Dive Brief:

• When payroll giant ADP made its move in the human capital management (HCM) software arena four years back, the company went all in, according to Fortune. Tech columnist Heather Clancy explores how ADP has chosen a somewhat unique strategy of developing and testing ideas for new applications: it uses its own employees and an incubator-type “startup” embedded in its four-year-old Innovation Lab.
• The ADP team is using behavioral economics concepts to help develop new talent management and training software apps. Such concepts are a method of analysis that applies psychological insights into human behavior to explain economic decision-making.
• ADP's idea here is to think outside the box and consider factors beyond traditional HR systems, such as those connected to recruiting or performance appraisals. Stuart Sackman, ADP’s CIO and corporate vice president for product and technology strategy, told Clancy that “many of today’s systems are too heavy."

Dive Insight:

To date, ADP's team created 10 new ideas, with four being used by portions of ADP’s 55,000-person workforce. One, called LeaderCompass, collects feedback about managers outside traditional performance reviews. Another, ADPcoach, gives leaders a hand in identifying and addressing their own skills gaps.

Apps that make the grade may end up in ADP Marketplace, the company's online directory for HR software. “The goal is to study how people work, how they interact with systems, and come up with apps that are more frictionless and useable,” Sackman told Fortune. “You can think of this as consumer-oriented design.”

Sounds like an interesting approach to creating new HR technology, as employees today expect that consumer-like experience of tapping screens or pressing keys and getting exactly what they want. Having HR tech that's more employee-oriented gives HR time to do more beyond operational tasks.