Throughout 2018, new developments in technology continued to change and improve our personal and professional lives in hundreds of ways big and small. From the continued rise of drones in all parts of our lives, to advances in blockchain and crypto, to ever-cheaper and better data storage, the impact is inescapable. At Kazi, we’re especially careful about monitoring emerging technologies and trends that will have an important influence on the HR sector, to ensure we continue to deliver the most advanced, accurate, and valuable advice and service to our clients. Here are some of the most important trends we’re looking at for 2019.

The Professional becomes Personal

At Kazi, we’ve always believed in the importance of designing HR solutions around the individual. Each employee is unique and the best way to get the most for everyone out of the relationship is to understand each person on an individual level, which is at the heart of our unique expectations scan.

In 2019, with the continued rise and expansion of data gathering and processing, Forbes confirmed that this approach is going to deepen and become more powerful. Newly-developed algorithms are going to be able to find stronger and more reliable personalized connections among HR data that will empower HR departments and employees to be better deployed than ever before!

AI Faces a Reality Check

All smart companies these days know that you can’t ignore AI if you want to stay on top of the game. But too many of them are rushing to deploy it and not prioritizing the more human dimensions of the application.

But as HR solutions get more personalized and refined, HR departments and companies are going to have to start thinking more creatively and deliberately about how to best feature their employees in their AI plans, and design the solutions with their people in mind, rather than contort their people to the solutions they’ve already imagined. According to Gartner, one thing is for sure: by the end of 2019, AI will be creating more jobs than it is taking!

Improved HR Prediction

In advertising, there’s the famous quote “I know half my budget is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” In HR, things might not be that bad, but there’s still a lot of  wasted time and money spent looking for potential employees in the wrong places, and not emphasizing the wrong traits for eventual success in the company.

Obviously, this doesn’t serve anyone’s interests well. But as data gathering and predictive algorithms improve, HR departments are going to be able to fine-tune the process of locating the best potential sources for employees, helping focus expenditure, and improve the odds of finding and retaining the right candidate. And employees will benefit from knowing that the companies that recruit them are more likely to be a good fit with their skills and professional goals.

Better Job Advertisements

Advertising a job is just as complicated and difficult as advertising anything else, and HR departments know this. You may understand some of what it is, but how to you present it to people in a way that makes sure they get it quickly, and that your ad is clicking with the right people. Well, just as web advertising is getting more advanced to promote products, the same technologies deployed by targeted advertising will be applied for tweaking your job ads to appeal to the right people. The process is streamlined, and the targets are better for everyone!

NLP comes to HR

The rise of Natural Language Processing over the last few years has been really impressive. Google translate, in particular, has advanced its ability to understand nuance and context and human dimensions through algorithmic processing. According to tamrecruiting.com, you’re going to start seeing NLP technologies put to use in HR recruiting work.

At Kazi, we know the importance of gathering really specific personal detail information about potential hires, which we do through our expectations scan.  But with Natural Language Interpretation technologies, HR firms will be able to collect new information about prospective hires from their essays, writing samples and other materials, with insights that we can only imagine right now. Get ready to add more dimensions to your spreadsheets!

Learning the Limits of Tech

One of the most important “trends” to come out of the increasing capabilities of tech is that we’re now finding the limits of what technology can legitimately improve, and what it can’t. At Kazi, we always emphasize the Human Dimension of work and HR. After all, work is still done by actual people in an actual human environment. In learning the extent of what we can plausibly hope to accomplish with technology, we will be able to focus other kinds of professional attention in other ways on the parts of the work and HR experience that can’t be improved by tech. This will create a more human, more real work environment for everyone.

The Year Ahead

Tech continues to change our lives for the better, and in 2019, HR departments will start to get a taste of some really transformative technologies, and put them to the test! At Kazi, we’re excited to deploy and improve upon these emerging technologies, and help you understand how to use them yourselves. Check out our ongoing work here, and get in touch with us if you have an HR challenge, or just want to hear how Kazi can help you.

Looking forward to working with you in a great 2019!