At the time of writing this blog, I’m a first-time dad to a two-month-old boy, and typing those words still feels surreal: even though he’s in the next room with his mother, grunting in his sleep.
Grunting in a cute way, if you get what I mean. You have to be a parent to understand that part.
Five years ago, I had no idea this would be my reality. Back then, my weekends revolved around cinema trips, meals out, late nights, and long stretches of uninterrupted time.
Now, they revolve around sensory classes, play time, naps, and Googling “is this normal?” far more often than I care to admit.
And I’m far from alone. According to a study tracking 4904 people over time, both major life events like becoming a parent and marriage, and frequent smaller changes contribute to personality development and life trajectory shifts (PubMed).
But that’s the point: life shifts. Sometimes gently, sometimes violently. And it’s these shifts, personal, societal, political, technological, whether chosen or completely outside of your control, that quietly but profoundly reshape what people expect from their employers.
Think about the last five years.
Who predicted that we’d be locked in our homes in 2020, surrounded by uncertainty?
Who foresaw interest rates spiralling, squeezing families with mortgages and reshaping financial priorities?
Who truly anticipated AI becoming the fastest-adopted technology in human history, rewiring how we work, learn, and communicate almost overnight?
Unprecedented or not, these changes ripple through our personal lives and into our working lives. They alter what support we need. They change what “good employee experience” looks like.
As Betty Bender once said, “When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.”
Shifts redefine what people look for in a workplace: stability, clarity, flexibility, empathy, or simply the ability to get answers at 10pm when human HR is asleep.
And because our lives evolve in real time, the support systems around us, especially HR, have to evolve in real time too.
HR cannot afford to be static.
The moment HR technology stands still, it outdates itself.
Employees don’t expect perfection, but they do expect relevance and convenience. They want tools and services that match the complexity and pace of their lives.
That’s why HR tech must innovate. Not for the sake of innovation, for the sake of the people it serves, who are constantly, quietly changing themselves.
Learn how to transform HR into a people-first function that builds trust, designs better experiences, and drives real business results in this interactive, 10-minute guide. Read Now.
People aren’t static. Their lives are fluid and imperfect, even if your peers’ instagram posts would have you believe otherwise…
When your employees arrive to work, whether that’s signing in remotely from their home, or greeting you by the coffee machine in the office kitchen, they show up with lives that are constantly shaped by personal, social, and technological forces.
HR technology that fails to reflect these changes quickly falls out of step with the workforce it serves, who we’ll look at in closer detail now:
Across these varying shifts, people want and expect the following from HR tech innovation:
Traditional HR tech generalized everything, like that harmless but hopelessly out-of-touch uncle who insists on sharing half-baked opinions he’s developed from Facebook at every family BBQ.
It didn’t value people for who they are. It didn’t know their story, so how could it possibly serve them in thoughtful, meaningful ways?
Its approach was standardized across the board.
“Every employee will ask the same questions, right?”
That obviously didn’t work.
Static systems couldn’t see the parent juggling childcare, the new starter navigating their first week, or the colleague handling a personal crisis like a break up.
They treated everyone the same, regardless of circumstances, context, culture, or capability.
And when people don’t feel seen, the tech meant to support them becomes something they tolerate, not something they trust.
“To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It’s a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.”
- Deborah Tannen, Linguist
That’s the real gap: traditional HR systems weren’t built to evolve as people evolve. They maintained order, not experience. They managed transactions, but they didn’t understand humans.
Static portals, siloed tools, and manual processes all share the same limitation: they don’t move when people do.
They lock HR support into the moment they were designed for, even as employee circumstances constantly shift.
When work gets busy, life gets complicated, or an employee’s situation changes overnight, these systems stay exactly the same.
Instead of flexing around the individual, they force the individual to work around the system. And that’s where cracks begin to show.
Disconnected systems add complexity.
Knowledge bases in one platform. Tickets in another. Employee data and policy documents scattered everywhere, each location with its own logic and login.
Systems like this fail to serve employees and the experience becomes fragmented, inconsistent, and unnecessarily difficult.
What should be simple support becomes a scavenger hunt across multiple tools, none of which talk to each other.
Adam Leeper, CEO of Forge Achievement Coaching, claims HR teams spend 20-30% of their time solely answering routine questions about leave policies, balances, and procedures. And that’s before you think about things that are slightly more complex, like personal detail changes.
Hence, HR needs streamlined, connected systems. HR needs an employee support ecosystem of tools that work together.
At the root of these challenges is a fundamental lack of agility and personalization. Traditional HR systems weren’t designed to reflect the real, varied, often chaotic lives employees actually lead.
They don’t flex for caregivers, global teams, part-timers, contractors, those returning from extended leave, or anyone navigating personal crises.
By flattening everyone into the same mould, legacy HR tech made support uniform, not useful.
And, when people don’t feel seen, the technology meant to empower them can actually enrage them instead.
Ivan Harding explores the disconnect between how HR leaders perceive their organization's employee experience and how employees actually feel about it. Read Now
As someone who’s worked in HR Service Delivery for almost five years, learning the ins-and-outs of our own people tech and the wider industry, I’ve come to a few conclusions:
Personalization is now a baseline expectation. 80% of employees want more personalized work experiences, and companies that fail to deliver risk losing top talent to competitors that do (HRC Suite)
And HR leaders today must adapt their approach to succeed with their people.
Because HR tech is the employee experience.
In a workforce that’s diverse, dispersed, and the lives of your employees are constantly evolving, your digital HR services may provide the only consistent support your employees can rely on.
Even when employees come into the office, the support they receive can vary day to day: managers may be working remotely, workloads may spike unexpectedly, or personal matters may demand attention.
A digital employee support ecosystem adapts to the time you have, the help you need, and where you need it: always available, always consistent, and always in tune with your life.
It’s like having a dependable buddy who’s ready to support you, no matter the circumstances.
Ultimately, it’s not about the admin at all. HR technology should be so intuitive that administration fades into the background and thoughtful automation takes the spotlight.
To truly serve modern workforces, HR leaders are going further:
When HR tech is designed this way, it becomes the backbone of an employee experience that’s reliable, human-centered, and capable of growing with the workforce it serves.
Make onboarding a meaningful experience for remote and hybrid employees. With tasks, notifications and content ideas.
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In my previous blog, Conversational AI & Virtual Agents: The Future of Self-Service, I explored the idea of a conversational AI agent acting as an employee’s digital concierge.
Whether fully realized today or still emerging from current HR technology trends, the concept presents a fascinating opportunity for HR innovation.
A concierge could bridge the gap for organizations seeking systems that truly adapt to the changing lives of the people they serve, and work ‘under the hood’.
A deeply personal AI concierge would learn in the same ways a trusted colleague does, recognizing patterns in emotion, behavior, and productivity. It could anticipate needs, notice when an employee is overwhelmed, and even ask how their holiday was when they return from annual leave.
Imagine an AI system that knows you are a caregiver for an elderly relative. It could:
With an intelligent system like this quietly working for employees first, rather than HR, the value is clear.
For HR leaders, there would be no greater satisfaction than knowing you helped implement a system that is genuinely supportive, intuitive, and aligned with the real, evolving lives of the people it serves.
Feel free to read more about it, if you’re interested.
Applaud gives a company's most important customers the HR tech they deserve.
Our HR Service Delivery suite uses governed AI to deliver more human, intuitive, and rewarding experiences , cutting out the confusion and frustration that makes HR harder to deliver.
Information only helps when it is accurate, accessible, and reflective of real employee needs.
Applaud’s knowledge governance and governed AI continually strengthen the quality of your knowledge base, spotting gaps, refining content, surfacing emerging questions, and ensuring employees are not relying on inconsistent, siloed documentation.
Life does not stick to business hours. Applaud's governed AI gives employees secure, always on support, not just answering questions but taking actions like updating details, completing tasks, or booking leave.
Some situations call for sensitivity and human judgment.
Applaud ensures these moments receive the right attention, with AI helping teams prioritize, route, and manage cases consistently. This frees HR to do what only humans can: build trust and support complex, sensitive cases.
The employee experience is intuitive and omni-channel, meeting them where they are: across web, mobile, email, chat, and in the collaboration apps they already use, like Teams and Slack. Personalized to role, location, and life stage, employees always know where to go.
Major transitions from onboarding to offboarding, from career changes to becoming a new parent are supported through adaptive people-first journeys. This gives employees clarity on what is next, and confidence to HR.
Whether it’s our personal lives or work, we can’t prepare for every eventuality because life is sporadic.
Sometimes, we’re thrown curveballs that mean our behavior or actions thereafter don’t exactly align with the ‘persona’ someone else has set for us.
One day, we might arrive to work, be taken to a meeting room, and celebrated with an unexpected promotion.
And, in another organization, someone else is in a similar meeting room being made redundant.
Elsewhere, another employee is finding out they’re pregnant.
And it's this unpredictability that means HR tech that truly serves people, must truly serve real life first: it takes into consideration the good, the bad, and the ugly.
People-first HRSD has to meet people where they are today, tomorrow, and the day after, bouncing back from everything that’s thrown at it.
And it’s only achievable with an empathetic and flexible build, not one that relies on rigid pre-configured workflows.
Ultimately, the real driver of HR tech innovation isn’t trends, it’s the changing lives of the people it serves.
By keeping employees at the center and responding to their evolving needs, organizations create systems that are meaningful, human, and future-ready.
Scott Oakes is a Senior Technical Communications Specialist with a background in advertising, communication, creative writing, and video production. He plays a key role in shaping Applaud's YouTube channel, combining creativity and clarity to make technical how-to videos more engaging, ensuring that complex concepts are easy to understand.