That is why developing a mobile-first strategy focused on driving engagement is an HR imperative.
With nearly two-thirds of Americans owning a smartphone, mobile devices have become a “key entry point to the online world.” In the world of marketing, mobile technologies have played a crucial role in helping brands collect and analyze large amounts of data to influence customer behavior. HR is following suit, as organizations move beyond employee engagement to take a more holistic view of the employee lifecycle through the lens of employee experience.
As organizations fight it out on the talent battlefield to hire and retain top candidates, providing a seamless employee experience across channels and devices has become critical. Additionally, changing workforce dynamics have compelled organizations to develop strategies to support the engagement of remote employees, gig workers, and multiple generations in the workforce.
The Rise and Rise of Mobile HR
A recent survey by Wirke found that 44% of the employees surveyed used their phones for work more than 20 times per day. 90% said that they believed that their use of mobile technology was critical to getting their work done. Organizations have responded by appifying numerous HR solutions to drive engagement and boost employee experience.
Mobile HR apps allow employees to access their data from anywhere, anytime. And clearly, employees appreciate the option of accessing HR information from the comfort of their smartphones. For instance, ADP’s mobile app has already reached the two million download mark with less than 2% of the employees opting out of the service.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the key applications of mobile HR and how they impact the employee experience.
5 Applications of Mobile HR in 2019
As mobile technologies have evolved, they have revolutionized the way employees interact with their work and their employers. Remote work and virtual offices are testaments to the changing world of digital HR. Here are five use-cases of mobile HR in 2019:
1. Recruiting
Let’s start at the beginning of the employee journey – mobile recruiting has been around for some time now. This trend was pioneered by major job boards like Indeed, Monster, and more recently, LinkedIn.
According to a recent survey, 78% of the respondents indicated their preference to apply for new jobs through their mobile devices. This means candidates are more likely to drop out of your recruiting funnel if you do not have a mobile infrastructure for recruiting in place. Which means you need a mobile-optimized career site, easy-to-navigate application forms, and most importantly, a social media module that lets candidates discover open positions at your organization through their social feeds.
2. HR service delivery
Time and attendance, payroll information, leave management, and expense management are a few of the most common applications employees would appreciate on their smartphones. This becomes even more important if you plan on developing a blended workforce which includes both full-time onsite employees as well as remote employees.
What’s more: based on their interaction with mobile HR service delivery, you can gain valuable insights into usage patterns and identify areas for further optimization to improve the employee experience.
3. Employee benefits
It’s no secret that your employee benefits play a key role in your driving bottom-line growth and competitiveness. A mobile employee-benefits app can help you improve your ROI for benefits while keeping your employees engaged and informed.
A mobile app makes benefits information more accessible to employees. And considering that only 4% of employees understand the specifics of their employers’ benefits offerings, providing a mobile app can increase your benefits’ accessibility and ease-of-use by collating and consolidating educational and administrative resources on your employees’ smartphones.
4. HR analytics
Perhaps one of the most important applications of mobile HR is its ability to provide HR teams with a wealth of behavioral data that can be mapped to key metrics that inform employee performance and experience. Text analytics, email analytics, performance management data, and leave management data can provide you with actionable insights on employee turnover, retention, and performance in real-time.
5. Collaboration and Communication
Appification helps you not only deliver services but also enables timely communication of important policy updates and foster a culture of collaboration. This helps build a better employer-employee relationship even after office hours. The need to be able to collaborate seamlessly is important to younger workers, and providing this opportunity through mobile HR will drive engagement and raise employee morale.
As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, a mobile-first HR strategy has the potential to improve engagement, bolster the employee experience, drive productivity, and strengthen your employer brand. It’s time to begin hanging out where your employees do most of the time if you want to reach out to them.