Technology continues to develop at high speed, but now is the time when HR needs to ensure organisations feel the benefit. Simon Kent discusses how this can happen and what the future holds.
This is the year when technology and AI in particular has to earn its place. The hype and high flying promises over what technology can and will do for businesses, the work it will save, the jobs it will disrupt, the value it will deliver, has meant that until now business leaders have been relatively happy to invest and see what happens. But now, it’s pay back time.
HR is rightly at the centre of this. On the one hand they’re charged with implementing technology, responsible for ensuring their organisation is ready to take full advantage of the emerging tech – both through organisational structure and employee training. On the other hand, HR is a primary target where technology can make a radical difference. So what comes next?
To begin with the ‘low hanging fruit’ that technology can pick has already gone – or if it hasn’t this will be holding back businesses unnecessarily. According to Adecco’s Global Workforce of the Future 2025 survey, AI is already saving workers close to three hours per day on average, with most people reinvesting this time into collaboration and learning. Jonny Nicholls, Adecco Group’s Country Head of HR for UK and Ireland highlights that technology has the strongest impact where transactional volume and repetition dominate.
He gives the examples of recruitment administration, scheduling, basic reporting, and the first drafts of policies and communications. The areas he sees as still requiring attention include skills planning, career pathing, and the coaching of managers. “Employees want clearer guidance on how roles evolve with technology,” he says. “Our research further shows 41% say training on responsible and effective tech use matters for future adaptability. HR teams have room to improve how learning, internal mobility, and progression link to real data.”
Overall colleague experience remains an area of opportunity for technology says Nicholls and HR can score highly here if they get the approach right. Better alignment can support retention, workforce resilience, and drive employee development.
Rather than replacing human interaction, technology can strengthen it by making development more continuous, measurable, and accessible.”
Phillips Pham, Chief People Officer of Mainetti, Vietnam, believes technology can play a more significant role in areas where a high degree of personalisation is required. He cites leadership development, learning and training, and reflective practice as areas which are often seen as ‘too human’ to be supported by technology. “However,” he says, “thoughtfully implemented technology can enhance these areas by providing personalised development plans, real-time feedback, progress tracking, and data-driven insights. Rather than replacing human interaction, technology can strengthen it by making development more continuous, measurable, and accessible.”
In some development scenarios Pham argues people are unwilling to give direct feedback in order to preserve harmony. In these instances well designed digital platforms can offer structure, prompts and anonymity, offering a more honest resource.
“The real challenge is change management,” Pham asserts. “For these tools to be effective, organisations must prepare and support employees in adopting ways of working. In this way, even the most ‘human’ areas of HR can benefit from technology, provided it is implemented thoughtfully.”
Kameshwari Rao, Chief People Office at Publicis Sapient, agrees suggesting that HR is not being held back by the technology tools at its disposal but by attaining the mindset and skillset required for its successful adoption. “Many organisations have invested in AI platforms but haven’t equipped their people with the curiosity, data literacy, and comfort with experimentation required to use them effectively,” she observes. “We need better frameworks for building these capabilities – creating safe spaces for learning, developing emotional intelligence alongside technical skills, and fostering a culture where iteration and failure are part of growth.” Rao believes there is still a huge opportunity for technology to bridge this gap, through AI companions that guide adoption, change management platforms, and tools that feel human-led rather than imposed.
Even the most ‘human’ areas of HR can benefit from technology, provided it is implemented thoughtfully.”
“The least leveraged areas remain sense-making and scalable human judgment such as team dynamics, cultural signals, informal leadership, and the early detection of disengagement,” says Alessandro Bonatti, Chief People Officer at WeRoad. “Technology can enhance these through improved data triangulation and pattern recognition, but they continue to depend largely on human interpretation and intent.” Given this, Bonatti therefore believes the way forward is not necessarily more tools but smarter integration.
“Used thoughtfully, technology can also make interactions more human, not less,” he says. “Generative AI in communication workflows helps move away from cold, copy-paste messages, whether that’s tailoring outreach to candidates or colleagues based on their interests, speeding up scheduling, or helping recruiters and HR Business Partners write more meaningful feedback. There’s also real potential in using AI for personalisation rather than evaluation. For example, improving onboarding, learning, engagement and development, so humans can step in sooner.”
Bonatti is clear that the successful use of technology also means understanding where human interaction should still operate. “Final hiring decisions and assessments of performance, culture fit or motivation should stay human,” he says. “Those moments still rely on live interaction and nuanced judgment, and that’s not something technology should replace.”
Taken together, the trend for technology use is going beyond pure efficiency to create better experiences and ultimately better HR departments. Wendy Harris is not alone in believing that technology now offers HR a way to gain more credibility at the top of organisations. As VP EMEA at Rippling, she argues HR should no longer be held back by the manual work that the team has always had to contend with but can instead focus on strategy and impact.
The key, however is not to “automate HR out of relevance” but to use the technology to create insights that make HR impossible to ignore. “When attrition risks, compensation benchmarking, and workforce trends are visible in real time rather than buried in a spreadsheet from last quarter, HR stops reporting on what happened and starts shaping what happens next,” she says. “Then they transform from reactive admin function to a strategic seat at the executive table.”
As Phillips Pham puts it: “Beyond efficiency, technology enables real-time data collection and analysis,” he says. “This helps HR professionals better understand their people and supports leaders in making more informed, fact-based decisions.”
When you strip away the admin, surface the data and give HR the headspace to actually be strategic, technology becomes the thing that makes HR more human, not less.”
But Harris also recognises the need to proceed with some caution as technology takes more of a role within organisations: “There’s a massive elephant in the HR room which is the fear that by leaning too hard into technology, we risk dehumanising the very function meant to be the human heart of the organisation,” she says.
The answer she believes is to clearly understand where the lines should be drawn: “Technology isn’t here to replace human judgement,” she says, “It’s to clear the admin noise so HR professionals can do the work that actually matters – empowering people to do their best work and creating workplaces where employees don’t have to shrink themselves to fit in.
“Too many organisations already use processes to clip wings and reward conformity,” she continues. “Technology just gives them a faster way to do it. That’s the dehumanisation risk, but it’s a leadership problem, not a tech problem. However when you strip away the admin, surface the data and give HR the headspace to actually be strategic, technology becomes the thing that makes HR more human, not less.”
Technology can dehumanise HR when it’s deployed without empathy, when it replaces human judgment rather than enhancing it, or when efficiency becomes the only metric of success.”
“HR can become dehumanised if technology is used in the wrong way,” agrees Bonatti. “When technology replaces empathy instead of amplifying it – for example, automated decisions without context, metrics without narrative – it creates distance and mistrust. HR becomes transactional rather than relational, which erodes belonging and empowerment.”
“The danger isn’t being too technology-led, it’s implementing AI without the cultural infrastructure to support it,” says Kameshwari Rao. “Technology can dehumanise HR when it’s deployed without empathy, when it replaces human judgment rather than enhancing it, or when efficiency becomes the only metric of success. That’s why strong leadership is non-negotiable – leaders must role model adoption while maintaining psychological safety and ensuring digital tools align with human values.”
The next step forward for technology lies less in capability and implementation, then, but more in the attitude towards technology and the circumstances in which it operates. And if organisations need to change hearts and minds in order to make this happen, HR is most definitely the function best placed and ready to do this.
