This emerges from a survey of European employers conducted by HR and payroll service provider SD Worx.

The results of this year’s survey are very similar to the results of the comparable survey that SD Worx conducted last year. Around 37 per cent of European companies report having reached a high to very high level of digital maturity in HR. However, about 1 in 3 companies say that a fairly moderate level has been reached. More than 1 in 4 companies say they urgently need to improve their game. Significant differences are visible between the various HR tasks.

From payroll to employee well-being

Transactional HR tasks, such as payroll, time management, and expense management, score much higher in digital maturity than more people-oriented tasks, such as employee well-being, engagement, and collaboration. employees. In the Netherlands and Belgium, payroll is the number one HR task with digital maturity; this does not apply to Germany (2), Spain (2), Switzerland (2) and Italy (5). Only 1 in 3 employers report having reached a high or very high degree of digital maturity in transactional HR tasks. Recruitment and selection, the first point of contact of the employee journey, hangs somewhere at the bottom.

Management systems are the standard

By looking at what kind of technology companies use to carry out their digital transformation, a clear conclusion can be drawn: HR technology to support HR is the standard. This means that European companies mainly use management systems. The UK leads the way with 39 percent. On the other hand, less than 1 in 5 European companies offer tools that allow employees to improve their human resources experience themselves; think self-service systems, employee experience (EX) platforms, and digital assistants powered by artificial intelligence.
With the employee in mind, self-service systems are many technology tools on offer. Ireland and Poland score highest in the self-service area. Germany and Austria, on the other hand, score the highest when it comes to using employer data and analytics. Providing a platform to measure or improve the experience of AI employees or assistants (automated chats, etc.) are not the highest HR technology priorities. Currently, less than 1 in 10 companies use this type of system.