Dive Brief:
- Workday is the most popular HR app by number of customer deployments, followed by UltiPro, BambooHR, SAP SuccessFactors and Namely, according to a report by Okta. The report identified the apps based on the login activity of Okta's 5,600 customers on more than 5,500 app integrations.
- The San Francisco-based identity management company found Namely was the fastest-growing HR app with 67% year-over-year customer growth, followed by BambooHR at 51% and UltiPro at 50%. Workday, the most popular app, had the fifth-fastest growth for HR apps at 28%. Survey participants expressed frustration with video conferencing apps, particularly Skype; 21% said Skype is their least favorite app to use and 16% said it is the most stressful app to use.
- Okta conducted a separate survey of 1,200 knowledge workers from various company sizes and industries about productivity killers and office floor plans. Twenty-two percent said meetings are the biggest productivity killer, with slow and outdated technology being a close second at 21%. A majority (77%) of respondents said they would rather work in a cubicle or private office rather than an open floor plan.
Dive Insight:
The global multi-process HR outsourcing market will continue its 6% to 8% annual growth over the next three years, exceeding $5 billion in 2020, the Everest Group predicted in a recent report. The consulting firm said employers are looking for partners who can help build "a next-generation HR model" in which technology reduces costs and promotes efficiency.
Employees increasingly want to be able to manage tasks on their own rather than with a call to HR. The majority of full-time employees (73%) want and expect self-service access to information, such as payroll, insurance coverage and retirement, but more than half of employers (53%) with 500 or fewer employees don't offer such services, a Paychex study found. Results from the same study also showed a correlation between company size and access to do-it-yourself HR services.
Typical activities employees might want to do on their own include updating personal information, managing paid time off, viewing or downloading payroll data, clocking into and out of work and reviewing work schedules. According to the Paychex study, many also prefer doing these tasks online with desktop or mobile devices, rather than on paper.
Personal devices can also be leveraged to more effectively communicate with employees. Kevin Andrews, president and CTO of Hodges-Mace LLC, wrote in an opinion piece for HR Dive that a mobile-first approach can also be tied to data analytics, allowing HR to aggregate information and further personalize certain processes.
