Who is your HR Tech designed for?

Have you ever noticed that you are generally pre-disposed to use something that was designed with you in mind? I mean, look at some of the most popular apps, products, and websites. The ones that are focused on helping me do what I want to do are the ones I use. The things that make it easy for me get my eyeballs, attention, and money.

I use things like Facebook to connect with my friends. TikTok to relax and unwind with strangers and their strange pets, I go to Indeed to scour the web for a job, and Amazon to shop for something that I need on the fly. We all do, well, most of us do. And we likely do this because they were designed for all of us to use them, give up pieces of our data for the larger cause of making money off ads.

But at the core of these products are the user experience. They need to be easy and intuitive so people will adopt these technologies so they can sell ads. Simple enough, right? These products know that the user experience is what makes them money.

So, why do so few HR Technologies follow this paradigm? In HR Tech, the focus is on the buyer, not the end user. You see, I was here when Applicant Tracking was new tech. This new tech was introduced to solve a problem and meet compliance standards, so the tech was designed for compliance, not the candidate, or the employee, or even the recruiter.

In the case of the ATS, it wasn’t really an issue (until it was) that candidates or employees didn’t like using it. If they wanted that job, they would use it. Fast forwarding to today…they are choosing to avoid it, and your businesses are noticing.

The reality is, we are no different than Facebook, TikTok, and Amazon. Today, we must consider the end user because they will be how we make the impact we are looking to make. Without candidates or employees, we can’t fill roles and that costs the organization money.

Select your tech based on who it is designed for. This should be the key question you ask in your RFP or pitch meetings. Who is this built for? Who is this easy for? If the answer is anyone but the employee or candidate, you can bet that tech will not get widely adopted.

If you’re looking at Internal Mobility software, be sure that the tools you evaluate are built for adoption. That they create trust. That the employees have an easy time using it and that there is a serious “what’s in it for me.”

If you’re buying tech that is designed for you, do so with caution, because the people you need to use the tool may not and your purchase may, in fact, fail.